to take the measure of the void

​

to take the measure of the void, the architect

wanders, hands in pockets, 3 beers

in a backpack, by the washed out

bank at the fork of the river, where one

river meets the other and becomes 

one river again.  there you are, I

couldn’t find you for a while, says the void,

the old cars are piling up on my reaches, it’s hard

to feel the real expanse of myself anymore,

you know?  the architect walks across

an old railroad bridge between time 

and time, the water sliding in and out 

of their vision between the beams.  then the vision

decouples from the world.  this is how you measure, they say,

to know your way, hold out your hands, they say, 

yes, yes, like this, and the river splits again,

the river splits again.

 

​
 

wind coming from the west, no rain

 

​

this is a crazy-making wind today      in the cataract of soul, I

caught a catechism on a bent branch       wet bark, plastic scrap blowing there:

prayer’s long diminuation  — now this:     all broken machines of joy

get sent up to heaven      to rust in the churning dust and liquid metal rain

on that bleak wind-   swept nebula of our soul

 

there is a field in heaven where each ant is a prayer.  the old machinery

breaks down to its component parts, iron, manganese, memory, love.

 

if we could nail the trajectory of grace, we could go to the lake.

we could be erased into the flat surface of the lake    turning 

like a bright coin in the whole universe, but

 

“we wouldn’t know how to pour grace out of a boot

with the instructions written on the heel”
 

 

​

“who tuned this instrument?” -Rumi

​

I don’t know why you are complaining, I say 

to my soul, who’s emitting a high pitched whine in there—

here, I will buy you one of the bright fruit-baskets of this 

most compiled heaven, the oranges,

pre-peeled, delicious, shipped in from 

somewhere, it’s spring, I say, listen,

the plums here are hard and green

on the black boughs.  I cannot wait, but living 

is a durational practice— the whine increases—  

miasmic runoff into the rivers of my mind, battery acid 

and food-system collapse, oil leaking from the broken 

gears of earth, orange peel in the compost, it all goes back, eventually,

excavated quarries and toxic sludge storage facilities and rolling

wheatfields of Kansas— “across” they say 

“the fruited plain” they say— this, the rotten core

and wormy interface of my soul I swear I’m gonna cast it out 

to heavens feed-lot as it wheels in the stary highways

above    soon but not yet
 

 

​

the goldilocks hypothesis

​

pour grace from its ‘vescent strain— idling

motor of that sun in us which breaks from us, self

as color and ambient— lidless— sensation— listless as the roving

stratosphere, swarm— around and O around— shield us from

your harmful rays.  eyes bent and gaze; tilt thou towards— become bent

for and toward the world that grew you; a rock warm and

made shining in the dark.  we are come up empty, we are

come up.  throw us the chain or throw us 

the hook.
 

 

​

the goldilocks hypothesis

​

I brace the atlas of stars up with my left 

foot, pry the lip/edge/rim with a flat

head screwdriver why 

is it always broken, precarious at that 

tilt like that we are pitched.  the whole sky 

rolls over us.  I hitch the axle to its yoke, hope

I got the gear-ratio right this time and set 

it all a-spinning.  & look there it goes, careening

wildly down that dark and plasma hill where no 

map of man can go.

 

 

​

and I, thumbs all grappling hooks

​

and I, thumbs all grappling hooks, hitched to divinities

rough and scabrous intent, hurl forth that which

has a thousand names, again, again, dog-name, dead star, love,

panting there (sunlight | shadow) more blessted circumambient 

trowel of dark forklifts toward earth, home.  come with me or let

me go on alone.