for William Basinski
In seeking to resolve a conflict
between two parties
one can assume
each believes it is acting
in good faith
just as the hopeful
gravel waits for your rough step
▴
The only way to be truly alone
is for there to be nothing
not even myself
▴
In looping you rephrase after listening
to what the person has to say
what the person had to say
and having the new words affirmed
you wait and listen again
▴
Myself the eager magnet
for another to address
▴
Maybe I should think this a spiral
a loop that gets closer
a loop that will not close
▴
To make nothing
draw a circle
around what isn’t there
▴
I found a note I left in the corner
of a part of the poem we rarely used
If you ever feel trapped
it said
this is where to escape
▴
But legally I owe you nothing
I owe you at least that much
▴
Like being haunted by the spirit of the letter
▴
I remember my teacher’s story
of two teenagers who died in a blizzard
trying to stay warm
and the tailpipe
blocked with snow
so I always check
but it still happens
just yesterday
a man’s young son in what the paper
called one awful story
▴
The light switch has a beautiful feeling
when a person reaches out to make it change
and the warm quadrangles of sun
on the carpet are beautiful too
and red berries on the gray bush
and the mail as long as it lasts
and beauty is what beauty does to you
▴
Like trying to say a seagull
inscribing a circle
over what land
the day has thought
to provide
▴
to enter into agreement with yourself
to lie but only out of love
for the verblessness of buildings
They do not rise except once
and then nothing
how being is nothing
and if there were a word after
it would be a slow decay
▴
I will love across any distance
you think this has made to occur
▴
Nothing so ruthless as a life
▴
The day hangs low overhead
and soon enough the new grass will emerge
through the gravel
They have big plans to meet
in the middle
and in so doing
to phase all this out
▴
I go on
say enough and it will blur
off into sound
look up and see that night
has nearly settled in and darkness
and hope that if I look into it
long enough and keep my mouth
quiet
when I look down again I’ll find
a settled word
to which nothing
is attached
▴
Re: the day
someone said
what doesn’t kill you makes it longer
▴
It’s like footsteps toward you
that sound for all the world like
they forever move away
▴
I keep forgetting I’m the smoke
not the camera
Then I see my dark
joining sky to what’s below
▴
Like watching someone
from across a river
on such a clear day
that you can see her teeth
and at such
a distance
that you can’t hear the sound
so while you know
it must be screaming
it is possible
to imagine her faraway mouth
which you can see but not save
has opened—is open—to sing
▴
After the collapse and before
the dust settles
the darkness billows
and grows
like it’s describing
itself to the sky
this it says
this and much bigger
but the sky
in its sorrow
has had to turn away
▴
to expect praise for the beautiful apology
▴
to imagine something other than again
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