Retrospective Love Song

Retrospective Love Song

truth is one thing, part two

If truth is one thing
then disagreement is the falsity
you can feel the heat as it is released

as truths go forward
they must converge

nothing is forcing me to move forward, however.
i like plenty of room for my simple lies to be undisturbed
that's how they like to multiply

if you put two scientists down on the head of a pin
and waved a wand to turn one
into a creationist
they would both be likely to go flying with the repulsion
once lost
other things would be found
before a pinhead
how hard it would be to find that thing again
after this scuffle
if not for all the other pin points prodding you along

to move forward is to find truth
forward?
follow the incline if in the dark
if not, first find the dark

when you feel yourself falling
it was actually the other way

if you don't like to climb
feel free to float
though it will take a long time to get there that way

truth won't hold you anywhere
not for a minute
unless you don't mind sitting out a forest fire

truth is a nice thing
to line a nest with
it helps the eggs to hatch
my god you have to feed those little things
so they leave off their horrible chirping

all things are
all things are one
all things are not
all things are not truth

truth must be translated
to be truth
that is how you can become it

but what is its language?
if you speak it
tell me

is it silence?

is it a sound
that slows to stillness? is it spontaneous like cells
that leap into a fetal pulse? is it terryfying
as the peace of a dying breath?

thank heavens for the grocery

when your car
is returning from
the bloodless
supermarket
with bags of brown paper

this is the stuff
that will keep you
and your family
alive for
one week

it is hard to
recognize this
is life this is
all it is
packaged up after
being wrangled
from the earth
or cut from
the carcass
with some of the
more palatable poisons
added for
freshness

what do you know what do you know what do you know what do you know what do you know what do you know what do you know
the aisles
the aisles
the aisles and tiles

well can
you recognize the

life in disguise

life in disguise

life in disguise

life in disguise

life in disguise

whales enmeshed in drift nets

fifty miles long
the open ocean had no breakers. the floats
swell and the weights
dangle

in the sea
whole classes of creatures
scarcely even move

at night translucent feeders rise
and sift among the lowest rigging
oh, and dreams
are stories that would drink up

oceans
 but even
   behemoths
     must breath
       as every breeze knows
         as every wind blows
           this is what they rose for

sardines
are their own
form of whale
enmeshed before the nets
dropped

the sea has always been its own god
deep things always will
for the unexpected catch of darkness
blind fish with flash of red
smooth and ugly
flesh
turn you believer

whales enmeshed in drift nets sing angry songs
fifty miles long
to the surface, the high place
the air, the light, the light

last thoughts on winter

when the world is freed

from human activity

i like to stand and listen

to the stillness

to the wind sing its lonely song

to the naked trees

i will light a small fire

and watch it tell its tale of time

watch the life of 

this material

with its secret story

curl up the air

return to the starlit sky

the neighbors' last lit window

goes dark

each element

eloquently

translating here and now

like the deep and silent snows

is

and is not

words on other meanings

the trouble with living is that you know sometime you won't, but you don't know if sometimes you won't. you worry about letting it go because you don't know if you will get it back. but here i am on a sidewalk whispering michelangelo knew after david he must go on becoming a hypocrite. an automatic door opens and the silence is speaking in reverse and each step you take sliding your salt covered shoes on the black knap is the rubbing of feeling's epitaph. molecules of oxygen in cemetery lungs feel the pull of life like dizzy bodies listing toward earth. it feels like silence is the epigraph of unfeeling. it feels like the pull of witticisms lists toward things no longer understood in words. if all your memories fell silent automatic doors would still sense your coming. in the cemetery of words what daisies. your tongue gentle as a heifers might sense each blade of grass and stroke the sky with lowing. every wild place (what eyes of heaven) beautiful and horrible as the trouble with living, every letting go a feeding. lion on lamb, silence on speaking, meaning on words and words on other meanings.