fragments from a new ars

1

start from a loose end
only way in

my indirection
goes with me everywhere

these mendicant words
all borrowed before
the clock bears down
disperses, delays them -
ambassadors of other words

there's something I can do
no one else can

I swallow it down in lieu of a duty

but mainly have this old bent cup
to my crippled hand
am patching the hole
till it's smaller than cents
I'm patching the copper here full of old skies



3

I come from a disturbance
and I am to make one

cannot keep my eyes quite down

I have objections to the way the world is run

midst of my dreaming
the body's strange song
the vehemence of sight, of senses
their much to hide

the day's least corner is poetry

in it I have heard footsteps



4

should I fall into belief
faith catches just as the unwary wend
to know their lines in time set

I scribble a kind of Braille as I go
but faith is all intaglio

mindmuzak
a leaf falls
spun from seeing

I don't catch up with myself

these faces I dream
inexplicably mine
and not

enough land to live
enough to be masters

in my brutal view
the jazz feat of burying tunes
in something more general
is a rare kind of poise
trophy of mind
a never quite catching
blank mind
blank heart
a sudden colour comes to me
through sirenfolds of smoke

I make my rough account
I am writing to everyone who will read
singing for every ear left out
no matter understanding



9

in lieu of a duty
take words to their depth
past sounding
past the thus-far of their mean
to bring them to book

know where to release them
where to set them aside

beer thirst from the fields I come

like ink from the page
the eye forgets
this scratching home to surface

age of the invisible
is there before that?

religion excuses the soul
of well lived fear

sweet poison of
choosing the lie with which to frame truth

choosing between lives
this every instant



10

days on the mill and hunger mistakes me

the teeth of the same
and death's big democracy

- how subtly indifferent
which gods can do that?
not triumph over some sad foible

mine like those eyes up
in compulsory prayer
fasten across a seeming sea
of the devout
a kindred
community of unbelievers

like a blind man
keeping the view company
in his poverty of valleys unfolding
light falling over him
regrets the years he squandered sight
inside office or factory, eyes down at dumb clods

years of no savour
the perfection of tragedy eludes
we go on
to see the shape
of going on about it

scenes of a crime we recollect
something outlives us
like the sound of the river
the tap left
tea pouring