the hysterical moment captures
bliss instinct particle of snow lodged between
scenes remembered
not eating, sleeping, an instance of
trauma cannot break through
the precipitation, a tuesday, a repetition
of intent hidden under the lid of mind
comes just before, or after the blue
haze of future caught through past
unmoving
still
Such pleasant office have we long pursued
Incumbent o’er the surface of past time
--W. Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book IV
because for each piece of snow
that fell against
on a day
when I was 11
a moment now like old crystal
the light hits
through the afternoon window
they were married in 1905
mittens on string threaded
through the arms of a
coat
limbs
impervious to everything
winter
Brutes abstract not.
--John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
the way that I can put each number
against the cool of your skin
lingering above
cotton
the ratio matching nature
greek symbols across the sidewalk
like hopscotch for theorists
explaining each dimension
of yard grass limb
stretching over moments
from the very first
when you stood, brown corduroy
and i listed the mathematics
of inclination
or a train moving
progress
the movie was called
cowboys cowboys
and guns
mayhem
lacking civic (drink responsibly)
the sheer movement into nothingness
an explosion
violent speed
of apocalypse
if the sheriff can’t save us
this time
motion and the body mov’d.”
--David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
your marble sphere my box
dimensional
the words laid one on top
across
broken letters
an articulation of history through space
on the page
who was defeated
whose artifacts
weapons
kiss me present tense against shining marble
does not move
its form holding together
molecules
straddling
how much means
across letters objects
viewed from every direction
will not simply show and tell
an offering
‘i shed before walking out the door’ she writes in hopes that he stays this time, that he comes back that he begins to breathe a sense of place, fills his lungs with sitting still and listening. there are birds here. a river. a lake if you attempt the stroll. ‘this is my intention’ she thinks. ‘to distinguish you from the flowers. to paint you into this everyday.’ you breathe deep, deep enough to hold distant places in your lungs so deep those places fill your eyes, you don’t see her skin shiver before you turn into the heat, into the horizon, ask for more and return with nothing, or do you return, or does she imagine it, next to the kerosene lamp, pieces of pottery at her feet, watching what she remembers of your skin, revolving.
be in the moment, present tense, first word best word, a rose is a rose is all you can do is start here, keep starting, consider this, and consider...
writing having fallen off toward the end of a semester... a bind not simply double but multiple...which moment in which what occurs that may or not be writing. to write, to think, to read...to do homework and write something else...
begin this year again. writing. there is little hope in this present/future tense for publishing... no single pieces, no whole books. dusty manuscripts. lovely and friendly rejection notes. this accumulation of historical (all moments until this one particular, every particular moment turning into history, into memory if i could remember other than this, single, instant), pieces of, unmoving, seeming circular in one single space.
begin again. continue to begin. continue with the single instant.
