Once again, I slept for a thousand years. The courage of the wheel.

 

 

 

 

Sleep offered me salvation, sleep offered me science.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lock came off.[1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 1: will to action,

 

 

 

 

Spoke 2: exotic palaces of dead swans.[2]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On:

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

Spoke 3: I walked with my legs in water. Nebraska. An uptown cuckoo. Lava dying in the grass downtown.

 

 

 

 

Spoke 4: My sister married a musician. I listened to his words very closely.

 

 

 

 

Spoke 5: My sweater unraveled, beneath a clear sky.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

On: harmony.[3]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 6: Two hands touched, in passing. He stuck his head out the window.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

And, once again,

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

a good teacher!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 7: I wept at the beauty of the song.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 8: You are welcome...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 9

 

 

 

 

Complications—[4]

 

 

 

 

the swathe, happening / my words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Bleeding hard”…they said. “There is nothing.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 10

 

 

 

 

Once again, I revived to clarity.

 

I awoke to the

 

 

*

 

 

new dance,

a seeker—

with both my hands.

 

 

 

 

I used my hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One obscure year, one year of hand games.[5]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 12

 

 

Year of galvanizing

 

Year of generation, year of stones

 

Year of blossoms, year of lakes

 

Year of treason, year of opulence

 

Year of mandarins

 

Year of dreaming, year of bodies

 

Year of chapels, year of seas

 

Year of nation

 

Year of consciousness

 

in its conventional form, my skin thick with it…

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

My tapestries were numerous,

 

            I rolled them out across the horse’s dark torso…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 13

 

 

…and then I kissed that horse square on and sloppy.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

It was a sleeping

encounter, him speaking:                     “get the lilies

 

 

I’ll

find the city in the morning

with its

love and in each

           

                                    hand, orchards, and they’re flowering!”

 

“Which city?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 14

 

 

City of silences, city of likeness,

 

city of one needle, it skirts

 

 

*

 

 

the eye of change.[6]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 15

 

 

I slept in the city, I parked beside its iron skyscrapers.

 

 

 

 

I slept. The sky

honey tangerine

and crescent for

breakfast. I stood up,

I slept.

 

 

 

 

“This is an imagined city.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I slept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I clamped skin to my skull with steel bands.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

The man in the cave is a man. Please don’t hurt him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 17

 

 

Look. Though

 

 

*

 

 

a sequence of parabolic gaps,

 

 

*

 

 

here is the fist of violets…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was young, and the salve had grown on me. I was young, and the city had opened its haunches for me with a heave, a release of Calvinistic energy. I was young, and the sparrows had cried out—refrains, and their feathers brushed my ears. I was young, and millions of birds hovered over the branches of conifers, sharpening their beaks on timbers. I did not look at the hole in the despot, I covered the flash with a mirror. I covered it with my studio, I covered it with singing, I covered it with jelly—calm, multi-facet—I covered it with whatever was in jars, blooming out.[7]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoke 18

 

 

 

Lamentation

 

 

I showed up on the esplanade,

I slept in a noisy birdbath with my teeth hanging from the roof of my mouth,

with a pair of machines, my given: sight.

 

 

*

 

 

A community of supplicants in the boarding zone:

 

 

 

“Will you help us? With our hours?”

“Will you help us with our fears?”

“I didn’t align myself with the bolts.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

I asked for mercy, a boat set out on melic,

I deliberated my choices as a pigeon stalking a piece of crust snaps in on the thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I,

of the

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

city—there aren’t that many…

 

 

 

Spoke 19

 

 

A hinge on a door opened the bright shell. Who found me? I dreamed of a mother with an oven like a cavern, fossilized scurf. Its interior was cool, with stars placating the clean lines. I pitched a tent there—inability, scaffolding. I ladled my hands….

 

 

 

 

A hinge on a broken door let in a slant of light. Corpuscles of grey blooming out the pocks—what a pretension! I sipped my mint julep to the bars of a remembered cell: “I only finger pick,” “someone at the party will need a plastic one” “someone will canopy our mouths”

 

 

 

 

Evening, a lanyard, and I can only imagine what it must sound like…

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

And then spring’s unwounded footfall…