Autumn Light

Ithaca 673

Our reflections merge
with ancient signatures
a genealogy of survivors
with revived versions of ecstatic visions

the consequences of this have
compensated for our isolation
we, the living comply
with the law of melody
with the anticipation of devolution
with the anthems of simplification

Our costumes are hieroglyphs of
defective inscription
our epigrams the
writing of familiar ignorance

herein lies the restoration of the past.

Ithaca 674

where host of major modern
secludes itself, deluded exponent
of concocted reassurance
there you find the sediment of example
there you find the possibilities of catastrophe

But, what of the residual courage of ecstasy?
the familiar widows
the familiar streets
driven to trinity to predestination to
concealed sensation?

there are answers to this in all the places
where water mixes with identity
where the future no longer resembles tradition
where beautiful figures form
in un-solid light.

Ithaca 675

we home- came back to
slay the boys in hallways
and dining rooms

Back to pretty hand
and woven weeping caul
undone undone
unbroken pleasure
led to sorry feeling and
smiling  dressed in minor sadness
reciting a hero's song.

Too Soon It All Dissolves In the Light

Ithaca 670

Morning, blue-curbed crone runs home
Instance of radiant happiness
the cacophonous music of the crows
their scattered fries and flattened bags
knitting hieroglyphics and constant piano music

I arrive in joy and stand inside my alias
Stand in capitol underwear and smelling like a saint
Oh, Aloysius of Quebec
pleasing sinner covered in Hebrew characters
calculating the number of syllables needed
to finish this mendacious scripture.

 

Ithaca 671

successful rain rains success
like this false regard
like this impermanence
judgment disliked like false intelligence
success in analogy mistaken immanence
for eminent seekers who seek permission
in conspicuous correction
and wind up leaving
in ignorance

 

Ithaca 672

Aleph oxen the sin of B
the glottal stop possessed but yet
extinct
what voiceless host rejects
the service of the rain
Oh rabbi in the downpour, your
umbrella mistaken for a pencil
forgotten - left on a wet bench
covered in vocabulary and ripped from syntax
enslaved Israel
neglected ordinal
the rain is ordered and thus uncountable

Any Sentence May Be False,...Including This One

Ithaca 667

Not proof not lie
but wasted time
the shape of ships within infinite visibility
making war on intentions with
temperamental popguns
not proof but lie
in the mechanical arms
the significant arms
the illegal arms
the biological arms
the arms of haste and illegibility
like this poem is an illegible advertisement for
ineffective interest
for the invention of digestion
it succeeds in its arithmetic
only in the common mineral
of the vertical truth.

Ithaca 668

White like candlemen in summer night
we slope down toward reconstructed autumn
written as children with switchblade knives
and a keen sense of justice.

We are in our boots and
We are engaged in lies
our reflection stranded
in a hotel window in
the twilight of the year
going nowhere
our imitation is there on mountain paper
an example of corners
becoming obituaries a
solitary horseman a murderer of bliss.

Ithaca 669

the plunging coincidence of
hero and success
is an essay of night
the smart day is the theme of the drapery.

at the solstice there will be death in the halls
as a consequence of intellect
and curiosity.