WITH SINEW BOUND SHEAVES

WITH SINEW BOUND SHEAVES
(SILENCE IS THE PRICE OF A DAYS TRAVEL IN CONTENTMENT)

With sinew bound sheaves you pay the levy
Of a day’s travel in contentment
Sky’s autumnal brass sky’s half of light
Furring against sky’s half of dark
Wisped collars ditch banks ablaze
For this you are come are still here
An electric heat measure infinitesimal
Aspect of innumerable horizons
Awhirl under the manacled smith’s heel
Coming away falling towards
The smith’s loess soles driving the coil
You trade all away into quiet dissolve
And the smith’s heel grinds you formless

SANDBOX IN HELL

SANDBOX IN HELL

Imagine that you are Sisyphus
Not pushing the rock but in a sandbox
Really not many likenesses except
What powers may be have doomed you there
From now until the rest of whatever

The trick is this sandbox has no bottom
Nothing under that shit but a way out
6 inches beneath your big dumb feet
Nothing but a change of scenery

You’ve been given a flat-nosed shovel
You’re on your hands you’re on your knees
You’ve choked way up the shovel-handle
You could cut through the ceiling below

Maintaining the level sand around you
You’re diligent in senseless effort
You motor your perpetual doom
You’re in this eternity you’re in it
On your hands and on your knees
You bring about your own impulsion
You’re in the sandbox with yourself
Till all the lights at last go out
Till maybe even after that

Such is the hell I fear I live out

LIKE YOU’VE TAKEN TOO LONG

LIKE YOU’VE TAKEN TOO LONG
OF A BREATH

Such an exhilarating thing being in love
I’ve made big plans big packing plans
I’ve chosen which jeans and which t-shirts
And which books I’ll be bringing with
I’m not even sure where I’ll be going exactly
Such an exhilarating thing being in love

Such an exhilarating thing being in love
Seeing red and saving up whole complete thoughts
To be brought up at some other undetermined time
Choosing which friends I could stand to lose
And which friends I would like to keep
Putting off most everything for years
Finally running off and going away
I’m not even sure that it’s over yet
Such an exhilarating thing being in love

WORK ETHIC

WORK ETHIC

A friend calls me from where she fasts
In long and leading pauses we speak
I do not say I’ve much to do
Smudgings to swaddle these homespun hand-casts
Nor do I say I’ll call her later
This’ll do an excuse for the week
I slip the cedar slat I chew
Under an unfinished embarrassment
I reel off quickly back bent
To getting away from here

THE FIRST WAY THAT THIS ALL COULD GO

THE FIRST WAY THAT THIS ALL COULD GO

Grass into mud
Gray

Hard fought spittle coughed up in the night
What months ago seemed worthwhile now
Gray

Days do quickly together smudge
A sad long sweep of unbroken
Gray

A DIALOGUE STUDYOF ACCOUNTABILITY

A DIALOGUE STUDYOF ACCOUNTABILITY

You can’t let him get
His feet set.
I know.
I told you-
Why’d you let

Him do it? You can’t let
Him get
His feet under him-
Self. He got set,
And it was over for you.
I know.

What do you mean you know?
I mean I knew I couldn’t let
Him set his feet. You
Told me fifty times. I get
It. Then why’d you let him set
His feet? You can’t let him

Do that if you want him.
I know.
Then why’d you let him set
His feet? I didn’t let
Him, I couldn’t get
My feet under me. You

Saw it happen. You
Knew that I couldn’t take him,
This is what you get,
You know
You let
This happen. You set

Me up. He set
His feet first thing, and you
Watched him beat me. You let
Him have me when you didn’t stop him.
I know.
I’ll never be able to get

Back to before you let him set
His feet, I can’t get rid of that, you
Watching him smash me up. I don’t know-

WHAT SHALL REMAIN

WHAT SHALL REMAIN

Ruined at roadside he slumps in rags
His blistered eyes dumb witnesses to
The mauling of his scorched toe-remains
By his thumbish fingers

He spread his miracles in seedings
Up the burned over mountain

What shall remain will rest in us

Then green in fervor and swindle
His works in rumors
Swept down the burned over mountain

My friends I say again that on that day
What shall remain will rest only in us
What is to be carried will be born by us

But for an idiot’s gummy jawings
The empty chapel eager and afraid
Together all were on the mountain
Of his promised raising of their dead

Be careful of that which you remember
What shall remain will rest in us
Within us gathered as if in the ground

Knock a nail into his head

The chapel is full the cemetery is locked
To ensure that there the dead remain
With that which lies gathered in each
Where the living have left them

Your bread cast to water has surely come back

Ruined at roadside he slumps in rags
Blistered eyes dumbly witness
The mauling of his scorched toe-remains
By his thumbish fingers