Go to a strange place to take a long test. Everything is unfamiliar but signals an escape. Recall the repellent damp stench of the locker room. Trees waving from the roadside. Airing tires at the gas station. Old men clean the windshields, their starched white coveralls blistered in full noon sun. Now the strange sounds of Fiat Lux wash over the bed. Now a breeze enters the room. On the phone a voice to capture an ache. A head still full of numbers. Names to speak in a rush. Understand little / experience less / imagine all instead. Growing wake of books trails behind. Later too late. Later written to the page. Later loss of letters—loss of history—loss of self. Self walks away—never in pursuit. Transport black bile across state lines. But no: too soon. Return, retrace. Head strikes blacktop, skin inflames summers. Cover with this overcoat before a surge at year’s end. Holy songs and rituals halo material desires. Now far off—now beyond—now tinny at the end of this dead line.

[w. 2015 / rev. 2017-2019]

Thunder cracks
over doves of doom
perched on wire,
tails toward gray mass
tracking north,
a wet smudge to
wash our heat away.
What wonder sprung
from this shall pass
before doves depart,
folded feathers
now unfurled,
shedding rain
as voices sing
familiar words
in arcane bursts.

the planchette inscribed
ovals on the board

stay or go
we had asked

a reply of stay
led to a why

ovals came back
first spelled out
then drawn
over and over and over.

Black sky of crows crowns mornings, bookends to nights of ferocious dream violence

[can an empty space feel occupied—be occupied—with no bodies present]

Jackal fear circles, breathing hidden threat-breath, by unknown summons

[can shadows of bodies, once (they have) / left, still linger, filling space once occupied]

Inside, a wavy line descends, evens out, climbs a steep peak—teeters—declines again

[two containers—one infinite, one finite—hold space—connecting valves open and shut to control in/voluntary flow—allowance for expansion / contraction]

Outside, surrounding space—unbroken—limbs recede at the height of uncertainty

(11-12.14 / 7.17)

Moment death–
each day a thousandfold.
From atop the promontory:
Ahoy! The headwind wakes.

Connections cleave–
backwind pushes us.
I cannot stop it.
I cannot step into it.

Clinging tendrils,
even unthought-of,
gulliver us
to the not-now.

Tripartite refuge limps
on weakened limbs.
Ever-widening eyes
Astigmatized.