The End of Beauty

Of Forced Sightes and Trusty Ferefulness

-Jorie Graham

"Stopless wind, here are the columbine seeds I have
collected. What we would do with them is
different. Though both your trick and mine flowers blue
and white

with four stem tails and yellow underpetals. Stopless

and unessential, half-hiss, half-

lullaby, if I fell in among your laws,

if I fell down into your mind, your snow, into the miles

of spirit-drafts you drive, frenetic multitudes,

out from the timber to open the ground and back to no

avail, if I fell down, warmblooded, ill, into your endless

evenness,

into this race you start them on and will not let them win...?

If I fell in?

What is your law to my law, unhurried hurrying?
At my remove from you, today, in your supremest

calculation, re-
adjustment, are these three birds scratching for dead
bark beetles, frozen seeds, too late for being here yet only
here,
in the stenchfree

cold. This is another current, river of rivers, this thrilling
third-act love. Who wouldn’t want to stay
behind? They pack the rinds away, the blazing applecores,
the frantic shadow-wings scribbling the fenceposts, window-

panes. Meanwhile you turn, white jury, draft, away

deep justice done.
I don’t presume to cross the distances, the clarity,
but what grows in your only open hands? Or is

digressive love,
row after perfect greenhouse row,
the garden you’re out of for good, wind of the theorems,
of proof, square root of light,

chaos of truth,
blinder than the mice that wait you out
in any crack?
This is the best I can do now for prayer—to you,
for you—these scraps I throw

my lonely acrobats
that fall
of your accord
right to my windowsill: they pack it away, the grains, the

accidents, they pack it deep into the rent
heart of the blue
spruce, skins in with spiky needles.... Oh
hollow
charged with forgetfulness,

through wind, through winter nights, we’ll pass,
steering with crumbs, with words,
making of every hour
a thought, remembering

by pain and rhyme and arabesques of foraging
the formula for theft
under your sky that keeps
sliding away

married to hurry
and grim song."

(To Jorie Graham, for the eloquence and words I lack, Thank you.

My eyes are dilated, now. Aperature is at f/1.4. Maladies, well, fleeting.

Everything is sequential, a delicate cipher. An enigma waiting to be distinguished. )

The Deluge

The shutter sounds.
Just another exposure
Amidst a sea of pictures.
You taste the briny water,
Catch a wave,
Topple onshore as the swell,
Crashes.

I like your wings, she had once told me, decayed and withered away. Standing here on tainted soil--it’s okay. I’m acquitted to this ramshackle life, the everyday imperfections. The heart palpitations in the evenings and shortness of breath. The condemned, it drives me forward. I am breathing that same O2 mixture entrapped within every pair of lungs connected to a beating, steady heart. Its air, respired and unfiltered through steady unyielding breaths. Those plastic breathing tubes—they choke and stifle you in the end. Their hospital Johnnies are drafty—failing to endow your purpled heart, Lavender varicose veins. A calloused, brooding soul. Show me the real sky, Jeff Cole. It’s not through infirmary windows or screened between the fragile glass panes and mesh.

November 30th, Christmas lights, already?

I can see the frosted icicles from my window, the cluster of wired white lights dangling from the banister. The soft patter of rain melds with the ticking of a clock, lamplight-droplets echo from the clouded night and fade into the soft black velvet, puddle-collections forming in the gutters. The winds blow and I can feel their undying caress chill my bones, rippling back and forth across my spine. Yet I am warm, sheltered by the streetlight kerosene-radiance, refracting off of power lines. I watch as the analog clock turns sharply from 11:59 to 12:00 midnight, just as I had noticed 49 minutes earlier…

The incandescence fades from my sanguine walls yet my eyes do not meet the darkness. Ink, it falls from my pen onto a college ruled notebook, carving its black letters onto the page, splashed with the spattering of rain drop reflections. Beauty, the symmetry of accidental inscriptions and enamored pen leaks. I hear the vibrations of never-ending communication and wonder who might be calling at this ungodly hour--12:06 flashes on the mark.

The soft grey sky and darkened floral patterns lull me into a comatose state. I wander… Cross-sectional yellow-oranges keep me at bay, guiding me, guiding, guiding... Where? Home. Drooping, the world is slightly skewed, glazed over; sleep beckons the brain to adjourn consciousness.

Oh, I’m falling. Slowly, faster now, drifting into the smooth contours of your—my pillow, echoing off to join the realm of the subconscious.

Phosphorus, phosphorus, phosphorus…