Wind and Rock, Days of Stone

Ithaca 664

Adjacent revolutions
nullifying cities
all of it, predictable
all of it, subject to ownership
performance employed in a state of business
and it is just business, after all
A wheel of gratitude
and stupidity-as if
inevitably there is a market for sorrow
and its sales of limits
with a raised hand in rainy salutation
its special sons propel
their special sunless mothers
into encounters with the void
where constant work is needed
to endure these endless, reluctant days.

-For EDMC and the Art Institutes

Ithaca 665

The practice of indifferent memory is
a play where the players exchange roles
constantly
has there ever been a different sort of youth?
lifting our moneyed eyes to the coinage of fate
to the Phoenix rising
above a field of sky
where velocity is no longer desirable
where muscle is occupation
and mirrors arranged in circles
concentrate the beautiful light
leading us, the blind into deafness
and darkness where there is art to being alone
and surviving these thoughts of loneliness
we're never free from our own judgment-
stateless
timeless
other mindless
built of obstacles I am
a different jew
singing uncertainty
a survivor blooming so openly
in a field of stones disguised as wind.

Oh, Moon of Alabama*

Ithaca 662

Oh ten ge, your eye an anagram
abbreviated in light
gaily introduced between acts
you make a scene
preventing us from growing old
and now in the second age
this costume of leaves and diamonds disappears.

The poet lingers around the event
she produces a kind of oscillation between
the forces of the day and the ambitions of twilight

And makes her end in a room of names.

Ithaca 663

this majestic difficulty
could solve the riddle of our life
our age results in obligation and strife
this existence of added futures and
surpassed maximums
poses a conflict in our erection
the benefit of mutual distraction

and continuing attainment of the possible

Ithaca 664

the mercy of means
the revolution of being
the conversations in rhyme and
hand of salutation
a rainy era of calculus and reminiscence
the grateful decline of a species
Prussian years owned by
constant information
and the performance of widows on circular markets
residing in evenings driven by propellers
a connection of times and inevitable invitations
ends in your reluctant departures
and instantaneous nullifications.

*Kurt Weill

Uncanny Waves of Light

Ithaca 659

the leadpaper shells the lacerated reminiscences
now emptied of blood and meaning
In the new order violent meat will
will be forgotten

Irish Spanish surface solidified
justify natural coincidences and cement them to
fragments of choices
numbered in bloodshed where means mean
size and various disorder.

Ithaca 660

We've lost the light lost the
language of our suffiency lost the
mark of rapid constancy
where darkness is appointed
to license loss and Zion is now a failure

We label each consideration with special shining
and sustain ourselves in diffusion, meaning
arranging hands according to
their variability and
to suit our interpretation of success.

Ithaca 661

I am a guest in this hut
thoughts of rain accompany
a steady beat of acceptance on the roof
quickly fissures open in our conclusion
we are aided in this through classic measure
and vicious delusions
thinking, drinking imaginary instructions
solve the problem- how to murder
your usurpers
the pleasure of acceptance the answers-the solutions
substituted with jackets of intention

May we borrow the heat while we wait out the night?