HEART THREAD Parts Fifteen and Sixteen

15.
Catastrophe a downturn
in the affairs of men a broken
staircase
they hop after women bearing seed
what men call catastrophe nature
calls change
transformation of every species start
with me
rocks are living too I am the first
Posthuman
water has even more life than I
unstanched by identity
fierce well-unintenioned sea
we go to war with subtle instruments
Scots mixing buttermilk and beer
lamps they have they pass to others
others wander in the ill-lit street.
                                                           
16.
Passacaglias don’t come every day
true or false, false, the street
always beckons, the ricercare though
is
especially of six voices rare
abandon all pretense before the Wood
of Nakedness
where the owls turn into savvy virgins
rather fierce around the hipbones
nanofiber
your dream is wind from Above
false a dream is a dream and so is
this
a good argument for turning on the
light
elsewhere a gander gabbles on a gable
and poetry somehow will never quite give
up.  

HEART THREAD Parts Thirteen and Fourteen

13.
Need a machine knows how to point
three women swimming in the pool
white one-piece mind
Easter parade to honor Wittgenstein
to turn away from what is most one’s
own
the story breaks once the hero’s horn
is heard
goats digging in their hooves uphill
sometimes long after she vanished
you hear her voice come out of the slope
soft throat but another language
each part of the body a trump in a
lost game
do you remember what to call me?
14.
Fields of Russia white with images
Ilya Repin canvas of a peasant shack
but o the shutters and the cries of
birds
girls in the meadow pretending to be
boys
so much is lost before you learn to
feel
cast a number in bronze
nail it to that rock and call it
measure
one day at lunch with A.J. Ayer
there is nothing left to say about
the mind
that’s where poetry comes in
the art of making everything happen
again
and be new the art of meaning
something else.

HEART THREAD Parts Eleven and Twelve

11.
Narrative happens to a reader’s mind
nothing else is going on
anemometer twirls round and round
measuring the neighbor’s wind
numbers down below
this cave mouth to our city come
sink into the bliss of ordinary
streets
thighing around ordinary houses
you live here so I do too
mute connectedness of ball and bat
web of Indra plight with jewels
simple in his long complexity.
12.
Remarkable for dawn
Latin promise all fulfilled
heartbreak and doctorate
call the birds to witness
this man sits still
imagine the sea moves
imagines women and their men come
from the sea
imagine the invaders are just like me
when even you aren’t
a shoelace lying on the beach a
flipflop lost
follow the grain of wood and enter in
blazing tachometer dashboard of
tropic wood.

HEART THREAD Part Ten

10.
Because you have to believe something
without punctuation
hard to get the hang of a day
of time the unrememberer the lost
brother
the girl who stepped back below the
hill
chilly now and ardent then
a heart is the lung of the sea
suddenly the horizon rushes in
a multiple blue person enters my body
you bring me to shore
the mist is not moving
the land we love does not stay still.

HEART THREAD, Part Nine

9.
Catch what we can to clutch
cheesemaker up to her elbows in whey
the curds form by themselves
we gather we gather
we are so poor in Pyrenees
uphill but no sheep
psychiatrist but no peace
it would be easier if we had souls
but nothing measures nothing means
parse the situation with wet lips
reach out from your name
out from the clock.  

HEART THREAD, Part Eight

8.
O it’s obvious enough
the way things are
oil burner grumbles on
chilly premises of northern
philosophy
what is the matter with the English?
Why can’t they decide
the mind knows nothing about the mind
every table cut flowers in a terra
cotta pot
remember every day and night
the promises you made to the sky
our everlasting witness
the house around our house.  

HEART THREAD, Part Seven

7.
Liturgy enough for aftermath
aftermath enough for anybody
am radio on Sinai
she stood before us
made of color horns of her hips
broken plaster would you wall
even everything after all
I learned to listen to her bones
foreign woman but not so far
so pale the ruler of this house
frantic elsewhere sand in the shoe
we move swimming through the breath.

HEART THREAD: A Fugue, Part Six

6.
Empty wineglass in the other’s hand
haven’t felt this free in weeks
yellow fruit smatter of purple
finches
legitimate inferences from the
sciences
how little we kiss
could you build a car from scratch
a jet engine even a radio?
we have so much and know so little
it’s all just put in our hands
no wonder a devil
hide in the attic
archaic paperweight family Testament. 



MEMO TO SELF

Dear Self,
               I have adored you
all our lives
and you come first
all the time
Did I spoil you?
Did you spoil me?
Even now we’re sharing this cup of coffee
brewed in our hotel room
just like the real thing
in this city where we were born.
But I wonder how real we are.
If you’re real, then what am I?
And if you’re not, 
who

have I been taking care of all these years?