5. And Then?

This is what you do – isn’t it?

Don’t you pick it up & carry on?

Where else would you take it to but here?

And what do you expect from this then?

Why isn’t this shut down as pleasure?

Isn’t this wavelike repetition much too formal?

And why the fuck the fighting stallions then?

Aren’t you here dark & lost again?

Why doesn’t the outsideness press in more?

How come this heap of stones is the world?

And is just whatever comes good enough then?

Is that the wound you’re talking about?

Are all these ridiculous people really lovable?

Didn’t they turn some world into this heap of stones?

Why the fuck do you carry on accepting this?

And isn’t that wound what you are then?

4. To Heal & Hold

to shut down at last

         this pleasure

           grow around

         this

             other

             opening some

             little bit

             sufficient

             formal like a wave

                                    it

  grips & bites

                               see the fighting stallions!

                               some dappled

                                    dark & lost

here!                                    we may be

                                    dark and lost

an outsideness

some map of what it isn’t

unfigurable                         a heap of stones

                                    a heap of words

and                ?

      out of it

    a world                         whatever comes

                                    to be just

 let’s open all our hearts

 wound unhealed or held

3. The Joyful Message

OK then let’s open all out hearts

to a world welcoming whatever comes

and after that? oh really, this is so mysterious

unfigurable & blatant, yeah, a heap of stones

an outsideness that closes us into the necessity of fun

here! bouncing about in borrowed clothes we may be

or splintering in city light or some dappled glade

that’ll last us until the garrotte grips & bites

shutting down to engrave our last entoptic patternings

multifarious & formal (like a wave or dancing bear

 

oh this is a dear little bit of our universe, yes?)

if I don’t know any other, please tell me more

how our shared illusions enmesh & we grow around

our damaged hearts may heal & hold

2. At the Beginning, Again

& here we are

all of a sudden

in this new land

playing like little kittens

Petrus means the stone

a cruel bomb exploded

modern life’s conveniences abound

time to write now!

and what comes after?

sunshine, sun and rain

fluffy clouds bubble up

being human ain’t everything

you could end this

could end it now

you won’t will you?

dumb like a stone

pietro duro e brutto

I love this language

sunshine bouncing off cars

time dilation for ever

borrowed clothes, big strides

money in my pocket

wearing my lucky coat

howl at many fashions

poetry is a relief

not to resemble oneself

light bounces bright & low

did I invite photophobia

at this it comes

shaking out gory locks

I didn’t imagine it

the end of days

the little bears play

I like their music

nearly time to stop

the light bounces too

any wave will break

let it all bounce

we’re near the end

just ask which one

1. D10 HUM

Here, in this world

first play

then a wait

Cock of ages

crow for me

The people who would come after

would not be real

You could end this at once

                      - or

Questi frammenti . . . certo, ed anche gli aforismi

He strode out in Sean Bonney’s clothes

finding then one stray tenner in the pocket

the dark neat jacket suddenly blessed

extraordinary how the mimetic functions!

“But in the case of poetry it’s often a relief not to possess that old desideratum, ‘a voice’, and not to resemble oneself.”

Denise Riley, The Words of Selves: Identification, solidarity, irony (Stanford UP, 2001), p 62

At this point in our ending

here comes the spatter pattern

– I always imagine it

don’t you?

Bouncing on the bed with bears

At this point

in our ending

a bigger crash

following thru

to backswash