Like an aphorism

When I meet Keats in the underworld
I will ask him and all his kind for a translation
of the code of Hammurabi into poetic diction.

Why we too must die

I.
There is a message that all the dead would send
though they have lost the sentiments
by which we understand our language

and so set only humming this May evening's air

(and it was by this
we knew ourselves
spun out like a filigree
upon the dark contours of the starlit sea)

harmonious with all the bodies of the stars

II.
nothing is new
except that which is not understood
except that which passes in and out of memory
as we ourselves pass in and out of sight in orbit with the universe
around a single point

which is perhaps invisible dark matter

as we pass in and out of sight

among swelling waves which have no names

III.
but when the moon at last struck out into the sky
cut pale and clear
like godly flesh over the water
like the flesh of the dead
its light seemed to us a shining from the murky deep

The wild particles of unknown space

appear to be unreal
as the ether we thought was necessary

as this sentiment
we had constructed is unreal
we will ask about our bodies
when we predicate our existence on these thoughts
these sentiments the void spacer between the stars
the space for imaginary lines of contellations
the perception of our god-like existence
we will wonder about bodies without this void space

Just to keep everything in one place...

Lac qui parle

What is the use of disputing over memories
we will know only ourselves again

we ourselves are a disputation
over the etymology of the names we fashion
slowly, without our knowledge, like idle whitling
like throwing stones out across the water

we are a dispute like subsequent ripples meeting
(we are a subsiding dispute)