In Semblance of Being
roaming isolation, disappears on cue
once home too many walls to return to
too many sudden walls
what if I were to suddenly alive
for no one, surprising definition
with instinct my oldest friend
so much passage for one being
so much adolescence in one lifetime
who was receiving
all those messages, but me
growing new ear canals to alive, is always
to affect, scattershot
I swear to have seen
what once de-railed me I swear to lives worn through
I crossed re-telling, rewired
in the evolution of new limbs
to survive the porous in times of calamity
life, is a time of calamity
the instant
caught, by its swipe the landing spot
outside this window
what I use, to familiarize my displacement
phenomena as derailment
who, is moving through
but through who, is receiving
but receiving who, is not there
but everyone
dare the world its flaw
finger swipe neural I swear to have been
what once de-railed me
I swear to a man worn through
dare the bird its beak I crossed
the untellable, to find
connection, outside these walls
dare the line its cross the heart its pulse
invades my sleep, my wrist
too supple for dare, resists
as opening, as pencil grip to know, who was it
all this time I was talking to
but all my selves
who were all those receptors
of words, action, ability but me
looking for connection to me
those careful arrangements of descent
who were they drawn for here
in the letting go of immediacy
my cycles of immediacy my relevant chambers
of inconsistency dare body, to get up
to leave, to get back
dare the get back to tell you something
who gets something from the get back
the air against the window
the vent over the stove the heat
whose touch escapes
get up, leave these walls
move to something familiar
to not familiar the something
Post Isolation
—for Ian Curtis
if everyone leaves me tomorrow
if everyone leaves me today will everyone know me tomorrow
did everyone know me today
this morning my walk in my shadow
last night my surrender my screen tomorrow my water so hollow
I’m telling you things you don’t need
in isolation / every sensation / gets elevation / in isolation
if gratitude is a contagion
a sign of the catchable rise a question of human erosion
a quiver inside a demise
to see the eclipsed intervention
what severs the server we see to enter the size we embody
to follow the follow we feed
in isolation / I found a nation / in hibernation / I found creation
if bodies are made of existence
we’re doing the best that we can if language is made of resistance
to offer a hand for a hand
to learn what we can from our body
to honor the teachable plan to enter the question of body
to answer the best that we can
To Summon the Kept Immortal
eagle of sentient origin — I’m scaling a language
I don’t know — one of us, in winged invocation
is staring back, invested in speculative ancestry — that morning
over the cliffs of some instant fall, you came to me
my cloudgate open — my heartshard quizzed
am I to retreat the found breach, the flighted obsolescent feel
I encourage — to breathe, hovered in mid-air
a civilization’s height between our species
pierced by a borrowed climb, your golden iris — these words
what we’ve become — what you saw, that sun
what you gave, that mountain, what I was, that man
what I became, that human
I relive your visitation when lost, floating
on heat drafts — your height, what no ground would give — your gaze
locked in — you came to me
you saw what I would be, you waited I waited
I saw what you were, we had a conversation, it went —
say say savi savi sor sor salee saloo sweven sweven swalla swallay see on, say on, to see, to see, to see, on blanking the moment, on silent integral, on obfusement, o words are coming to me, you are making me into o words, I think of you and say o words, as you imagine my grounded smote, as I imagine your wind torn slatch, I am in your o words, was that, where the o poem came from, remember the o poem, I have to find the o poem, the one about the cliffs, about adolescent menagerie, about using arm as limb, thrown to ocean, about inner quest, my early inner quest, I miss my early inner quest, did it leave, never, did it change, always, I miss that, the never leaving, what is it that I miss, that, and in, your o word offering, is where I am falling now, in your o words, offering, is where I drill into sinew, my o word ommorrow, my o marrow, my ongue, my orso, my or, so, in your o word or, is my own, o, my o, in the that, of our mutual offerings, we stayed frozen like that, for hours, on that cliff, though, it felt like seconds, or do minutes feel like seconds when we, move out of the way, o of the way, do we feel like time, when given a chance for movement, do we give our solace its vertigo, when staring into eyes we can’t see, yours, there, in hovered magnitude, mine, there, in softed o pression, of scented imperfections that form this o body, the scented immaterial of my hover, the amount of space I claim, on a ground I call over, to call the ground I claim as the ground I’m over, o word sentient, o word logum, o word rib, o skeletal, osiris, okhemba, ojun, oruba, to inform my landing of promise, to escalate equanimity by using that word, to imply justice, by using that word, to re-train forgiveness, by using that word, to enter matter by matter’s color, to enter marrow by marrow’s color, to ignote color, to in color, to note color into speech, by using that word, o word ontological, I gave you one moment, a lifetime ago, a poem ago, I gave you one word you interpreted as your own, I gave you my word, as your own, you never took, you never gave, we just stayed, cell to cell, eye to eye, intra-spectral atmospheric, it was me that stayed, in that momentary void, it was me that chose, my momentary sunlit apogee, my inner climb, those early days of not, how they formed what I became, how I knew to leave something, when I got too close, how that protection defined my fear, it was me that feared getting too close, how I defined my word, as yours, o word, speculation was a sentient, my body was intact, when we were younger we’d speed through, it was so much to take in, when I was older, we slowed down, it was too much to take in, knowing that standing differently, is what we’ve become
I Thought This Thing
years ago I thought
this thing
— it’s like I never said it
because no one ever heard it
and now
it’s come back
astounding
— that reference
and your wishered fantastic
on residue lake
Amazing poem, the pull of event and emotion and self consciousness through the dense beauty of free language, why do I like this so much?