Allen Bramhall

ELECTRIC PULSE

early autumn the fear is
perhaps intrinsic,
hard to examine.
the quality of days
and our lights.
what is special, say,
about this date,
say, and why
we fear the actual
meaning, the
reactive mind
wandering.

there is no
constant numbness
and the days are
never over, so
this conditional
distress, this
fear, harbours
an inside, describes
an outside. for the person
that is you, that
is me.

as in shaking
one's head
knowing the real
irritation, that force
for which
and against which
words work.

the colour that
spreads then divides
so that any colour
expresses all colours.

the congestion of
darkness, and the dividing
of that darkness
into gradients
that lighten
our load, as we
think of it.

or further
the moral impact
of words thrown
against
an unexamined screen,
so that the piece
is understood as
a whole, and the whole
as a peace.

and without adjustment
the shape of the
matter is understood,
documented by even
the failures
as the one chance, one
in a million.

and the central
flower fills the
trend, spikes
the day.

and the carriage
is weary
but relenting,
opened.
so the fear
is just a door,
and the door
is the space
between
us.
 
 

CANDIDLY YOURS?

somewhere
close to anywhere, a
thing happens.

people deploy in their human distant arrangements, beside themselves with
fears and tears. what can people do, involved in the disintegrations that so
naturally occur? how do the angles of every room perplex in the patterns of
meeting planes and space held back and embraced? we dream of something
closer than close but the telephone wires only pretend to know us. we are
fortresses in some dusky age, desperate to enclose it all by saying a word.
there are many words and none lives alone. the words that we think we use
are mere excrescences formed of desperate attention to the dynamics of our
mutual problem. we are all a loss, simply put. we think we engage but don't
hear the children crying in hunger. how does that work? where are the
reasonable limits that will shore up the rift? we are so busy: rattling off
words that supposedly carry the emotions that supposedly carry us. what a
lark! that is no end of no bomb blast, of no longing, of no anything. time
split into manageable units, called words, tho each word carries an eternity
and maybe springs from a fanciful source called love. will we gather steam
enough to understand, or just bang more nails into this plank, this plane,
this barricade? are we possible as we speak? have we the energy of our
hopes? can the engagement begin? toss the feathers and here we are,
fluttering, willful, stupid. we need fewer terms to hide behind. the ship
called Everything has its infernal destination. try boiling the groups into
an energized process, exchange of particles. a fierce sense of unity needs
to last longer than our last statement. lives are shattered with every sort
of misuse of the simple powers we possess. there could be more, in the rapid
exchange of electrons. or should such discussion finally matter, in this day
of dreams?
 
 

AN ITEMIZED REPORT

the disappointment feels agreeable because so natural. expectation spurns
proper language, evades the falling tree, customizes the elegiac tones to
the coming millennium. if you wish to cha cha, say the surly trees --
themselves captured in the quietude invented by philosophy students
to fill the dull times between classes -- you must do so sans musique. an
element of forgiveness sits within the expectations daily meted out to all
and sundry. what could this be about, that the expectations could be so
noble? the underlying disappointment, of course, strengthens as it saddens.
the leaden overcast prepares the population for a sly drama that will be
forgotten tomorrow, tuesday at the latest. always the emotions rock back and
forth, desperately spinning in preparation for the next exeunt. the treasury
won't back these expressions, sullen in their liquid nuance. things change
with a spurious settlement, quick affirmations and negations applied
seemingly at random. the numbers don't lie, or at least don't often get
caught. the demographics explain all they wish to explain, leaving scattered
husks as reminders of the real work. parting the Red Sea, crap like that.
things we hope for when we're not working disappointment's side of the
street. once in a while we notice the street itself, tree-lined and
astonishing.

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