In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011

The Growing Edge

T H E G R O W I N G E D G E There is a spike in the air a distant thrum you call singing and how many nights this giganto, torn tuned, I wonder if you hear me I mean I talk to myself through you hectoring air you’re out there tonight and so am I for as long as I remember I talk to the air what is it to be tough what ever do you mean 169 170 how mistaken can I be, how did I miss it as I do entirely and admit very well then I know nothing of the world can see it now can really see there is a spike a distant thrum to the empty o’clock autumn litter it’s ominous, gratuitous the asphalt quality these feelings it’s Sunday in deep space and in the breeze scatters, felt presences behind the hole in the day, sparks ominous spike I’ve not been here before, my voice is looking for a door 171 this offing light reaching into maw what does it mean to enter that room the last time I remembered it an un gathering every piece of open sky into it the deep chill inventing, and is it comfort the cold returning now clear and crystalline cold I standing feet on the ground I frozen and I can feel it to meet incumbent death we carry within us a body frozen ground what does it mean to be tough or to write a poem 172 I mean the whole vortex of home buckling inside a deep sea whine flash lightning birth storms weather of pale blinding life ...