The Storm

John Keats — born 1785, dead 

1821. Didn’t write 

any poems, 

why. Cold sea wind. 

The wind not blowing ahead 

but in a ring. At the center — far 

off shore, over the sea — 

bright pylon 

fading as necessary, 

fed by moon blood. 

Unruly Sibyl, lift the hems of my clothes as I walk up the steps, to not sweep up the dust 

for I am dying.

The rose opened, it was filled with water, & I drank it. 

I went to school. I fought 

boys. I saw cubes 

of night in their heads, made 

of fermented poem matter. 

Mine. No matter 

who I am 

I will 

be you. I am more alone than you. This is why we don’t talk, 

ever.

Untitled

There is the gold coin in the clump of shadow corroded on each face. 

There is the voice in the thunder, very familiar, saying to me, which I barely understand — I am not this form, I am 

in front of you, seated, you refuse to see me, so this is my curse. 

I bite into the endive. 

I listen to the song called “Endives”. 

I think of walking back to the imperial smoke town to buy estrogen with my friend Endives. 

You are parts of the clover — where is the whole clover? 

You speak — there it is. 

Sometimes you speak, it is not there 

so you are gone. 

The truth is, yes. I have the feeling what I felt is, 

must have been, 

yes. I smiled at you, & saw you far ahead of me, & learned from you. 

You handing me an object on the rain night, in the college bar & the object I brought burned on the curb. 

I fell asleep with the chestnut in a wave of ash & held out a claw. 

I think you are still there, in the city, taking classes, growing tall like a girl horse. I am proud you are in the thunder. I am cursed by your curse. 

Satisfaction spreads to the base of the senses. 

All the detail was in the face so I 

looked lower. Saw 

striations, the sleeve magma, the button war, the poisonous mushroom smiling under its cap, transparent. From the forest 

to the beach, with my eye I carried an inside until I could put it in an endless space to disperse in — the long, flat beach. Ringing in the kitchen, the percolator 

with its waves of song water, radiating out the impulses of a dark winter star. This is the hard, mythological part.

The Pursuit

I have heard much about her & am still waiting to meet her. 

We are walking down the mountain where I have stayed all night, my eyes closed, not asleep. I turn & see her, herself turned backwards. Hair animated by her face, which I have heard, dances. She drapes the necklace of her hearing on my hair. It falls off. She wraps it around my neck. It falls off. 

She peers over my shoulder, her hair moves, animated by her face which dances. And does not look back. 

This is the pursuit. 

We are at the gate now & are flowers as we pass through. Children steal our petals. We are in the city now, at its harbor, dried blood liquifying again at the fire. 

We are in a house owned by no one, playing cards with our skin. I see that piece fits on your hand, I warm it in my hand. It is night again. 

Look at the baby clams, growing on the long, smooth stones, white & without the hard shell yet & the blue line winding into the interior is the blood. It does not disgust me. 

Sea pools invade the city. You fight back with the wind. Seeing them emptied, the people lay in the indentations, their backs fit the grooves & they are dead. 

It is morning. 

How can I know my life matters. Artemis, I am a hunter. Everyone says I’m dead. I had an accident. I woke from the pyre. Everyone says you are silver, & silent.

10 years of childhood. 10 of apprenticeship. 10 years at home, with the river,the marriage. 1 of dying, being dead. 10 of the voyage. 

41. Then the end.

Quiet Dog

A sun was planted in the cloud of fuzzed sounds & a group of the people walked into it, & did not come out. The ancient heirloom seal was carried inside, the robber held it to his chest. The people watching saw its golden corner flash amid the larger group. 

I imagine the seal in the cloud turning human. Growing legs & breasts & throwing others in the air to hurt them. 

It was summer meanwhile. Winter’s maw grew in the nondescript muzzle of a country dog, grew large, dry, alive — then leapt into the world. The dog, 

first to freeze, was first to unfreeze amid the blue leaves. 

The Emperor received the traveling scholar there to tell him about ritual. The scholar became transfixed by the upper corner of the room where light gathered, shadows of leaves filtered in & out, clear at the edge, blurred at the center. The side door opened & the messenger came in, his epaulets scratched, his tunic scratched to the bleeding skin — having gone, running likely, through the tight mountain pass. The message is urgent. The Emperor became transfixed by his skin, & the blood in the shape of an apple. The other door opened & a stream of the people came in, asking for judgements. 

Who is most wrong? 

Who is least wrong? 

His body has thinned in the week of bad eating. 

The ring slips off & its corner chips. And the people, circling through the doors, are intangible in the same way, like neither his ring nor chipped corner but the pulverized matter between them on the ground, like mineral smoke, burning ground, 

& what they see is the cloud everywhere, rising into the faces of the dignitaries. 

We are speaking on the phone of the oak trees, of the light in California stilling, unchanging after 3. Of the light in Japan, of the gummy ice cubes with gummy bears inside. 

We speak like the water deepening in its pools, a circulation forming, birds in burial suits shaving off the foam.

Of course leaves died 

in the pools. Water again deepened. Leaves began to dream in it. 

In the sink, you said, you had cleaned out the hair, but the water still clogged. We put our heads together & thought. We thought 

the dream of the hair was clogging the water. The guillotine appeared, bright & clean as the fox’s ears. 

You thought the dream of the hair. You did not think the water’s dream. You did not put your own dream inside. 

after a Kafka parable