hanging on a fence
we lined the snails up across the road
and then we hung upside down on the railings
waiting seemed to be a part of childhood
which and whatever way it was viewed
it was also a slow game of chance
the future in the entrails of a snail
still horribly wet behind all these years
a rush of blood to the head
turning a smile into a grimace
devil take the hindmost ran at dusk
for something was rising there
over the hill
how to be a poet
simply
open one’s mind to the strings of destiny
that are vibrating the words on the page
dance to that waveform
for
there is no soul
no mind of a poet
for
it is nothing but a ravine cut through stasis
the river rides the rapids over
the rocks of resistance
be that river and not the rock’s stasis
vibrate an infinity come home
the drowned old man
the sea did then it didn’t
they pulled the body ashore
all the blue flashing lights
faded away in time
now there is a thought
bobbing there with the driftwood
waiting for something
surely there is something
well the tide went out again
now there’s a thought
drowned out by the tides of life
the taking of a photograph
in the midst of everything
to take a nothing and make it everything
to take it out of its context
and give it to the viewer’s context
imbue it with nothing
but your knowing that there is something there
that you cannot put your finger on
but by putting your finger to the shutter
it just might do
what it has to do to you
by asking
what has it to do with you
my poem
standing on top of ten thousand poems
written under ten thousand poems
by every poet that ever lived
each a handhold on the precipice of thought
all their words are pitons on the climb up
way up into the rarefied the air
talk me down from here i am afraid of heights
paginate the etymology of these thoughts of mine
you know them better than me
the transmutation is almost complete
my heart misses a beat
down here in the library i am shelved in dust
run your fingers down my spine
that is so nice
now turn my page
quickening
quickening
the fish are jumping for the dead
but i am no longer that bait’s pulse
nor the may fly
nor the lure in the rapid’s run
for one of us is dead
in time’s river
one of us is swimming
in the sun’s light
the other isn’t
