something broken and personal, a memory
something holding back the pouring, a turn of the kaleidoscope, a turn again, radiant, beautiful, meaningless so it is easier to choose stones from the ground, a sack of words, pieces of language from something larger, and if a single event caused this ruin, what was that event? what made night a country of terror?
something within me is no longer with him
snow catching on razor wire, searchlit fields
snow through open windows
soul on its way toward earth
sparks of holiness
spoken in unknown words of a known language
stepping back into an earlier life
strands of hair, blood, corpuscled light
streets iced with shop-glass, a flock of stones
stripped trees against winter fields
take no words by mouth
tangled lilacs, peeling walls, darkening lindens
tedium taught me an imaginary world
tendril, torpor, tributary
that even this refuge might be taken:
that ing-ing of verbs in an eternal present
that light traveled from the eye to the world
that nothingness might not be there
that you might become one among others
the after-touching memory of relief
the air around the ringing bells filled with ash
the being that lies half open
the birds became smoke
the blue whorling that once spoke
the blue-stoned streets of river rock
the boiling, sudden clouds of August
the border. anywhere. but the war zone. mattresses roped to the roof
the boundless etcetera of indifference
the breath of the invisible
the bridge that doesn’t touch the other bank
the buildings of the center city no longer
the candlelit stairwells in blackout
the cedared hills, smoking orchards, and the rivers of ill luck
the cemetery workman’s wheelbarrow
the chandelier of water against stone
the chorus of mules and roosters, goat bells, little cries
the cinema, trip-wired, the small-arms fire
the click, night
the click, night, pages turned by a wind and taken
the confessions written in gunpowder and spit
the danger of premature good conscience
the dawn sky at morning pearl and smoke, the trees stripped
the day has not yet come
the day will of all days be ordinary, its weather various
the dead were left among the living—there were no questions
the dead were washed and dressed and touched
the densissimus imber of the rain
the dreams are a coffin with an open window
the dreams of a mind in the grave
the early summer’s green plums
the empty wet shirts on the line waving
the endless, unbroken lines
the evacuation of ghosts
the flautist’s breath in a stairwell
the flumes of white phosphorus marking the city
the for and for
the forbidden world hidden behind it
the four-a.m. bombing of a newspaper office
the fragility of social orders
the furthest edge
the future destroying us
the ganglia of a train map, metastasizing cities
the going-forth, the as-yet-cannot-be-heard
the greater and lesser wings the ground luminosity
the hand moving of its own accord across the page
the happy life life itself
the hidden world and its inhabitants
the hole of my mouth
the hole where my ancestor stands burning
the house, a white portrait of our having fled
the hushed chill of such a wind
the I’s time, in which things happen
the ice of reminiscence submerged in time
the immigrant disappearing into a new language
the informant’s diary of his whereabouts
the ivory of ice on the rivers
the japonica’s shadow on a telegraph pole
the life that would have ended then goes on
the light in these old photographs is a palm of rice
the light of a pocket mirror moving through trees
the little notebook of poems in the pocket of a corpse
the Lumière camera
the man tipping his hat sadly
the man tipping his hat sadly as if to say goodbye to his own mind
the mirror in her eyes giving himself back
the moon a bone-cap of ice or ivory
the moon in its clearing
the morning’s cold light on the blankets
the mortar smoke mistaken for an orchard of flowering pears
the name I am becoming
the nine lights of thought
the open well ending in its moon of water
the opening of time
the past is white near the sea
the past, which is our present
the peace of a black-windowed warehouse
the peace of the hay
the pleroma which she did not desire for herself
the plummet of a star from its darkness
the question speaks the very language of lack
the rain falls lightly now
the rescuers lift from the wreckage a child no longer a child
the revenant whispers: forgive me if I am wrong but I could not sleep
the roads issuing mist
the roads rivered with sewage and tea-colored rain
the roofs have fallen, field flowers grow in the rooms. nevermind
the same clicking of bare limbs in wind
the same rose sold to every mourner
the secret police having risen to the stature of petty thieves
the sedimentary years
the shacks of le quartier de la guerre
the silence of a new language
the soft houses of heaven
the soldiers’ moonlit helmets
the soul cannot leave the body of a suicide until she comes
the soul weighs twenty-six grams and is migratory like the birds
the soul, enamored of greatness
the soul with its sense of destination, the soul exiled, a stranger to earth
the space between events infinite
the stench of soap boiling at the edge of a village
the sting of bleached linen
the stony space where all of this happens
the stories nested, each opening to the next
the story of empty rice sacks
the street’s memory of abandoned shoes
the streets running with a sweet gray stench
the sun a monstrance
the sun moving toward Lambda Herculis
the sun will turn into a red giant, and then into a white dwarf
the sweet stench of gangrene, a cloud of flies, in its hand a child’s necropolis
the temptation of temptation
the three hidden lights beyond the grasp of thought
the tomb into which we escape
the trains. sometimes a silent coupling
the trees: almond, annatto, sweetsop, banana, monkey-bread, bay rum, sandal bead, breadfruit, yellowsilk, camphor, candle
the trees mortared into flower
the trembling of river stones, the ignition of spirit, the firing of human thought
the trip wire in white grass at one with the footfall, the latch
the truck-rutted fields the burnt sorrow
the twenty-two bones of the skull
the uncertain hand of a lost spirit
the vanished present visible on earth
the wall of white sand and poisonous mill w
astes
the way one could bathe while still covered by a square of cloth
the wet paper of flesh draped on brittle bone
the what is? gives the wrong answer
the what is? has ruined thought
the white train
the white-boned noon
the window covered with a wool blanket
the woman in the flowered robe mad with fear
the woman in your arms a lighted bedcloth
the world an accident
the world as it emerges
the world’s ensouling in a gallery of sadness
their bedclothes soaked in music
their bruises, aubergine
their refusal to accompany us further
their souls exist as their body
their souls shuttered against hope
then at dawn through the cedars
then for an hour we slip photographs from their frames, strip the walls, toss what had been our life into shipping crates
then phosphorus fell silver on the city and rained on the lettuce fields
there is a reason you have lost him. for the rest of your life you could search for it
there is no absence that cannot be replaced
there is no reason for the world
there was black corn in the fields, crib smoke, and bones enough to fill the sack
there was no when there
there was nothing that wasn’t for sale
these are my contents
these paving stones this hymnal
these ruins are to the future what the past is to us
they bind them in rags
they climb out of the river and blacken its banks
they died along with anyone who knew who they were
they fell from heaven to earth
they go on past grief and give me a sack of beans
they lived in the carcass of the sports coliseum
they looked into the camera, into the future
they will gladly go to the precipice, but where is the precipice?
thinking against the world
this end and the beginning within it
this is a musée hypothétique:
this is a transit camp, a squatters’ camp
this is how things were for us then
this is the city. this is a photograph of the city
this is the city. this was the city
this only death can write
this open-air asylum
this ossuary of world, what is the phrase for it?
this reversal
this shattering of indifference
this sudden incipience of event—
those things are obvious which are invisible
those who have entered and have left unharmed
thoughts turned back into ink and paper
throwing light upon light
time—“a severe border guard”—becomes imaginary
time lapsed in one country is only beginning in another
time, to which we are exiled
to abandon yearning for the body
to be unquiet
to be visible to oneself
to become endlessly what one has been
to cross the field without breaking the snow
to enter into itself and to stay awake
to expose ourselves to whatever may happen
to forget once having known it
to hide, safeguard, entrust to a protected place
to know not only what is, but the other of what is
to know that the great bell is the great bell
to remain haunted
to rescue the future
to say nothing without confining ourselves to silence
to search like a sheep for salt
to see or to perish
to see other than from without
to see the world as it actually is
to walk the quays among the executed
to where a drawn lamb is hanging beheaded
today the world is stiff and locked in place, pines still, skies droning, snow mounded, and everyone has gone “to work”
together into the blue but unbroken perishing
too many bones in too small a soul
torn curtain, shutters in wind
toward what end? what uniformity?
tunneling between worlds
twirling organdy dresses waving goodbye
two children in his arms
two discontinuous realms
un enfant qui meurt, wrapped in a trouser leg
under the blind sky’s surveillance
under the whip, invisible, in the not-there
under what conditions can we speak of
une enfant qui meurt wrapped in a trouser leg
unspeakable in language
unspoken thoughts, leaving us in their proximity, alone
until dawn in the fire tower
until this, that
vesture, vigil light, votive
visible only to God
walking the streets, tented in bedclothes
war-eyed in the warehouse of history
war no longer declared but only continued
warning us of its nature and our own
washing its windows until they vanish
was this not to know me?
watch them appear to recede: what are we seeing?
water calm to the wind line
water rosy with iron
waters filled with human belief
watery cathedral, a gold wash of light, a trembling—
we are as paper against the walls of the passage
we caused each other
we drove through disappearing villages
we hid among tangerine peels, lamb bones and blue figs
we lived in tents of fog
we returned to the border and walked toward the checkpoint
we take our citron pressé, your hand mine, and the clocks spin in reverse until you are floating in a flat green boat
we take our worldly goods, your hand, mine, and the clocks spin
we were spoken into being
were we not?
wet bouquets at the kiosk
wet paper of our flesh
what crawled out of the autumn wood was dementia
what did we retrieve? empty spectacles?
what do these questions ask?
what end? what uniformity?
what fragmentary light?
what God does or does not forgive
what is closest to us
what is it? must be answered who is it?
what sees us without being seen
what waking life is to the dream
what was before, imperfectly erased
what were we doing as far away as this?
what you see is the beginning of life after death
what you see you shall become
when did we know?
when I opened the door
when it was possible to walk across the river
when one could hear, behind the curtain, the whole thing
when the thing had gone beyond the limits of a room
when this sunlight reaches the future
when time seems to us a queer thing
when we wake from our deaths
when you know the worst, you can return to cut stalks of iris in April
where at least one loveliness wanders
where else would they have fallen?
where everything destroyed was left intact
where he looked
where the helicopters landed, lifting trees from the ground
where the ore is crushed into yellowcake
where the sickness knew us
where there is some message to convey
where they go without sleep
where thinking takes place we have a right to say
while I lived in that other world, years we
nt by in this one
while out on the cobalt sea the ship turns toward us
while we watched transfixed the repetitive novelty of death
who cries for the jasmin as he digs them up, and carries with him a can of black tobacco and a yellow finch in a cage
who if rope were writing would have hung himself
who in mirrors saw a strange woman
who no longer realized I was there
who returns from the journey with her eyes ruined
who wanted only to retrieve a few invisible souvenirs:
who wrote on the window in lipstick I will never forget you
whose white hands lift from this river the sudden flight of cranes
why do I seem no longer alive?
wide-planed wind of the sea
wild doves in a warehouse
willow, windthrow, winter, wisteria
wind etching the walls
wind singing in the chimney
windows X’d against fire
windshield wipers clearing a wedge of water
wisteria floating along the fence
with a camera hidden in a loaf of bread
with empty suitcases, pretending to be refugees
with how much uncertainty they told it
with revolutionary hope we searched, believing
with the flurry of a dovecote
without passing through thought
without personal history or desire for selfhood
without so much as a biscuit tin of water
without wandering too far into the past
woman in black holding daisies in paper
woman in mourning black with baskets of lemons and eggs
wood crates of cognac and ordnance
wooden crosses in snow
words burning in the windows
words carried by countless mouths
work shoes, soda cans, holy braided palm
world without having been
world without origin
would return to the point of departure
would reveal itself as other than chance
writing, an anguished wind
written over an open grave
x does not equal
yet the women dancing with white scarves
yet the women veiled in cirrus
you are the ghost through whom we see the wall
you come to earth in your sorrows
you, leaping tall fields, cornflower and milk
you might be the revenant of the earliest years, you might be within
you must leave, you cannot remain here, you must leave at once
you spit out your teeth, give it up
you will see the generation into which you should have been born
your churches will warehouse weapons and wheat
your freedom is an abyss
your hand awkward between us in the absence of love
your heart in the guise of mysterious words