A Spotless Light

                             for Colter Jacobsen

The valley is secretly

half a red circle

Slip it in your pocket

with the rest of your pieces

ragged bits and scraps of light

all that we can tether to the corners

The slivered moon changes blades

A slovenly dagger tips the night

Sounding out lyrics

unlocked with a hand mirror

I could trace their borders all night

but secretly

the dark of the woods stare back

through an empty bottle

    *

                        Last night I discussed poems as abandoned rooms

and whole books as burnt buildings

barely cool enough to walk through.

          *

I will die on a ferry to the city

with hard, dirty sets of friends

to split the evenings with

These destitute inspired trampling’s

in the rain of life sustain us

Most of this is kept to the near dark chamber

Wherein I seem to hear best

A sketch born of a dull room,

Any number of breathless stations

                        in slippery hands, a pressurized imposition.

                        Whisk the ocean unknowingly

                        every ten minutes.

Something contained and to be viewed.

                        The rain that blurs the road.

Flat spirals left askance.

          *

The overnight bag never changes:

rosewater, vitamins, weed, phone charger (pad)

books, speakers, clothes, hardback chemistry notebook (lined)

blue and black ink

         *

He gathers up all the torn branches

                       after the storm-

new dandelions pressed in the grass.

        *

Left out fruits the raccoons are willing to eat:

avocado, watermelon, passion fruit, pear,

pepino melon, black plum, strawberry

They have worn a permanent trail between the corner toolshed

And the stainless-steel compost bowl.

        *

“The one thing

I took from them

was a grand curse

that the others

would do well to avoid”

White hawk peeks out

                    on kite strings

                    giving us the slip

        *

                        Escape to smoke in the shielded staircase (quiet)

Retrace your last steps (even mentally)

over the last eight blocks

if nothing stands out as luminous,

I can’t help you.

I noticed the rumpled bedhead of purple clover flowers,

a pool of stones drowned in orange light.

9-17-24

 Self Portrait of a Reputation

Don’t forget to write about a humiliating encounter, everyday throwaways. Box leaves enclosed with the letters. Let’s get out of town. Let the enamel coated hills enclose us as lovers. The boulders are released two by two, they are slick and perfectly weighted silver each one a troy ounce. Marigolds grow under the captive gaze of children in single Styrofoam cups. Some toads shoot blood from their eyes. Forgetful lovers unleash war upon the sycophants and liars. The actual poets woo the academics as they learn to listen all over again, rows of cold mansions give way to busy carriage houses. He made children feel smaller than their bodies. He spun his new car over and over down the cul-de-sac. Green hooked rug, family sprawled, beer stains are wet feathered rings. Stringing a glass necklace off the bare floor. I think he tried to leave the bar with someone else and wrote about it later. Shouting each other down on the curb in cheap hats. Under purple steaks in Greenpoint. That sounds like an exquisitely foolproof three way break up. I may have fallen out of favor. I’m jealous of your light flooding his garret window. The outline of his book stayed marvelous, detailing a fervent reliance upon mystery. It was to be kept half hidden in darkness. To love someone with compassion is not to wet the universe. Use color to fill in the black dots at the end of a thought. Three crosses outshine a Kansas highway as it shrinks away. Eyelashes quiver- left out of alignment. Workers quibble over the sanctity of milk. Listen to the clock without numbers. Do not think outside of this. I remember each instance of trade in that corner of the bar. A parallel metaphor drives the novel. A reserved hot tub eliminates epic poetry. Let’s dowse Troy with gasoline and silently spring Helen. 

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