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There is a spectacle and something is added to history. It has as its object an indiscretion: old age, a gun, the prevention of sleep. I am placed in its stead and the requisite shadow is yours. It casts across me, a violent coat. It seems I fit into its sleeve. So the body wanders. Sometime it goes where light does not reach. You recall how they moved in the moon dust?Hop, hop. What they said to us from that distance was stupid. They did not say I love you for example. The spectacle has been placed in my room. Can you hear its episode trailing, pretending to be a thing with variegated wings? Do you know the name of this thing? It is a rubbing from an image. The subject of the image is that which trespasses. You are invited to watch. The body in complete dark casting nothing back. The thing turns and flicks and opens.

scene, the desert. time, mid-day. In silent horror o’er the desert-waste The driver Hassan with his camels past. One cruse of water on his back he bore, And his light scrip contained a scanty store: A fan of painted feathers in his hand, To guard his shaded face from scorching sand. The sultry sun had gained the middle sky, And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh. The beasts, with pain, their dusty way pursue, Shrill roared the winds, and dreary was the view! With desperate sorrow wild, th’ affrighted man Thrice sighted, thrice struck his breast, and thus began: Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, When first from Schiraz’ walls I bent my way.

Around the pool the hippos drool as if the chloride wouldn’t kill them. In fact, they like to play the fool, the harbinger, the pilgrim. The bird that plops into the glass makes a sound, then isn’t there. Spiders toss, in oleaginous mass, Goo Gone into the air. The ants that drag a beat-up car onto the lawn are emissaries of some forgotten prince or tsar from an HBO miniseries. The cheetah, panther, jaguar, and lynx (some of these might be the same) conjure images of Sphinx and other trademarked names. The dynamited hole now teems with insects shiny and obscene, crawling, dying, though it dreams an ectoplasm of green. My own two cats stiffen, confused at this profusion past the door. They bat at things they’ve often used for sound therapy before. I tell you this out of principle: that spiraling around a theme (while naming lots of animals) can supercharge a meme. My own skin founders in the rush of allergenic, if cautious, beasts. Eyes eye darkness, ears hear hush — the assassin’s humor feasts.

Surrounded by bone, surrounded by cells, by rings, by rings of hell, by hair, surrounded by air-is-a-thing, surrounded by silhouette, by honey-wet bees, yet by skeletons of trees, surrounded by actual, yes, for practical purposes, people, surrounded by surreal popcorn, surrounded by the reborn: Surrender in the center to surroundings. O surrender forever, never end her, let her blend around, surrender to the surroundings that surround the tender endo-surrender, that tumble through the tumbling to that blue that curls around the crumbling, to that, the blue that rumbles under the sun bounding the pearl that we walk on, talk on; we can chalk that up to experience, sensing the brown here that’s blue now, a drop of water surrounding a cow that’s black & white, the warbling Blackburnian twitter that’s machining midnight orange in the light that’s glittering in the light green visible wind. That’s the ticket to the tunnel through the thicket that’s a cricket’s funnel of music to correct & pick it out from under the wing that whirls up over & out.

No daylight for two months, an ice chisel slivers frozen lake water refracting blue cinders. By light of an oil lamp, a child learns to savor marrow: cracked caribou bones a heap on the floor. A sinew, thickly wrapped in soot, threads through the meat on her chin: a tattoo in three slender lines. One white ptarmigan plume fastened to the lip of a birch wood basket; thaw approaches: the plume turns brown. On the edge of the open lead, a toggle-head harpoon waits to launch: bowhead sings to krill. Thickened pack ice cracking; a baleen fishing line pulls taut a silver dorsal fin of a round white fish. A slate-blade knife slices along the grain of a caribou hindquarter; the ice cellar lined in willow branches is empty. Saltwater suffuses into a flint quarry, offshore a thin layer of radiation glazes leathered walrus skin. Alongside shatters of a hummock, a marsh marigold flattens under three black toes of a sandhill crane. A translucent sheep horn dipper skims a freshwater stream; underneath, arctic char lay eggs of mercury. Picked before the fall migration, cloudberries drench in whale oil, ferment in a sealskin poke. A tundra swan nests inside a rusted steel rum; she abandons her newborns hatched a deep crimson.

Korean monster movie on the SyFy channel, lurid Dora the Explorer blanket draped tentlike over Baby’s portacrib to shield us from unearned innocence. The monster slings its carapace in reverse swan dive up the embankment, triple-jointed bug legs clattering, bathroom door ajar, exhaust roaring, both of us naked, monster chomps fast food stands, all that quilted aluminum, eats through streams of running people, the promiscuously cheerful guilty American scientist dies horribly. Grease-dusted ceiling fan paddles erratically, two spars missing. Sheets whirled to the polluted rug. I reach under the bed, fish out somebody else’s crunched beer can, my forearm comes out dirty. Monster brachiates from bridge girders like a gibbon looping round and around uneven bars, those are your fingers in my tangles or my fingers, my head hangs half off the king-size, monster takes tiny child actor to its bone stash. Pillow’s wet. The warped ceiling mirror makes us look like fat porno dwarfs in centripetal silver nitrate ripples. My glasses on the side table tipped onto scratchproof lenses, earpieces sticking up like arms out of disaster rubble. Your feet hooked over my feet. What miasma lays gold dander down on forms of temporary survivors wandering the promenade? You pull Dora back over us—Baby’s dead to the world—intrude your propagandistic intimacy jokes, unforgiving. “What, in a motel room?” I say. Purple clouds roll back to reveal Armageddon a dream in bad digital unreality. Explosions repeat patterns like fake flames dance on fake fireplace logs. Sad Armageddon of marriage: how pretty much nice we meant to be, and couldn’t make a difference.

I. One reason to eat is to not speak, said the man with a mouth full of food. When she told me that my silence was worse than her silence, I agreed, even though she was wrong. It is shallow to fight for things, he said, but sometimes it can be fun. You look like a tunnel, she said, and kissed my lips. What I like least about words is their capacity to invoke more words, she said, as she trashed my poem. According to the New York Times, gay teenage boys want monogamy while heterosexual boys prefer “friends with benefits.” My psychiatrist told me it was okay to lie about the important details of my life. As a result, I fell in love with her. I stopped seeing her as a patient but when we dated the spark was gone. If, as Cioran writes, existing is plagiarism, then what is death? I was lost all night in the forest only to discover these were streets I knew quite well. In the Oresteia, Apollo argues that the true parent is “he who mounts.” Because the Furies fail to ask what happens when the woman is on top, they lose the case. In evaluations, a student wrote: “Daniel would be a better teacher if he wasn’t such an asshole.” Weren’t such an asshole, I wanted to tell her, though as her comments were supposed to be anonymous, I could not admit that I recognized her handwriting. On a first date, I innocently went to the bathroom when the check arrived. She thought I was trying to stick her with the bill but when she realized I was unaware of dating etiquette she was charmed.  We had a nice kiss goodnight, but afterwards I was so flustered I went to a bar by myself, drank whiskey, and smoked my first cigarette in years. II. Throughout my life I have always wanted to tell the truth, even though I knew it was all a lie. In the end all that matters is the truth content of a lie.

Where, like a pillow on a bed A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest The violet's reclining head, Sat we two, one another's best. Our hands were firmly cemented With a fast balm, which thence did spring; Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Our eyes upon one double string; So to'intergraft our hands, as yet Was all the means to make us one, And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation. As 'twixt two equal armies fate Suspends uncertain victory, Our souls (which to advance their state Were gone out) hung 'twixt her and me. And whilst our souls negotiate there, We like sepulchral statues lay; All day, the same our postures were, And we said nothing, all the day. If any, so by love refin'd That he soul's language understood, And by good love were grown all mind, Within convenient distance stood, He (though he knew not which soul spake, Because both meant, both spake the same) Might thence a new concoction take And part far purer than he came. This ecstasy doth unperplex, We said, and tell us what we love; We see by this it was not sex, We see we saw not what did move; But as all several souls contain Mixture of things, they know not what, Love these mix'd souls doth mix again And makes both one, each this and that. A single violet transplant, The strength, the colour, and the size, (All which before was poor and scant) Redoubles still, and multiplies. When love with one another so Interinanimates two souls, That abler soul, which thence doth flow, Defects of loneliness controls. We then, who are this new soul, know Of what we are compos'd and made, For th' atomies of which we grow Are souls, whom no change can invade. But oh alas, so long, so far, Our bodies why do we forbear? They'are ours, though they'are not we; we are The intelligences, they the spheres. We owe them thanks, because they thus Did us, to us, at first convey, Yielded their senses' force to us, Nor are dross to us, but allay. On man heaven's influence works not so, But that it first imprints the air; So soul into the soul may flow, Though it to body first repair. As our blood labors to beget Spirits, as like souls as it can, Because such fingers need to knit That subtle knot which makes us man, So must pure lovers' souls descend T' affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great prince in prison lies. To'our bodies turn we then, that so Weak men on love reveal'd may look; Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book. And if some lover, such as we, Have heard this dialogue of one, Let him still mark us, he shall see Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.

GUITH a greylag morning, the sea a conscious blue. CALF SOUND orca in a sea blue room, breathing pearls that rise to the surface. GROATHA the plenum of the shed: every part infilled with flutter, glass, sheep turd, gusts of damp. GREENTOFT gunshot punctures a field of geese, their clackety rise a flock of helicopters. THE SETTER STONE an old man steps out of the ground all lines and angles, sun snagged in his beard. MILLCROFT a tree softened house: red willow, alder, pine, eucalyptus rooting. WARNESS a stream hole a pure, dense fall; one ocean falling into another. PLANTATION wren, silver lark, crow woody snipe, curlew, hen hawk day owl, starling. SOUTH END the Varagen, beaded with spotlights curves through the dark round great holes in the sea WARD HILL climbing with the moon, the wind blowing round my mouth— a low note, like an owl.

A learned and a happy ignorance Divided me From all the vanity, From all the sloth, care, pain, and sorrow that advance The madness and the misery Of men. No error, no distraction I Saw soil the earth, or overcloud the sky. I knew not that there was a serpent’s sting, Whose poison shed On men, did overspread The world; nor did I dream of such a thing As sin, in which mankind lay dead. They all were brisk and living wights to me, Yea, pure and full of immortality. Joy, pleasure, beauty, kindness, glory, love, Sleep, day, life, light, Peace, melody, my sight, My ears and heart did fill and freely move. All that I saw did me delight. The Universe was then a world of treasure, To me an universal world of pleasure. Unwelcome penitence was then unknown, Vain costly toys, Swearing and roaring boys, Shops, markets, taverns, coaches, were unshown; So all things were that drown’d my joys: No thorns chok’d up my path, nor hid the face Of bliss and beauty, nor eclips’d the place. Only what Adam in his first estate, Did I behold; Hard silver and dry gold As yet lay under ground; my blessed fate Was more acquainted with the old And innocent delights which he did see In his original simplicity. Those things which first his Eden did adorn, My infancy Did crown. Simplicity Was my protection when I first was born. Mine eyes those treasures first did see Which God first made. The first effects of love My first enjoyments upon earth did prove; And were so great, and so divine, so pure; So fair and sweet, So true; when I did meet Them here at first, they did my soul allure, And drew away my infant feet Quite from the works of men; that I might see The glorious wonders of the Deity.