Glazing an urn

This urn holds
air, is wiped clean, is not glazed but crisp
yellow like an old meerschaum. There is a hole
at its forehead for air to fold around and press into
air, suave entrance as if with a waxed
air   while the hole whistles like some after-
vibration of a bell gong glad
to see the air through, but to look
seems, look   as the grain still dips
beneath the gloss   it is underhanded
to observe her features by the image
in the bus window, to coat when the always-
child gaze had the texture but the grasp
is followed by what, really
what sheen. This urn holds
air, has a smooth oil finish.

no-speak

no-speak, the space
between open lips before columnar lifts
and dips in air vibration. In no-
speak tires roll up-
hill before hill turns
to gravity hill to slope, downward
to a point, speech. no-speak:
so long a tongue curled
around potential snaps
into speech when no-
body uses the whole
bin but only what some five
fingers grasp. speak,
but with no-speak, prolong

I

Perfect disk, with an alloy

of mist so thick as to weigh

on the aperture until the pressure

differential became standard, until the grass

blades, grass blades.

Proselytize

The Red Hatted Vagabonds pluck blues

chords near the yellow

tape at the street fair, not quite among

passerby. You can graph

the ripple of a drop in a glass

but the chorus sings from the torrent,

relatives or dreadlocked
Valkyries in matching
tie-dye skirts, where

the vocalist amid
loose gravel in-jokes
as if tied to the mic-
stand reaches

out and cries
proselytize me baby.

Glory

The aspect of the right angle in the car

window frame beside the blue-brown of the slow

river, hardly even

I mean it is basically asphalt

and now orient the plane

yes, morning glory

but you hardly deserve the name, take what symbol

you want son but when you don’t got

a seed, that’s what it is,

how the yellow on the cereal

box is less yellow, why

does morning glory lead

you that way, when no

word really, take

the seed.

---Reshelving carts

A life in these carts,

yet the books so quickly return.

finger oil stains the pages

so that they stick

when the binding

shuts. Seeming disorder, why

agronomy and Pynchon,

before the librarian

reshelves.

A moment's bliss

Squeeze a period, for rest,

between the chimneys and brisk

wind, that line of teal

on your cheek, the apertures

were shut but the smoke

pipe and even the Oleanders

pruned to trees glowed

upright,

if the change has in it

a clamminess, if the change

lies apart

It is dawn and some wet

twigs stick through the window

frame. How

several   some sphag

num on the bridge

between joints too

exist so

willingly “don’t

need a lunette” says

they, whether or no

the window clap.

What is it about a dream

a burst of amber stage-

light where tinfoil

heels tap to

the amusement so great

fun is it not the curtains

wave like the live sea

not dead sea as

still as the mirror as violent as

the cloud’s curl.

Lethargy does not exist, the veins

swimming below my transparent

tautness however much they point

to life do not pull my attention

from this viscous string

of thoughts through

which I only rarely glimpse

genesis.

The iron is wrought

as the man before the bathroom

door clenches a fist he

wants   but it is closed he

releases and on the chess-

board tiles leaks

through the ink

          the blank

he hardly knows

what abyss
and anyways color

is nowhere and 

assumed here

when he came to

he stepped off,

arms iron, arms

light.