I.
I like
lakes; I like
not quite
evading modern
places: I like
the armature of the moment E-shaped
crowds spread in a lamplight
filled bubble across a vast
lawn high-pitchedly.
II.
The face of the sum of each
day really
is covered with bulbs
blasting the tallest,
roundest
light towards flatnesses & I
watch, waste, go
away, carry
clear
bags holding
liquids when they’re most
inert, fondleable.
III.
I like ponds; I like shrillful
strayings circling
modern places: I like, like
the plenitude of the days
U-shaped crowds curl
like faintly
shriveled bubbles over
the corners,
the casings of steep
lawns. Limbs
rhyme.
For a Friend
I.
into will: was it dumb
motion
shrilled as
such or simply
will alone
stripping
itself
down to
a crude
but more
pure
force—
II.
—silence congeals but conceal, here, the clatterings—
III.
will’s
source: was it a crude
but more
pure
force
culled there-
from or simply
dumb
motion shrilled
yet sub-
sumed—
The Lighthouse Verdict
Binoculars: coverings, inducements. Shuttlings.
Distance, pronounced: a discreetly hissing wound?
The toy gyroscope is not rattling at the staircase’s
Bottom, nor does the shrill rattle down the steep staircase
Reflect anything but passing foolery, a mind at low play
Pushing up but mostly just against its own boundaries.
Binoculars: self-extension purely realized; or, best
Eyes. A set. One. One set.
Most of the instruments dusty & dark in the cabinets …
And the cabinets kept, per design, at ten-foot
Intervals throughout the lamp-cluttered, musty
Upper room. Twin rattles down the staircase: someone’s
Home? The loose breath of the straying mind: glass is fogged.
A crowd pushes like something’s limb across the sand.
The staircase, say it, staircase—one pair of arms? Of legs?
There’s a system well imposed & upon—see it—the face.