1)
I want this song to never end
whatever song it is
(please tell me
what pokes through what's real
is real too)
you do not exist
outside of time therefore
you are always in motion
or
you do not exist
because
there is no conditional tense
because I hold my fear in both hands
I cannot shape it, cannot make it fit
as if you're listening and so what comes next
is a revelation
snow in my impatient hair
it's not really random but the moment would still be gone
sound passes right through me
what they say about the obvious:
I want this song never to end
its incipient staccato or
a paperclip stuck into my heart
I cling to each note
I wonder at collision, curvature, incessance
tiny columns of ice and nothing else
is this clear
say
"everything" could dissolve
the skin grows back though it's not really the same skin
(this song could repeat
indefinitely)
we have abbreviated ourselves so that we
can pretend to understand
2)
what should not be possible
is sometimes all there is
must I repeat this brokenness?
flying in the face of
swooping/sweeping
something else jagged/clumsy/flimsy
or whimsical
(the third person in the room is 'us')
bits of me fall away:
oddly lovely and somehow freed
3)
I neither like nor dislike these words
I am unarticulated—unspoken, unbent
(at some point being able to spell rhythm doesn't get you very far)
the ache disappears: a return to the obvious
where a soundtrack alongside this apparent narrative
mostly flatters
this obsolete technician whose skills repeat
this darkening around the edges
this fade in the middle where I forget
I am often hungrier than thou
that same old game
I'll spend the rest of the day making fun of making fun of things
4)
no good dreams
no new titillation
no report
nothing to discuss or decide
literal darkness, not just some
abstract lack
this bruising and the impulse to touch
where it hurts: it's how
we are written
5)
the song usually starts again at the wrong time
so we both in a sense miss it
so we both misplace
what's modified
over and over
so we both start again
at the wrong time, so the song in a sense misses us
so we both are misplaced
so we are both
modified
6)
time is dealt under the table
and everyone loves a bank robber story:
when did I think this?
when did I not think this?
in any other slow place
this would not happen
not entirely dissatisfied with motion:
if you turned around again I would be
right there
(right there)
