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"]