Norma Cole

And move and hold back entering by the highroad through the words and fall like a person hit by sleep arriving at the place without light And fall like a dead body falls and find there the great enemy and come to a tower all of stones such that through it the earth opens We pass between the martyrs and the high walls even up there water is pouring out then turning and fording again sling the noose from the roof of the house And each and every vapor spent over winning and not losing in which it stands caught out fleet then catapults like a stone Filling our view whereupon another valley is revealed

“and then looks at the stars” from the bed in the ambulance looks up at boughs of trees shifting quickly lit in blackness blackening soft, deep siren’s song—she died several times that night and only in the weeks to come started and started to come back then forward which is real life

There’s a shadow over the city the light, as usual, framing and erasing Just say you dream fires each night smoothing each collapsing page from the throat talking in a series of measures in the high desert the perfect life in a series of measured gestures an invitation to see the world from a bridge that burns in the next night

Here the subject thinks “there could be flowers” or “the water was a bit disturbed when the ring fell in.” All that, painted from said things, pleases it. That explains all things except for Ovid’s exile which we will probably never understand. That adds to our sense of fragility, confirms the order in which we read. You still have the right to bear arms, “thing and joy,” the anxious doubt that was once written about. There are several versions of the story where she is transformed into a swallow, flies around a pillar. And do you find the rhyme? It originally meant spoken, the sentence, but spoken. Flight, interchangeable with fate. As for myself, I can’t begin to approach the woods with it. The words of its condition.

You can’t imagine what it’s like here. In her past life, she was a clandestine operator in ancient Egypt. In a past life she had her heart ripped out, ritual sacrifice. We all know what that means, right, to have your heart ripped out. Torn from the body, one’s “own” body, alive and torn. The unspeaking speaker. The man coughs. Orientation. Two bells, a motorcar on the street, on-lookers. H22-3416. Men, maybe four, inside. Vast numbers of people, faces turned to the east. Four nurses holding four swaddled babes, four bottles. Six men walking forward on a country road all wearing suits, coats, vests and ties. Upon his shoulders, one of the men carries a man with no legs. The man with no legs is wearing a bathrobe. In a landscape a train passes from top right to bottom left. People are packed inside as well as on the roof and holding on at the sides. One man, naked, his back turned to the window, light on inside. A bird in a cage hung on a hook at the top left-hand corner of the window. A man in profile to the left, eyes closed mouth open wide, singing. Or thought he was singing. He did. Or we did. The back of a chair and three tall mirrors. At their focal point a woman stands, arms akimbo. She’s wearing evening dress black high heels, long white gown, long black gloves, necklace, earrings. Outside the bakery, a horse-drawn hearse approaches. A woman in an apron tests green grapes eating them before placing bunches in a wooden crate. Inside a Quonset hut, there’s a long table with men sitting in chairs writing or paying attention to one man standing at the table, hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit. Shirtless men seated on the floor, some on towels or blankets, are doing exercises. Friday afternoon, cold grim day. We meet in the museum, at a picture called “Birmingham.” Sign on exterior wall saying “WELCOME.”

He said – long ago – that myth was dead. He meant it. “Myth is dead!” “Long live myth!” They are playing out something. Legendary. Picks up her glass. She has a glass, with coffee, ice and milk in it. Thinks about the refugees on the road. Road to what, to where? With nothing but their clothes on their backs. Mythic and literal. How to speak about them and why? How to speak to them. To keep them in mind. In our minds. “Bless you and keep you,” so the prayer says.

one box falls out of another box, ashy covenant of separation two birds, one clamp, no reaction just hanging there as the arrow moved notes put the map back into the water they don’t notice what they’re learning name all the days, parts of them painted to look out of control then crashed into a tree letters in the boxes in the light old lady opportunity the mirror ceases to be right here, pressure on the hand sends a biscuit to the mouth a circuit connected by eyes stopping watching quantity of information in the type, nation in the line or lines legs broken and maladroit preview a long corridor filing against walls engaging hands going without end in the corridor back to front to quay, cracking of wood, a miner’s ladder five meters high notices filled with objects later, however, a gelatin lit up, Chinese cryptesthesia, American music mural fold or fist, magnetic moment measures behavior, thinking penetrates slowly start over a sensible solution, a compact rower’s body zippered into an orange flight suit, all the confidence of the Chinese navy exposing a big area extinct of life forms