Apogee Of Apathy

Smoke told the children of smoke

The long throat of the wind does not stop swallowing
 
is the story that Smoke tells the children of Smoke scaring
            them before sleep. They were black and
knotted once
                       
huddling around themselves in migrant camps singing
            forests they left behind
scattered by their fugitive nature and the sound of wolves
from old countries. Twisting over roads and
into phantasms of the stomach of the wind. Our bodies have become
 
diffuse, loosely hanging barely visible strands of grey
in the vortices of rivers of air— drawing them together
like the fingers of the universal grandmother before the
loom, humming songs             to which no one remembers
           
the words. The wooden people
of old countries tore
in tin words. 

White Tree

There is a tree and it is on fire      after limb down the toothless                   
or the fire is on it, gulping the       gullet. There are women in                 
tree into its stomach, limb            rain coats surrounding
 
throwing their bodies forward        it exists but what it is. There
their arms and the wailing. God      is wind in the branches which
is in the semantics. Not whether   grows hot. Shout certain names
 
into the wind and they will curl      too large to burn. The cold pulsing    
away, black. There are certain      eye that watches and does not
things beyond naming and            blink. Old women with long fingers
 
drawing in the dirt around the       coats flapping in a warm gust.           
burnt roots of a white tree, circling
like vultures, the wings of their 

Grass

An apple tree can cast
                               two shadows which shows
the shadow belongs
                          to the light not the object
shows that color
                        belongs to us not the light.
The bricks extend
                        terminably, distinguished
from the feet fall
                       ing over them like  your downward
intonation when
                     you explained the  nature of my hands
though I could
                    not discern yours. How you were
quiet when I asked
                         what it was that compelled
them. Your hair was very
                                 red on my roof you
smoked cigarettes while
                                I watched a redness
welling up like that of
                            the morning, the parts
which persist after
                         its passing. On my roof you smoked
cigarettes until I
                      agreed that the days have accumulated
like falling snow.
                     Where you broke cigarettes like bird
bones, held my hand
                           against the light, said it looked
like a mocking bird.
                         A friend and I sat under the
same apple tree.
                      He was wearing a red shirt and
biting an apple—
                      Some spittle and slivers,
some juice on the
                           chin. 

Walnut

In the morning life seems all right—

we are beneath the sky and

amid the water who takes off its

glasses and rubs its eyelids which

are cool. There is light against the

bricks and more light still to come.

A constant tide, like conversations

in a train station. We bend

down and pick up a walnut, throw it

far as we can, so as not to see it end,

although we know it must end somewhere.

Not Yet Clear

If size were at the heart of the thing
            then the city would already
                        have turned to sand
                                    while people
                                               crash-
ed into it in waves. If size were at
             the heart of the thing, there
                       would be ants on my
                               chest, the scene
                                             would
look like a highway. Sometimes you
                must plunge into clenched
                     brambles which do not
                                 look real so you
                                             can con-
firm what real is. It is unclear whether
            I am unfit to hold water or un-
                           fit to keep water out.
                                   It is not a quest-
ion of magnitude, but one of mindset.
  Not the amount of water but
       whether I am surrounded
                        or filled. The nature of
                                      my leakage is
                                                not yet
clear. I held my ear up to the cannon
and heard a lack of noise like
that of a large sea shell.

Things are either distinct or
indistinct; a piano is either a piano or
one element of the entire
unconsciousness. The slumbering form
we clamber upon and can
sometimes feel breathing, a swelling
of things around me before
they recede. I feel distinct again.
There are times when
we can feel the bones of the world
pushing through its skin.
There are times when a piano is itself.
Others when it seems
a composition of the same basic
elements. No more
than the water rushing past our bodies.
If I left it outside, the rain
would take parts of it away and later
it would become grass.
We are different than the world because
things can happen
to the world, but not affect it.

Limbs

There are horses moving
in the night. Limbs are billowing
away in trails of smoke.
 
All this has been felt before—
when you are in a basement,
the lights are out
 
and there is something warm
against your neck. 

Knife

The sand, at night, and our bodies
against it. The dunes sloping off
into places we cannot see. Your
 
head in your arms, I could hear
breathing between the wind. You
told me the clouds were the color
 
of ribs, but you were lying. The
moon shook through like a knife. 

Slaughterhouse

1.
Drowsy-eyed tall men
with red lips who would
eat their own hearts, some
already have. Their
arachnid fingers spindle
over the ribs weaving
nothing trying to entangle
no one. They will say
the door in their chest
leads to the slaughter
house, they cannot find
the key. Banging hands
against flesh and wailing
over the sounds of the
falling blade, dull
against the ground.
Operatic stomachs are heav
ing. Teeth are red. Now
contorted, their shoulder
blades float serenely, belly
up geese in still water.
Not long until they smile
again, until their long legs
outstretch after the other,
until their hats are on straight
and a soft wind in their
teeth.
 
2.
A cow plods calmly through
the steel enclosure. Does not
heed the swaying skinless things.
Farther down, sounds
of something heavy touching
something soft. There is no grass
and he continues to move.
Swats a fly with his tail. Rubs
his baleful lips together, even
as his hooves are made wet
by a sheet of blood, thin
as paper. There are
now cows only behind him.
He hears a sound. 

Imagine pigs:

lined up in the quivering grass, lined up
somewhere
                  we’ll call it paradise.
They’re healthy happy pigs
think of your big toe— pigs like that.
Under a tree, one especially porkish beast
rests his haunches against the still breath of dirt
he watches the immense sky pass over his body
and his immense body passes under the sky and the weight
of his forehead pushing over the tops of his eyes makes him
wise
        his eyes
still bent toward the sky searching
for birds and transcendence and
the alchemy of light against light
                                                    
the world, unlike a pig
does not sit on its haunches
 
a volley of dogs shoots over the hills
these dogs are all bones
this skin is just an afterthought, piston legs firing
their whole bodies hang off their teeth, then:
fresh red snouts in plump pink bellies
you’ve heard this story before
the pigs all die
and one, with dogs snapping at his
haunches and hooves stares at the still passing sky                                           having found something, not what he was looking for.