When you’re here I
want you to be in a
bright, clear world.
Briefly. For briefly
is all I can manage.
After briefly comes
the usual. Do you
hear it in that word
usual?
How slow and cloudy
it is, clearly
not knowing
what it ever
will be about.
When you’re here I
want you to be in a
bright, clear world.
Briefly. For briefly
is all I can manage.
After briefly comes
the usual. Do you
hear it in that word
usual?
How slow and cloudy
it is, clearly
not knowing
what it ever
will be about.

A question-mark of flowers
circles the tree.
The gardener could not
help but ask.

As I dress she asks,
Another day at the
wood-chopping farm?
And yes, it does begin
in a kind of wood
where trees pose a problem,
physically or metaphorically,
and you wouldn’t want one
landing wrong in either case.
My chopping, of course,
being but a form of bewilderment,
won’t bring one down, but
you’re right to note, dear,
my attire would well serve
the man who could.

How is it to hunger
for words others can’t say?
They can’t say them
for they wouldn’t be true,
and who doesn’t bleed
for a bit of integrity?
But they want to say them,
to fill the hunger.
Thus does one hunger beget
another, and eventually
a famine.

I’m on fire and swimming in a pool.
I’m swimming underwater and still on fire.
But nothing burns
but me
