Poetry
three
Cognition Is Its Own Discard
Putting its weight
into action, into motion, first the days fade out,
then memory,
then memory’s prompts,
then we disappear
into the same fog.1
1 Check
Broken nib
of memory, there’ll be
no more signatures
with this pen.
What it means to ask
what it means
is what it means
to ask
what it means. Thought,
a wind
that disturbs pooled days;
all facts
are disputed,
their position
is unfixed, liable to change
of color, status,
attachment to belief.
I’m destitute
of spontaneity, yielding
to the will of others
the fact
of having lived,
tumbling into a crack
of memory, like a key
dropped in confusion
through a grate.
If it gleams,
you can be sure
it wasn’t lost that long ago.
Gleaming or dull,
it’s scarcely worth
the effort of being found
Dimension
Stretching a point
into a line,
the seed cannot divulge
its cause, only result;
it makes a mystery of that creation
to which it draws our attention.
How does a model
amplify a method?
A method, its concept?
Like pulling a door open
against wind. Like points
becoming a line, or lines a plane;
planes, a solid:
things grow
most surprisingly
in participation.
All form is organic, even time Active connections
is creaturely.
reinforced
by experience
stabilize, while weak ones disappear.
In observance of the light
the night is closed
for maintenance
Atmospheric
conditions:
permeated
by sun
smearing color
everywhere.
The depth is not great
but lungs will collapse
reaching it an axle
will snap
getting across The piles
of snow
sink into themselves
Funeral
A meaning so full it can only be lifted when a little is poured off.
To sleep, perchance to grieve.
The way one fumbles with an unfamiliar lock,
switching between the keys. The way one feels
with an unfamiliar key, seeking a proper fit.
Putting a little pressure on the teeth.
Tongue of metal, a smile of bone.
What calls them back is not their name,
or anything we want of them
In fact, they don’t come back.
Out of the freshly laundered
pockets of time
came a wad of paper bearing
irretrievable information.1
1 The piece of paper
slipped from my grasp, and grasping
slipped from consciousness;
and it all continued within me, dead to the worlda
a A steep path
where every step
met with a root
that maddened the feet.
I call this waking up.