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.