notebook (poem titled *in*): 8/5/86

An infinite state of solid
growth: final season, a
longing unreflected,
a too easily dismissed
rhythm unforgotten. At a slide,
a command

An unrequited sky gives
limited evidence of growth.
It is a photographic match.
This purity of statement,
half-wise, half-hidden,
is less of light than of
approximate definition.
Some unexpected duration
pauses between intervals.
Measurement of light is a
landslide. Precious time.
predicted to the future
essence of all thought,
promises to trace pathways
between types of feelings
and types of color. To
identify all those was a
tremendous privilage. In
hushed tones, provided
subtle clues are disregarded,
certain tasks understood
to represent a gathering
of information would be
brought forward and
reviewed. The concepts
included were: pathos,
regret, solitude, black and
white flim clips, shelves
neatly lined with books,
philosophy is physical.This
awakening is very brief, like
a coffee on the way to work,
a clearing of the throat and
it's already been said, push
this kind of analysis to its
resemblance to a classic
figure.

Simply a kind of pause
for perspective, breath, remembrances
because there were many, there
continue to be many, who would
be the first to suspect that an
envelopment in language could never
completely erase a nostalgic breath
over a sunset or a statue, or
a tribal ornament in a glass box,
or the cafe des invalides, or the
many charming and bohemian shops and cafes
along the Seine. This was never to be
continuously referred to, either
in the form of literary mementos,
or just moments of release listening
to music and smoking at 5 A.M. This
is all still happening, and will very
likely continue to happen for 1000 years,
Vivaldi and Ravel and De Chirico and croissants,
political torment and syntactical paradoxes
first sung by Plato, mirror to tape,
voice to husky song, forever and ever
on the stalls, at the small round tables
in Soho, at the Beauberg, North Beach, Telegraph...