on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.It means treasury, but it is just a placewhere words congregate with their relatives,a big park where hundreds of family reunionsare always being held,house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,all sharing the same picnic basket…
and I think of the poor motherbrooding over her sightless young triplets.Or was it a common accident, all three caughtin a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?If not,if each came to his or her blindness separately,how did they ever manage to find one another?Would it not be difficult for a blind mouseto locate even one fellow…
-Jacques CrickillonYou are the bread and the knife,the crystal goblet and the wine.You are the dew on the morning grassand the burning wheel of the sun.You are the white apron of the baker,and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.However, you are not the wind in the orchard,the plums on the counter,or the house of cards.And…
Some days I put the people in their places at the table,bend their legs at the knees,if they come with that feature,and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.All afternoon they face one another,the man in the brown suit,the woman in the blue dress,perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.But other days, I am the onewho is lifted…
Soon I am walking across the Atlanticthinking about Spain,checking for whales, waterspouts.I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.But for now I try to imagine whatthis must look like to the fish below,the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.
the landscape vanished,not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,and beyond these windowsthe government buildings smothered,schools and libraries buried, the post office lostunder the noiseless drift,the paths of trains softly blocked,the world fallen under this falling.In a while I will put on some bootsand step out like someone walking in water,and the dog will porpoise…
like a color slideor press an ear against its hive.I say drop a mouse into a poemand watch him probe his way out,or walk inside the poem’s roomand feel the walls for a light switch.I want them to waterskiacross the surface of a poemwaving at the author’s name on the shore.But all they want to…
so immediately the poem has my attention,like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.And I like the first couple of stanzas,the way they establish this mode of self-pointingthat runs through the whole poemand tells us that words are food thrown downon the ground for other words to eat.I can almost taste the tail of…
we estimate thatice skating into a sixtymile an hour wind, fully exertingthe legs and swinging armsyou will be pushed backwardan inch every twenty minutes.in a few days, depending onthe size of the lake,the backs of your skateswill touch land.you will then fall on your assand be blown into the forest.if you gather enough speedby flapping…
something to read at the doctor’s office,and while I am inside, running the fingerof inquisition along a shelf,another me that did not botherto go back to the house for a bookheads out on his own,rolls down the driveway,and swings left toward town,a ghost in his ghost car,another knot in the string of time,a good three…
