- 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.