FILAMENTS AND LAYERS
who hath laid river
hook on the nook of
a lake
long toes courian
or limpkin
who hath stretched
a meal of history
metal clasps oozing
and leaking
from river ruts to
colliers
worn with cartage
who hath laid dis-ease
go they to shine through
a harsh cadence
in gossamer as one
who made marsh meadows
bed with resembled
plumage
who hath tanked water
a train of thought runs off
from lobes or flaps
of skin
people for wiring
four lines of sleepers
planks streaked with what igneous virus
who hath laid belly
with pen
scored a songbottom
to flower ruts between
cartage planks
and fringe with oysters
the toes of a coal-horse
go they to steel bulwarks
of cattle-cars
take race and clothe
passage
rake skitter in life
wheels
buckling iron to wire
eye ionic
go they to flange flat
sweet lace in the fields
wheels taper at flatbeds
griddle of silent
belly-stock, secure
to sleep
by spikes through
hands and feet
stone smoke cigarettes
ache
port-light at night
who hath laid leafblade
or petal
three sheets in the
wind silk
spill over curious
ballast written wrench
who hath laid wing
of a rail
in sand sea or air
go they fish-bellied
sleep by spike
thinned till welded
length to length
sleep-ribbon sleepers
fix in flaxen sheaves
by bolts distillery
mudthick
wheels through finfoot
weave
work doth weave flanges abandoned as snow
who hath laid socket
cotton
stops socketed in
windsocks
fastened to sleepers
clews
of a sail socked in
sockeye
sockets wrench
buckling iron ions
edge themselves
plunged before axles
what is virtually flanged
without breath-maps
the spoilage
go they employed as
torrid burrows
down from the creeping
turnpikes
string of purpose
threshing packthreads
sleep by a spike through
belly stock
slats in fish-bellied
rails
who whorl swamptoed
and thin
through mazes of reeds
on a long slake
who hath iron-wood
sheeted ship-side
for filleted fir,
strakes to hook-headed
scaffold twenty dogdays
spin a layer
of moorhens in the
new world
unwaste untraffic
unscale unpeel unbung
un en on in on an
ion, belly sooty
along trestles and
sidings, belly sooty
what ties seeing
who hath laid river
go they to nest on
the ground
to leaf earth about
eels
now porous logistic
schist
who hath laid river
spill out on this
if it takes all
LINEAR DIMENSIONS 4: INVERSION
version in version
a dish of the huge,
a white dome hazed
in parallel classes
hanging pendence to
hook as parallel to oblique,
night's hole of stars
turning in to turn
to watch forever see
never
imagine time without
clocks,
time under lattice
and tracery of lamplight
orange and black duck
holding page open
at night
crossing quiet and
sunflower cup
at wild cherry.
Okay, I'll have one
of everything I say
to the foodstore in
my head,
one of everything,
I want it all, a yellow field
of butter 'n eggs,
a panther-sized cat
named Spook, a spotted
spaniel's eyes to hedge against
cinder-block wall
of school, blank, good for balls, I s'pose,
unless windmills.
In verse ion I'm sand-eyed
tired,
feet, hands wedged
at cage door
to stay up just a
little longer.
Uphill in a '40's Ford
10-year old velveteen dust,
peculiar dark of backseat
upholstery, curved windows,
something wrong, no
motor noise, we are not going up,
we hear crickets,
tire crunch on gravel,
mother's face frowns
over the seat
eyes peering at tiny
back window,
inch of wheel on gravel,
backwards,
going backwards bit
by bit, mother
wedged between clutch
pedal and carseat.
Don't move.
Don't even breathe.
Road smacks straight
up
linear dimension steep
beyond vertical,
invert, unhold spoke
for the spindle
for the see-he-he-he
see-he-he-he
of the gulls. What
word, what air
to offer bird or flock
of leaves
across reticulate
scaffold
beyond casements of
keening sound --
inkstains on wood-lidded
desks
rows of cast-iron
feet bolted,
islanded among valleys
child feet wore
day after day in the
floor.
Nine o'clock gun.
Tide turns to is-land.
Evening crows trading
news from the roof tops,
the location of cats,
raccoons, and lagoons of garbage.
Humans holing up in
their houses,
or skittering sideways
from bars
to supine.
Next to inside out
under inversion,
ridges of seam round
armholes and sides.
Giddy giddy gout
yr liver's hangin'
out.
Stitchings of systems,
muscular, skeletal,
inside out -- the
big is-land roars
spliced in calculators,
hamburgers, news,
raveled, disheveled.
Giddy giddy gout.
Wrong side out.