The
Problems

Tom Sharp

The whispers make me dizzy.
Doors echo, and
the whispers make me dizzy,
Most except the light
is swallowed, whispers.
This place is full
of library glances
and harsh undertones
quiet
in with the air conditioners
whispering.
And we are whispering.
*
The movie.
Set. Petty laughings,
soft bursts of the girl’s throat
irritated me no end.
But
the movie moved
me. I would have cried.
Yet its Sunrise
silently, at the end
broke away before the darkness,
I left, shaking, I walked
stiffly
hands in pockets.
Such power in it,
I shivered.
Like, the night, without a coat,
bites my skin.
Or, I can’t—
She’s working late.
She’s, I see her car, she’s
back there, working late.
I can’t go away,
knowing she’s alone.
The wind whispers in my ears.
Asks
like the darkness
what I have
I have to go back. I turn,
walking.
And where is the moon?
I wonder,
and looking up:
there are only stars.

I fall outside the door
sitting against the wall,
and blow my nose.
What reason
to, before her
do I have to,
lost cat, cold
out in this night,
waiting for her?
What reason do I have
to search her out
to find her and what
would I say?
What has a reason?
to be only—
waiting.
to be cold
as the night’s alone,
and stars.
to be alone.
to have the power
to quiver
color of arrow
like an autumn leaf
blowing at night in the wind.
Sitting here like that,
unable to go
or find her.
unable to ask it of myself
that I,
reason to hold to, that I
go find her,
knowing where she’ll be,
knowing what else
she, as she said,
she isn’t attracted to me.
which makes it hard,
she said.
yet, so I’m torn
in the night,
falling in a dark grass
below a dead tree
wherever the moon went.
leaning against a cold wall.

There’s some hideous bug.
I move away from it,
and, standing,
go into the building, warm.
A potato bug, it was
crawling on the old cement,
strangely active.
Some hideous bug.
Or,
It was the first chair,
My fingers thaw.
It was the movie again.
and why I’m here,
waiting again.
I clear my throat.
The building, the building, the night people
mutter in reply,
in whatever they were, they were
muttering before I
came into this place.
Whispers.
Like it’s the fans again.
They ask only
to rush away
in the dark.
What has a reason?
They only are, and,
in that, asking.
Like outside it was
in the dark the wind,
it was the wind.
Like, or how the stars spiral,
the stars, spiral.
Like the fans
whirling in their own quiet dreams.
How they move
the air; how they
whisper.
I watch it flutter,
falling leaf.
Someone leaves the building,
and the door
echos.
It is hollow.
I am hungry.
The building is closing.
Soon
*

The wait
is a slowly imperceptible
heartbeat
in my stomach.
A yawn lets it in.
I swallow, and yet
but empty.
I must go.
maybe another building.
Her car might be gone.
The moon was half,
behind the night,
risen as I left.

What could
I let have the last word?
Her car was there,
still in the same place.
But, this
this is my struggle.
She has her own
night.

what I thought was her car.

In the end,
it was her car, but
it was still there
the next morning.
It alone.
*
I ask myself certain questions,
questions.
There is a man
in the field walking
in the other direction,
towards me.
with a strange instrument.
I pass before where
he meets where I was.
The sun is shining, the birds
are quiet.
There is a girl,
happy, a friend,
behind me.

I saw her before me,
her first, happy,
today, momentarily.
She was going home.
alone.
and I would go to class.
There was a quiet word
in the hall,
and a door
at the end.
Just where do I write,
the stand I make, what
does this do for me,
And if it’s not a poem,
what hasn’t it down?
I run, longing
for an explanation,
in somethings, in I mean
in phrases that do nothing
by themselves, in that
something that’s there
only by the word of it,
Something.
There would be circles
if something weren’t all
of it, if there were
there were something separate
to whirl around.
I tire of segments
that are phrases
that do nothing
of something.
I would run in circles.
Like
this is it, and
there’s this, what happens
from it.
Somehow, now,
or now
why, what I’m doing
motivation
must be a part
of this.
Is it the doctor appointment?
Is it that I walk away
the, just the walking?
Is it the play
this way, with words?

Must I just come to terms
with whatever that
I don’t find the terms
where I was
back there.
I must go to the terms.
The motivation
the terms of which are
the sense of it,
of which the words play,
or maybe just the
sense of the words.
*
Well I know
about the night
and the air
that can’t be overblown.
I know.
Why that, as I,
is the one.
That cold as stone.
It is the relax of the tragic
a humor, so quick
between,
As the truth
become the stone.
hard in me.
Not mere death,
but “something greater” is echo.
But what is this
the reasons we call it out,
argue politics
witness a football game, or
this painful study,
before the feast.
Before what we can have
the meat of it.
Not mere death.
before we can all go home
and sleep.
Let there be symbols
imbued with what essence
has power. Shake “mere”
breaking.
bread.

Let there be symbols
without that they
take the place of.
Let not be washed
water of we all
of course, see it—
a symbol, but
not merely the place
meaning of the word.
Let’s not talk of death
as though it’s something
that might happen if
the halfback slipped,
breaking something vital,
as though our guns might
go off—
on this.
or as our struggle is just
to understand.
but to be,
take this all is we
are, this.
Let it become so,
that it is that.
*
And so I want
someone to hear this,
to read this, and have it
thought of.
good.
and have it.
I lurk in suspicious corners.
I laugh in blind alleys
as though I know
the answer.
I lurk behind backs,
and in questions, as though
my being there demands
a hearing of this.
I want someone to know this.
Like I am greedy and I am a God.
These are my darknesses.
These, whatever I draw
as drawing this,
could be an answer
if that were an object.
except from the lurking.
if that were not suspicious.

These are what I eat
and, somehow, I need
you to know
a part of yourself.
you to hear this.
These, whatever I am dreaming,
is this, the words
if words can be
whatever you eat too,
and have them be
not just something vital, but
the reason I draw this out;
why I can, at all,
lurk around these.
*

I ask the twist
worked from my confusion,
and made apparent.
The twist
the leap the twist,
the impossible leap
made among obscure whirlings.
be realized.

He sits his legs
crossed
between his discomfort
and the emptiness
of the habit.
and thinks.
It was
Waiting, the class, beginning
and
She said Has he said
anything about the problems?
He looked
inside.
What
problems, I don’t
know, can’t
remember anything about
whirling the times he turned
on television unplugged
on nothing, and flashed
on last week’s programs,

whirling he turned
the unplugged radio on
and listened for a
half hour later
noticed
there was a girl
asking him
questions.
There must be something
more, she said,
what are you saying, are you
putting me on?
Nothing swelled in him
There were the problems past
the problems turned in weeks ago.
But there was nothing
to ask
of problems,
what problems?
What, how can there
isn’t, he didn’t
give us any problems.
There was a
she was small and
a strange tilt
with her eyes
her head with a wordless
question.
little, love her.
The eight questions
problems about infinity,
she said.
He gave us.
Dr. Luttmann.
Oh the, I
I have, I forgot
completely forgot them.
There were the first two
I did, and haven’t
looked at them
forgot for
let’s see, four days
it must be.
There was something
about why, the tilt
the way her eyes moved,
that twist inside him
that moved,
or a question.

Worries can be
the identification of it.
If these thoughts don’t whirl.
You can find it anyway,
it about a thousand things,
it about confusion,
it about leaps lost,
like leaps away.
it what whirls around
what might happen
among these, but
worries, anyway,
don’t help.
It is about what it is.
These.
not worries to hypothetical
permutations, just for the
object. not to make
it about artificial
and made
that doesn’t really matter.
Not worries
because not wrap, or
let me wrap it up
and tied with a ribbon,
an object.
I don’t want
This poem is object,
with each word, deliberately
being subject to this object.
It wants to be a song.
Like maybe grass.
a gift.
*
The first
is understood.
Poem, an
sure—an introduction.
pages without numbers.
can it be
a poem without
a page. allocation
of rhyme, with
of a system
of calibration.
pages without numbers.
poems without titles.

They run on
as though they had time
rushing on.
shining timeless.
Laughing
on long roads,
at the insanely
ticking of clocks.
A point,
resting along
the way, moments
with as many distances
as the whole.
Stars. We cry.
*
Each, I would
not to say precious
say timeless.
isn’t as bridges stand,
isn’t that
universal reckonning
masterpiece
or panting, he runs by
force pushing distance
aside
the stop watch clicks
by the timer’s thumb, and
he legs
his failing slowing
to a walk.
and but as ocean
was his stomach, and
the watch is frozen
on the interval
of his race.
There are measures,
we call them
seconds, while
his heart plods frantically
churning rivers, and
his stomach
rejects an egg salad
sandwich. while
each whirls like dizzy heads,
faint in the wind

he puts his head between
his knees, or
like the length of a
rainbow,
of a smile in the air,
the time measured
these, like between
two ideas.
pages without numbers.
pages and
pages without number.
always call it
Where are we? now.
Here,
he said.
*
Standing in church,
morning, the
preacher said to stand.
and shaking white
gloved marshmellow hands
in the row
pew before me were
old ladies
gray heads nodding
their names,
as in the book.
I said Hi, I’m Tom.
Katherine.
Mrs. Snow.
Aphelia the names
mush as the words
of the hymn they sang.
Thomas. Oh,
you’re the artist,
she, quiet, the old
aren’t you?
Yes, I said, Hi.
She closed her
question, a smile
reassured, Yes,
I saw his picture
on the front page
of the paper,
to her friend.
But that was a year
and a half
reason, I thought.

what this, why
incredible woman,
and it makes a difference?
to remember
all that year,
measure it.
all that time ago.
ago the word
as her. with gray hair.
ago the wonder
as me. young, and
I stand on it.
make it that photograph
made public
word that I forgot
that it was
no beginning,
that, on the road, ago.
I sat.
listening, and
the preacher recited
a poem he’d written.
then a long sermon was.
I dreamed.
It wasn’t apparent,
but I stepped out
of the building, paused
in cold morning sunlight and
she was running across
the diagonal across
towards the doors
behind me, across
the lawn without
a noise.
First it was a girl
Then it was her and
a girl, and then
closer
she was running by,
and she smiled.
it was her, and I knew
it was her, an
old memory, and
walking away, stiff
unable to cry.
It was like that.
It was closing
things. rationalizations.
It was hard.

It was hard and
I said
Good Morning, she
was silent
and beautiful.
She slipped behind
the door
behind me.
The sun was in my eyes,
before me,
and it was cold.
I took a deep breath.
I walked.
And she
she I talk to
she said she felt
like crying. like that.
She didn’t want to
go to the movie
and she wanted to cry.
Like it was everything
and nothing
could help.
She wanted to go
home and
a big dinner,
starved she said,
finish everything
accummulated.
But alone, and
it was hard.
She smiled and I said
You’re very pretty tonight,
and she thanked me
but it’s inside,
she said.
No, shaking her head,
it’s not only what
food can fill,
or talk, or
Let me walk with you—
not that either.
I laughed. silly
it was within me quick
the hurt of it, and
yet could only laugh.
and said if you
change your mind,
to her,
walking away.

To have it
something without handles
something timeless
in our minds,
like secrets suspended
just to the end
of our fear,
of time, measured
the rhythmic measures
of the clock,
the handles of which
are our only sense
of it.
to have it
and to have it turn away.
to have it in her smile
to have it apart
of, as the separation
between us,
of rushing memories, and
a part of the quick
everything flowing
and full
outside of me
falling outside of me.
Like the way she
walked away.
I saw the movie.
It moved me.
I shook.
and after that
there was the night
and the cold,
These that have names,
the Big Dipper.
and many light-years away
is too far to count,
that it can be
time without measure,
and have a name
a grip on the stars of it.
timeless like that.
*

Sleep, the duration,
the bless of it
it’s constant.
timeless within, or
upon the morning speaks
the duration unconscious
of it.
Everything is broken
to begin it,
and begun again
at the end.
Transition.
*
Not being able
to eat as much, it was
unable to get the stuff
out of the air
down the hole.
Biological cross-sections
of the digestive tract
with flesh and
the color somehow
the thought of it like paper
the stomach there
is just a cavity, a circle
drawn in the air
that anything
and everything may fit through,
or into, or
nothing.
Not being able to eat
this morning.
whatever circle can be drawn.
I’m sick of it.
would like to throw it
up in all the gush and acid,
up my throat
and out.
and hurt and
doing things, and
dejection.
I went alone
to the concert,
*
wandering about in the dark
for someone I know.
A joke, I had two dates
in my pocket:
January 3rd and 4th, ’71.

I met an old friend.
Nothing had changed.
I saw some people I know.
Nothing came
or left.
I tried at first to dance.
It took a long time,
clapping my hands
and jostling in the crowd.
Three bands and no blood
rushing, until the last.
I couldn’t stop
all alive and loose
every beat
and measure a movement
faster than
in a storm, wind
tidal measures,
the push and
pulling of the music,
the sweep of her voice,
the passion of my rhyme.
Everything was cleaned.
*
Like the clarity of the air
morning, in my mind.
I knew
and I did it,
I quickly straightened
some small matters,
bought some milk
and a donut,
walked forward
deviated by a beautiful girl, and
I sat on the grass.
There was a warming sun
that made it dew
from hoary frost.
The morning sun was like that.
Cold and blue before
with the sun rising.
and whispy cirrus white
with a small wind.
Then it was the shadows
were gray with frost,

and grade-school boys
wating along the way
I went
waiting for the yellow bus
and playing choo-choo train
with the air
they breathed,
Shivering purely
like the green blades
of grass
in the greening field
of rich black earth.
I sat
eating the donut
with the milk
the chocoate milk, before.
I watched,
The smile as he walked
grinning, like a leer
he cocked his head
down to me
on his side
as he walked by,
and said
Heh. How are you doing man?
I didn’t know him.
I said
All right.
That’s great, he said,
meaning it, he said
God Bless You.
like he was grinning
all inside.
It was quick and
he was almost
to the building across
the lawn before
I lay back in the dew
and laughed.
quietly.
It must because
something I did.
that he would know me,
and it was good.
There was a softening,
and a guy
walking to the other
direction said
Aren’t you cold?
No, I said softly
to his back walking away,
It’s just beautiful.

Across the lawn were
people talking,
and music that made
even my small shiver.
The thought was repeated.
Walking scenes, often
there’re scenes of walking,
and some motion
some one attachment,
moving.
Lingering behind me,
as though she were
following me.
Walking across lawns
and in uneven directions.
Shivering
between all the possibilities.
And I’m either or
drawn
in her direction,
my pace quickening or
slowing
in relation to my
observation of her.
Veer off 20 degrees
to the starboard,
he jokes.
where I can find it
and am ever capable
of knowing it’s there.
where I put
myself to it.
what indication of it
falls where in me.
if that were an object
and have position.
if there were that
kind of place to stand
that kind of time.
to what it bends me
and, bent as I am,
I bend it.
or her smile.
or the lightness of
a turn,
the way her eyes move.
how I couldn’t laugh inside,
because the light
is deep.

The problems were
half-made
and turned in.
to what a relief,
I smiled
bent the stiffness
of yesterday’s fatigue.
Later
I laughed out loud
and she heard me
and we agreed.

TheProblems

The
Problems