Beside your longing,
someone takes the minutes
in a peculiar shorthand
:oughts & shouldn’ts & wouldn’t wes.
A leader then a congregation
—everyone familiar with the verse.
They ask,
What purpose is there in being
disagreeable? Unamenable?
<Inquiries about the earnestness of your desire>
Someone produces a mirror, proper shoes
Temper, temper, little drums
Time to go out walking
See—she has unoccupied herself
Now she is persuadable
Their word They say,
What to do when we are full of lead?
When a waxiness has formed the medium of our
hands?
She must join in! Participate!
Your conscience is nothing but a little red tape.
Enter: the forest of the mind
where, lo, you are heavy and bereft.
She has become
an obstacle
an irritant
a salt
And she desires
nothing
And I desire nothing
She thinks that there is
nothing
But what if there is nothing
So what if there is nothing
But what if there is nothing but
this accumulation of aches?
Say we sent out rabbits—dozens into field and
forest—
and a low fox running—as if through fire
Which does she try first to retrieve?
Does she take the hunter with the gun?
Do I use myself against?
Play for her the plaintive cry
The great horned owl’s six-throated call
Does she want to see the danger overtake?
In the vulnerability of daybreak
your hands are full of rabbits
Her mouth is full of salt
Do not wait for the field to form a clearing.
Show us an animal in the absence.
Show me an animal that is without its violence.
"The poet is of no party." BaudelaireOur manifesto is an act of substantiation.
We reject all forms of futilitarianism, in whatever disguise.
We believe that comedy is the song of the village and tragedy the song of the goat.
We believe what is written in the books, but now we want to see for ourselves.
The single idea, beating on the same doors in vain.
The analogue and the invention.
The death cell.
The first permission.
Though we watch the stage for things to happen, though our minds wander.
By ourselves in the green field, playing our diversion.
Though the story begins with the loss of a home.
Out of the machine, we shift restlessly in our seats.