My regrets on the amporphousness…

p.o.a.m 83 - before the current

for Steve Ersinghaus, John Timmons, Jon Winsor, & other friends with whom I’ve talked about this. . .

Before the current flurry we call home

inside the nest of interests, our Internet,

there was a forest of vibrations

joining persons to their many past

& future ancestors, & to contemporaneous

dynasties and debris. Before the formal

imprimatur that hypes text as

hyper, there was no-frills hypertext

with no less magic, dew point

no lower, no fewer fevers

of imagination spilled into

our common arena. Shake

yourself, and another quakes;

drink and another is drunk,

& hit the table in one country

to table the hit on the enemy

in another. Of course, for most

of us, it was much less dramatic—

unless we were so trained,

we didn’t take the maintenance

of our lives as prayer or spell.

We still don’t do that now,

I guess, & the power

more explicit thrills us less.

Still, if you remember

the allure in the intelligent

angle of that glance last Friday,

or the tear in the eye of your

tough friend ten years ago

& the somehow spontaneous

generation of one in your own

just now as you think of it,

or the precise joys & melody

& melting point of melancholy

in the infinitesimal time slice

of a scent splashing your nostrils,

you’ll see what I’m getting at.

I’m getting to a place

in our jointly waking dream

that doesn’t need a home page

& yet isn’t hindered by any such

redundancy. Before this current

there was a moment, just as fleeting,

sullied & forgettable, but just as holy,

too—equally longing for a taste with you.