c. 1994

Leaky Thicknesses

1.

I love to get lost on the way
to completing a sentence.
A heart's forum. I like
to wander blindly inside
an idea, breaking contact
with its literal referent,
traveling on the incomplete
tracks which still haunt the
casings of things that
wanted to be, but found
themselves becoming
something else just as
they were coming to exist.
I like to close my eyes and
lie down in secret memory
inside the ridges left in the
pillows and blankets of
yesterday's dreams (I was
only greeting a future friend
who I have not yet met,
whose book might be able to
open this thought at its spine-
thoughts can mark each other
like sister spirits). I have to
be funny to haunt this one-
even echoes have to be made
out of something. Because only
here does lateral motion
encompass both the heart
and head.

2.

Embrace the whole,
but let the parts also
encompass places.The
name itself lets things
join in. Forever after,
what comes before: in music.
Heard, remembered. Extending
hand, let in. Following is
moving, eventually
coming upon (melting).
But meeting is melting.
Unless, unto. Seeming,
been. Words lie
beside each other, bask
in themselves, bask in
each other. Little hurts,
words said, real too,
eyes aside, small things
not said, not yet met,
misheard, misunderstood-
face, glances averted.

3.

Labor of love-
bits and pieces.
A part to play, dance
of the sexes. Alas,
a hesitant role
for him. A sense of
humor? Don't
make me laugh.
Anyone would
probably get up
again, if you give
them time. I can't
believe how long
it has been since I
looked at those files.

4.

Leaving things
in place I
don't necessarily
get further if I
get bored with them.
In all their skilled
exactitude, inside of
the merciless control
of their cruel and
empty meanings they
will disappear, transcending
the specific by means of
going nowhere. So much
for the intrinsic value
of order. Sometimes I
want to see them
clash just to know they
are there.This can
even involve upset,
if it is in the service of
breaking away from a
threateningly stultifying
situation. To be stultifying
is a checkmate, but
even this trap may be
eventually neutralized
by time. Do I dare
indent a paragraph?
I have seen them
disseminating and
dissolving at the same
moment, emptying
themselves voluntarily
of excess meaning.

5.

Reading as an
attempt to
challenge the mind
to understand
more of what?
Of *anything.*