181 lines
7.6 KiB
Plaintext
181 lines
7.6 KiB
Plaintext
from _MILESTONES, FRACTAL SET_
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by Karl Young
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factories at night the rest of your life
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in light mist make a song of that
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chaste moon a clock as easily and gracefully
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nimbused in mist the red and the blue
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a sign-off prayer such delicate gradations
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light on particles their even but definite flow
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as elements functioning in closely related states
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to a lover of cities distinctions of molecular structure
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to me driving home patterns of turbulence
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pure fluted white nearly matching each other
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quarry brought with it the slight disjunctions
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place to build creating the variance of color
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sea coming in the modulation of light in darkness
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had to go that far round to convince yourself
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of the local a thousand miles inland
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mist comes in from the lake as the feel of the city
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sulfur from stacks beautiful for words
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do not confirm or deny and are not indifferent
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it is simply the comfort delicate and overwhelming
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of this mist this sulfur this light the breaks in this life
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these enshrined factories the distinctions we need
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look different now the systole/diastole
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wrench in the guts of day and night
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after cleaning the walls see what you learned
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of tannery vats actions extensions of nature
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through a Man-Power job each has tried
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chalk and effluent to understand his ground
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chest limed with acid the innocence of place
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air too heavy to breathe the elements of light
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our visions are one individuation remains
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/has the satisfaction in any case
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of this utterance take light from the water
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left me with the complacency find rest in combustion
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that seeks to break up take breath from the earth
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the great confluence mine the skies
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@
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intensity of smog opaquing room door
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seen from the deck twelve hour days this week
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lights of the city starting to fray them
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schemata of waste arguing in the next room
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their strength and their anger so quiet in here
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remaking night might as well get it over with
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scum on the river for a funeral parlor
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red or organic don't want to see proofs
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ashes in fields all the typos
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oceanic detergents seem like gallows humor
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travel the seaways just for this job
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follow earth's tunnels as far ahead as they can
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the paths of the sky have to work even faster
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migration of stars have to do it over again
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noumena remains get a factory job
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compressed from starpoint no responsibilities
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pollen in sunlight know what you're supposed to do
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points of light justify a mapped sign
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face in her eyes a tough knot on Silver Spring
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@
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can only articulate for many years
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where we are going suggesting verse
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by whatever road back into English
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or returning to silence and letting you enter
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a kind of sound poetry hope and psyche
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or spoken backward before going to sleep
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till the beginning of time poems I'd write
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the language I speak through all of your lives
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something remembered by her evolving presence
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when I was a priest red and black ink
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I study now her powers of vision
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sleep induced words as she rediscovers them
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she turns on the recorder as she unfolds it
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I don't remember I wish I could follow
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when I wake up parallel or apart
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familiar things lives past and future
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triggered by the sounds of metal and rubber
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cars glitter past me in those infinite lives
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I've encountered today though she might see
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what many looked like things she remembers
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I don't know how many she sees in the dark
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enclosed in their capsules that come from my mouth
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the great choreography from her previous lives
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intertwining and running still she finds traces
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on the freeway today any dreams or sensations
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of this endless adventure I wake up or stop
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the paths she remembers and painted the books
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from a past life that must have been graced
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in Nahuatl or Mixtec or speech that was garbled
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or simply ur versions a car skids
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off to my right let me follow you back
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if that isn't possible before waking up
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I'd speak in a language formally structured
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without saying a word hoping that will suffice
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keeps opening doors when I'm not aware
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enter my life rolls out before you
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on some unknown level deeper than images
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I see from my car she's tried to make tapes
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@
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coming of summer force of days
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air changes patterns heat rises this afternoon
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the front hall door dust on the windshield
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I try to close softly dust on my hands
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pulls my hand dust storms rise
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windows open upstairs out on the street
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wind blowing above me the world's abrasions
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pulls the door from my hand rise around our cars
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a door somewhere else wind in my hair
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slams as loud bare arm out the window
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the clotheschute today cool as I move
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the back hall when I stop
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sound as willed heat and dirt
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always something to run for resettle on skin
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the pressure of days car gathers heat
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pushes against us voices rise on the heat
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whatever lies ahead up with the sounds of voices
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seems like a vacuum doors slamming
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drawing us forward simplest joy in the word
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frame of bones human sound heard
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holds us here without articulation
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flesh in the wind simple need to hear voices
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sail of life without articulation
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common arrangement sound formed for a purpose
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of doors and windows purpose lost
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houses and rooms but need carried
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streets and destinations gesture of lungs extended
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remains as pressure or vacuum beyond particulars of speech
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as our words the need to keep some speech in flux
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draw us forward residuum of dust
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@
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This Moon - 2 Venceremos
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and as my feet watching the same moon
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I feel like humming Mary Ann and I watched
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or clapping my hands we're seeing tonight
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is silent beside me we saw an eclipse
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discussion and singing passing between
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an evening of hope we see the moon
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none of us trust inside the car
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that most Americans to the waning disk
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demented aggression other than talking
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however weak from different locations
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a time to speak the things it suggested
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to feel the unity of literal context
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seems to create it made us feel
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by the sense of brotherhood so far apart
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of universal peace watch that moon
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a passive entity twelve centuries ago
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while she does her job when its beams touched her hut
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takes her notes when they reunited
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but she at least when they were together
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and ask her questions we're reinacting
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I got to stand older than Tu Fu
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to say what I felt only the details
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and let nothing disturb daughter of sunlight
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her reporter's detachment to eclipse the moon
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she felt tonight and silence the whispering
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to join the rally and astronomer kings
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that what happened tonight is only a product
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to feel as I did brought back to me
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restraining my feet of industrial machines
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habra gue romper in some other way
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The first four poems in this group were first published in
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TYUONYI #8. The fifth poem first appeared in BULLHEAD #1.
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