Charles Alexander

from PUSHING WATER

part four

                  I said in a dream the person allows to never

      begin with an I, rim unsteady, arriving after rain,

                  could waltz or polka to chicken scratch from San Xavier

     saints moving with a hot wind and now the canyon waters

                              frighten birds into aeries and out

                 can reversal win the day, the colloquial

                                    uncertainty, as always

            one is solid and usually startled to find imagination

                  as in dreams of Johnson and Shakes, Eliot

      and Pound that fascism a constant argument, and one

            of mountains, Tarahumara, this body aches

           to run and aches when running, and after,

                  OK we can come together now, again

                 your chest against mind, was it hot wind or

                             blue pool in a painting, archeology

      as deconstructed as mass against density free of

     totalitarian construct saving grace for tomorrow

jealous off stage when nothing arrives despite aspirations, echo

                  saving blue pen for glide or hesitation into orgasm

      grain in wood captures meander as if sticks frame picture

                        of laceration, ashes, fortune

            and a fiddle, harmonica mother's instrument of choice,

      slap on the knee and sharply to mouth the notes neither

                  hesitant nor true, sister's kick in the back

     one of four memories of pain, mostly moving from home

                        to country or separate state

      as in Hawaii, Oklahoma, Texas, Japan, Missouri, straw, pitchfork,

       watermelon, struck knee night missed turning road washed

                              to sky's mirror, lost in auto

      aforementioned string music, solfege's lost opportunity

            asking for books in winter, advantage of incompletion

      flocks of blue styled in loose garment, under

                  grasping, as if no place or activity takes root

            from another's fear, five amid field green

      what passed between    /    phrases or aphasia

                        names of alleged survivors

you follow, thick between wind in anything exposed to

      intended consequences, balance on moon terra cotta plastic

            from glass blown by movement southeast to northwest

          even though all remains within six hours of western ocean

                                    historical place of the book

            where even a prayer lifts from page

                                   alternative to frog plop, away

                  from entry, pages are kind to fingers, memory

as if spoken    /    letters gathered in a field

      high scanning density    /    technical matter leading to vision

     holding rock from stream as though time makes

                        different partners of days

            vessels dead there, produced in a mill among

                                    sounds of rustling    /    open

      or unvoiced fricatives    /    tremble of after

                  when mouth to leads scream of will not

     submit or force any color to that letter's print on sheet

           connection refused on the basis of standing precedes a phrase

sewn in the center tied outside the frame of reading

                        there a hole through escapes meditation

      in linen motive                   as three holes divide space

            in a person near to knowing paper as air

                        and breathing     exit  fertile



part five

            fine, and wind this around until one day you don't

      anticipate a break in utterance           fanning out almost

1600 miles driving      that distance with a dog in the car

            places seen many times on such trips but not anticipating again

as age defines space

            wrinkles witness experience where memory

                  plays with children and mercy

            find something to drink, please, the sense of a skin not bitter

midwest winter walking to a bus stop rather an ongoing gradual drain of moisture

the desert's long lines Mei-mei talked about I didn't believe                 reconsidered

                                                            as in

                                                            little mountain

                                                            picking up

                                                            rocks with

                                                            two

                                                            children


      uncertain as the force of legs almost forgotten

            but not to introduce tones of nostalgia, sex's recalcitrance

                  except at the mention of mouth from land to language


eye line

to something

beyond perhaps distance

though everything respected denies such, writes such, obliterates

      there, karl, I said it, I think, a refusal of autobiographical purging

            or stick with the facts, rocks and dirt, xeriscaping fondly

a writing unshaped by folding of pages, place of ink bounded by convention even when

each step seems the invention of form

            dear steven, there is something new under the sun, but where are you

            to see it with me now that I have been in houses on your street, never

            forging us without a visual memory of some sketch you made, entrusted

            to someone's care, my children miss you even as you roll

and I'd like to acknowledge certain cliffs and telises and sylvias

      until you return to a place it is difficult to imagine all the people you know who

                        you forget you know

            that underlying urgency

                  on a bed in a stone tower with a misspelling of buenos dias to become

                  buenos dios, moon

                        an aging grasp of sexual release

      part of memory or otherwise not existing or only a line

            a mile a stem an iris a garden a corridor a tile

avalanche or freefall, this is where we live

                  light carpet, dark tile, green bathroom and

      a mountain range to name a daughter for         OK so

                                                it's all lighter than before

                                                as is the air

even so,

un          certain                 and forgetting

                  pardon the personality

                  I am only considering

                  retirement in the abstract

                  fondling someone in a valley (or dream) (or memory)


despite systematic derangement of the social fabric of the neighborhood in which

a child came after first emerging from blue light in a hospital

                                                is this clear to anyone?

and if the weather changes

                        may even ask for a seat under a painting

                        with books in the basement unloading

arc of unsilence

not abstention

or closing


   [parts one two three previously appeared as "from Cer(y)tain S(uh)lants"]