GRAVITY FEED Part Twelve

12.
The sly beauty of the actual,
that’s all.
Leave behind you bits of paper
scribbled up with writing
they’ll find the right ones
eventually,
                             your
zettelbuch,
you can be sure of that—
nothing is ever lost, alas.



GRAVITY FEED Part Eleven

11.
Think of it as an art show
an opening,
                             you’re
standing
around waiting
for the pictures to open,
you understand the brie
on the gluten-free cracker,
sipping Saratoga,
is that
supposed to be a cow?
And there’s a woman with green eyes
how well the artist caught the fear in them.
Or is she a man. 
Or is it a mirror.

GRAVITY FEED Part Ten

10.
Pay no attention when
they talk about the world.
Nothing to be said about it
it didn’t already say for itself.
So shush, hush,
talk about something you
well if you don’t understand it
at least you want,
or want it, or even
remember,
                             say
the taste
of fish after you cut yourself on the can.



GRAVITY FEED Part Nine

9.
But it all comes down
to coming down.
Standing is more exhausting than walking,
when you walk
you lift the world,
snatches of levity
hoist you before the fall,
red books on a lazy table
students hiding from whom they read,
peeking sometimes through masked eyes,
they know something’s
buried in there. 
David Jones,
George Barker, Thomas Vaughan,
Thomas Browne.
                                      The
alchemy is all
                   in
the waiting, in paying
          attention.
In the athanor of the skull
a deathless peace.
Soul by soul the world escape.



GRAVITY FEED Part Eight

8.
Well it usually does begin again.
It wasn’t what he thought
but what he made you see,
Brakhage, that genius,
changed the way the world
knows how to come at us,
changed the time of seeing—
Hall’s Burning
Glasse
lights up the mind—
speed was the trick
you can’t see at all

if you don’t see quick.

GRAVITY FEED Part Seven

7.
Phantasy integers
keep the machine happy,
you?
           Numbers count nothing,
they are the dried stains
that colors leave
on the mind, the
“angstroms of affliction”
he called them
before he went away—
hespera men
ên
evening and the conspirators
split blades of grass
and whistled through them
till the whole meadow
squealed and shivered—
go ahead, hurt my feelings,
punch the air.

GRAVITY FEED Part Six

6.
Hobbyhorse for rent
that’s me, ride me
to your quested shore
and I’ll be boat again
to take you there,
your secret place
doesn’t even exist
till we arrive—
an old word means
to come to the banks of a river,
stagger ashore—
now no boat, no home, no me
he said.


GRAVITY FEED Part Five

5.
Tamas has it too,
the names he knows
now of many things
so listen, sister,
the song says.
                             Love
the new poets
answering the ocean,
knowing the song’s
not in the throat
                   (that’s
opera, bud)
but in the mind.



GRAVITY FEED Part Four

4.
Didn’t mean to let the world back in,
it has a habit,
                             a
history jones
she called it in Detroit
                                                a
habit of needing       
                             and
wanting,
          the
names of the dead who did this
to us,
             our ancestors the fish, the founders,
Olson had it,
                             knew
          the
so-called facts
                                      of
times and places
are song enough
and what they did
is what song says,
a roaring metabolism of remember.