To Sustain Distress

,

.

Can I hear

the tweaked harmonics

of metastasis

as the chance operations

of a pianist in the surge

of improvisation?

As the knife scratch

on the starchy canvas?

As resistance

to explanation?

I can

do anything.

That’s the problem

of imagination.

However,

that does not mean

the blood refuses.

No reading, no

matter how delicate

or brute, makes

a man out

of a diagram.

~

Night jasmine from

some unseen garden

strays into equivocal temper

toward rows of teeth.

Call it “Untitled.”

Call it “The Story Revealing

Itself to be an Ending.”

The second time you read it

you will hear peristalsis resisting,

merging the blackened skin

& the corroding bones

into a special shadow

that blooms in the late hours.

~

I tie twilight

to the measure of a life

in spinning plates,

to the plastic skin

encasing birdcalls

for sale by the dozen,

shaping the name

into a repeated refrain

emerging entirely whole

from the open windows.

If the scent of night jasmine

is complete altogether

speak vigilantly

of the dying.

~

We will upload our brains

to the white marble countertops

of the coming singularity;

I have always

enjoyed cemeteries.

I tie my memories of you

to the photograph of you

& mom & John & Steve

wearing winter coats

in the driveway

in front of a garage.

I have so few memories

of you—mostly in cars.

~

Consciousness is not

difficult to describe

in a bee sting.

Nothing arises

& nothing reveals.

A hailstorm pocks

the landscape

& the cancer cells

entwine the jaw.

Plants create landscape

but empty spaces

remain immortal.

~

Fear is so sly

to reduce itself

into a brain,

to sustain

the artificial paradise

of the darkened room.

What is scrap?

What is a moment

in the moment of recall?

What is the pinwheel

of artifice & art?