Peter Gizzi

In Defense of Nothing


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      picnic of description that spells glee on the new

      horizon. Time is our only subject

      and the mutability of forms. Time compact

      and out of sight. I want the whole essay.

      Collocated with clouds and silver.

      Still, sky makes its cinematic sweep over

      this burg and to think we get to have coffee

      together now and then is pretty terrific

      don’t you think? I have come to tell

      of the discrepancies of light, material

      or otherwise. It makes no difference as the meal

      went to waste outside on the knoll where

      the neighborhood is tucked into the nights.

      Rest safely my beloved for I am coming.

      I was going about my business, the way I do

      and then from nowhere came a fable

      to my doorstep and would not let me alone.

      Not now. Not ever. This neon winked its

      marquee on my forehead and it flashed—true

      and good. Not just any good, but good

      as in a farmer’s prayer about earth

      and work and rest. O mommy is it true?

      Do these beans grow to the sky?

      It is the alphabet lies close to ground.

      Broken tile to marvel at and so much emotion

      goes into learning to make these letters.

      A spell against time. Chumming for clarity

      and a pronoun to share. Though twenty-six

      sounds are not enough. But what the news

      didn’t say is she loves her darling Comacho

      the darling way he attends her every sob

      and whimper. And do not mistake this freedom

      for a swagger. My heart was shorn

      long before speech and the act itself

      overbounds my physical bluster, here

      in a body, where an axe splits the wind

      from my mouth. This trill at the edge.

      Look kids here’s the tempo. So pick it up.

      The name of this song is new feeling, because

      that’s what it’s about. No monk on a stoop.

      I am here. Ask me now.

      Saying leave me alone, I am only a poem,

      what do you want from me? What do you want

      from me teeth? To incise earth? No rest to pillow

      my weird. O clack of breeze. I am not abated.

      When is a child’s bottom lip enough to say—quit it?

      This thought bit me the other day. As all

      my pictures have fallen but that don’t make ’em

      go away. Meanwhile there is not an index

      or CliffsNote for you, wanting to walk

      blankly off into a grove where all punctuation

      lists, like you, brilliant in its particularity

      and distinction. The grass outside is waving

      and alive with protein disguised in so many

      colors and shapes that form itself is

      the only envelope I await. “God

      bless Captain Vere!” Now winnow me

      under harbor lights. Who sleeps in the now

      of flowers my bed of prince? I capsize into the birth

      mark on my thigh. I am marked and can

      never be yours, but this allows me to be

      eternally deferential. I dream of pulleys

      in the sun all day and no water will cleanse

      the little stain I wear about my smile.

      For shame is my hidden lever to fulcrum

      the earth. “How’s your gear

      Squeak? All in order?” O leaf out my window.

      O sky where the tape is blank

      and loops. I am sad and strange

      in the late morning, in the early afternoon,

      in the middle of the night. Yes moon!

      My hands shake. Where the distance

      of my life is my arm’s length. No place

      to live I’ve been told. No place, I’ve been

      told, and still you want to throw me outta

      my tent. Having lived among factories

      and highways in the nuclear age,

      I have learned to pronounce “love”

      and to recognize my name written on trees

      on rocks in the sky above. Yep, that corn’s

      straight off the cob, mister. Then it said “I love

      Dolores” in white paint against iron

      on the rusted trestle. On my way to the heart

      of American radio or summer. I was

      going to see my friend the human. Do you

      understand? When lips kiss and make

      a seal, this is the first hermetic doctrine.

      I wanna hold your hand. Is there something

      I can do now? When the cello bow abrades

      my breast will I dissolve finely into air?

      Do I have to die for you then to hear these lines

      that I make profligate and plaintive for you.

      They are parallel lines whose origin is

      irretrievable. Each one tells a history.

      I remember streets houses trees overhead.

      Someone called my name, my dogtag

      whistles over here; over there as an adult

      I want to thank my family for how I feel

      this morning, living under a bridge

      scaring children. An unforgivable geometry

      insists its repertoire on our dialogue.

      Learning to say “my wife my car my color.”

      I have seen your thin purpose all my life.

      So what is an anthem, and growing up there

      is a lesson in it. When all forms have been

      emptied can I begin? I doubly derive my body.

      Running ahead of myself, beyond memory’s reach,

      the source sprang incarnadine. Teeming

      with information. Trembling my standard returned.

      I knew then this body was not invincible.

      Who shall know this posture, this morning’s slide rule.

      I needs. I wants. A