In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011

Pierced

60 P I E R C E D The heart of poetry is fatigue makes space around a toy majestic opening night unto neglect, dark and neglect the weight of that, the weight at the heart is a great stillness in a tiny pocket a rag folded lengthwise placed over eyes witness the crease a smile makes a substantive kiss at the heart, fatigue is a grimace a gap between tooth & tongue chance, love & logic the scalpel & scripture tent show, rent-a-bench & Chicken Little that swell vista between the century and now its faded bunting 61 come as you are At the heart is a great harangue rich with fatigue, a crowd of sighs of difficult breath, fish mouth against sky empty hands behind the high school The heart of poetry is an angry child a decaying spider in a chain link fence a rotten cushion at the bottom of a stream springs busted out, fabric torn a shooting gallery in the basement the heart of poetry is a ripped sock covering that wound, fresh with it the actual bone is bone Take it as an experiment where a voice can say this face is pleasing, it has work in it it is a building just a song tweaking dawn 62 A youth, a maiden pledge themselves “o we could be happy, o we could be . . .” one step forward two steps back Inside the song, it’s weird glue tears, and a trail of crumbs Inside the sound, it’s green camphor & alabaster Inside the spine, breath stapled & sewn, a stem the things protein does/was The lungs are small and occupy the breast the rest is a fable heard in the brush whose home, what letter, what book? whose tomb? The heart of poetry is an empty lot where the wind will not cease, 63 that particular volume of leaf wrack and heat continues, contains much as we make camp in its folds, that wind distinct from any other hand The pulse of these times is weak an anonymous trick, tock dirty knees and bruised biceps a smudge below the lip clavicle swollen from fists The heart of poetry is a hollow man a heteronym, a forensic test, & casino chip a long distance call when it comes the music is not the story and the prodigal’s song abides beliefs dictate syntax the diamond we let go a mockingbird, a mulberry bush, a dog-eared copy of the Metamorphoses string of moon beyond industrial lot “that wheel is rusted, the car—the windows— are busted out” 64 The populist’s vision dims dented at the moment of ascendancy is that all there is There is a science to this song even if they wasn’t people to write but the mind of a page is the form of a body the one we touch, the one that makes laws body of straw m-m-moon, s-s-tring, br-r-anch open the throat to recite e-egg, t-twine, s-s-tick open the throat to sing to sigh, then sign the reply turning words to return the world here you are: t-t-tree, bowl of fruit here it is: cello & lute sun shaft in garden, on dirt 65 the leafy plot is tenuous The heart of poetry is fatigue what the teachers left unsaid a whimpering man inside the child failed cathedral, overflowing shelter a woman in the shape of a man man in the shape of an animal animal shape of a children’s book crust of bread a skinny leg inside a blown-out shoe at the side of an ocean at the mouth of the delta at the foot of a glacier dung hill, mini mart burial mound and parking lot all sucked into a vacuum the cartoon black spot of an eye, a tiny pool of ink through which the overload overlord of images pour into bodies uncensored phantom of what we really are a stain in the center of a field grease spot on grass blade, on shirt 66 In the magazine “a mother clutches the skull of her actual daughter” the graphic surface of objects’ stink And what difference would it make if the face were projected from the bole of an oak to...