canto 12 in ascendance songs David, he said, is sworn an oath by god, gains for keeping the covenants. It goes, he said, suchly: “The lord hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. If thy children will keep […]
canto 11 in the annals I could write he opened his eyes as Napoleon, Churchill, Lincoln, Betty Ford. in the annals I could write him saying famous sayings from Twain or Shakespeare and laughing about them, merrily as he had always been. in the annals I could write us all, my mother and I, the […]
canto 10 Upon opening the door he would open a great wingspan and say, I’m home, in the voice of a caller calling Is anyone home to an empty dwelling. Upon keyturning the car and killing the engine he’d say, Safe and sound. As promised. Once I buried all his shoes in the backyard because […]
interlude and I opened my fist to open air there, on that friend’s farmhouse beyond which whole armies of the faithful are moving, none more true than any other, dependent on the common hidden, which is indeed significant: the object of faith is _____ which is hidden, unrevealed, inferred but unrevealed, inferred but hidden. was […]
interlude one measure of knowledge is to assert that if a stone is a false stone, Eduardo will judge it a false stone, or: perhaps the stone is a whale and the whale is a false whale, and thus, appropriately, whale, stone, or whalestone, all three being false, Eduardo will come and say: It’s a […]
Edward, he said, came dripping from the waters of coma and told the neuro team he’d always dreamed in that aspirational fashion of taking time for a stone and water and a warm part of the stone above the water line, the water calm, rippling around the stone and the sun above warm but not […]
canto 8 my father rolled stories of coma patients so that I dreamed of dreaming in deep sleep, dreamed of whales in their purple or blue or deep green deeps, singing, approaching continents with the thin long fins stroking ocean pressures like massive, slowmoving birds. Martha, he said, schooled in England, rearing children in Oklahoma, […]
canto 7 i made loops for Lucy, which is what I dubbed her, brought twist ties for Thor with which to bind the wires, Thor, which is what I dubbed him, and when he finished, and when we were ready for loading and departure, Lucy smiling, Thor thinking about what might’ve been after blood spill, […]
interlude i stand on the edge of a leaf perpendicular to a smoky floor and a smoky sky why a leaf, such a fragile creature, and why an edge, why not the edge of paper, knife or wall, and what leaf would this leaf be, and why a smoky floor and a smoky sky whorling […]
canto 6 and so I yelled Aquinas is a fool or to that effect ambiguous. walking home when I entered my apartment I found two thieves at work unraveling, or trying to unravel, the wires and cords of the electronic machines I owned. Later, they told, we just turned the nob and voila, easy, smooth, […]
canto 4 my brother who was a professional of target practice for men in countries our teachers could never pronounce (eye rack, for example) told me that I worry too much, that my mind plays tricks on me, that he saw death forms in the sands and wondered if he’d ever see me again out […]
interlude 1 sometimes I imagine a giant in my house, of whatever gender, a woman giant, a man giant, a giant no matter, who smells, maybe of paint, daylong day air, or polished table surfaces or pastes to put on for bloody cuts, and when I imagine this giant, this whatevergendered Giant I imagine the […]
canto 3 my mother said the flowers in the gardens she made spoke to her, and as a kid I once made a joke about recordings, told her, use Dad’s and prove the case, but in more kiddstuff language, the kind that always makes the hearer wish for mankind’s better days, the kind that tastes […]
canto 2 as I sit at my father’s bedside therefore I wonder if he’s deepsleeping a way up the darkness to the peak of the ladder (and what then? out to what?) or if he remembers his image of heaven, the respirator, the other machines, respiring him, the gears making his blood move, the pressures, […]
canto 1 my father, who was larger than life (how many poems have treated fathers bigger than mountains–think new testament?), told me stories in bed about coma patients coma: which is Greek for deep sleep my mother would say, did you tell him the one about the knight? and my father would smile and I […]
