Peter Cole

Either the world is coming together, or else the world is falling apart — here — now — along these letters, against the walls of every heart. Today, tomorrow, within its weather, the end or beginning’s about to start — the world impossibly coming together or very possibly falling apart. Now the lovers’ mouths are open — maybe the miracle’s about to start: the world within us coming together, because all around us it’s falling apart. Even as they speak, he wonders, even as the fear departs: Is that the world coming together? Can they keep it from falling apart? The image, gradually, is growing sharper; now the sound is like a dart: It seemed their world was coming together, but in fact it was falling apart. That’s the nightmare, that’s the terror, that’s the Isaac of this art — which sees that the world might come together if only we’re willing to take it apart. The dream, the lure, is the prayer’s answer, which can’t be plotted on any chart — as we know the world that’s coming together without our knowing is falling apart.

Why are you here? Who have you come for and what would you gain? Where is your fear? Why are you here? You’ve come so near, or so it would seem; you can see the grain in the paper — that’s clear. But why are you here when you could be elsewhere, earning a living or actually learning? Why should we care why you’re here? Is that a tear? Yes, there’s pressure behind the eyes — and there are peers. But why are you here? At times it sears. The pressure and shame and the echoing pain. What do you hear now that you’re here? The air’s so severe. It calls for equipment, which comes at a price. And you’ve volunteered. Why?Are you here? What will you wear? What will you do if it turns out you’ve failed? How will you fare? Why are you here when it could take years to find out — what? It’s all so slippery, and may not cohere. And yet, you’re here    ... Is it what you revere? How deep does that go? How do you know? Do you think you’re a seer? Is that why you’re here? Do you have a good ear? For praise or for verse? Can you handle a curse? Define persevere. Why are you here? It could be a career.

Freud could never be certain, he said, in view of   his wide and early reading, whether what seemed like a new creation might not be the work instead of   hidden channels of memory leading back to the notions of others absorbed, coming now anew into form he’d almost known within him was growing. He called it (the ghost of a) cryptomnesia. So we own and owe what we know.

And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel, with a loud voice: —Deuteronomy 27:14 Over the border the barrier winds, devouring orchards of various kinds. Cursed be he that taketh away the landmark of his neighbor. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Homage to Morton Feldman “Before the oracle, with the flowers” —1 Kings 7:49 1 Here in the gloaming, a wormwood haze — the “m” on its head, a “w,” amazed at what the drink itself does: Vermouth, god bless you — th. 2 What really matters now is begonia, he thought, distracted while reading — their amber anther and bone-white petals missing from a jade pot by the door — not a theory of metaphor. 3 In this corner, sweet alyssum. And beside it fragrant jessamine. Almost rhyming scents in the air — a syntax weaving their there, there. 4 Erodium holds an eye in the pink looping the white of its tendering cup. 5 The blue moon opens all too quickly and floats its head- y fragrance over the path before us: And so we slit its throat, like a florist. 6 These hearts-on-strings of the tenderest green things that rise from dirt, then fall toward the floor, hang in the air like — hearts- on-strings of the tenderest green things — they rise from dirt then fall toward the floor, hanging in the air like — these hearts-on-strings of the tenderest green things, rising from dirt then falling toward the floor, hanging in the air like 7 Moss-rose, purslane, portulaca petals feeling for the sun’s light or is it only warmth or both (they need to open) an amethyst almost see-through shift 8 Bou- gainvillea lifts the sinking spirit back up and nearly into a buoyancy — its papery pink bracts proving with their tease of a rustle and glow through the window — there is a breeze. 9 Epistle-like chicory blue beyond the bars of these beds suspended in air, (what doesn’t dangle?) elsewhere, gives way to plugged in, pez- purply thyme, against a golden (halo’s) thistle. 10 What’s a wandering Jew to you two, who often do wonder about that moving about? Its purple stalk torn-off and stuck elsewhere in the ground takes root and soon shoots forth a bluish star with powder on its pistil. Such is the power of that Jew, wherever it goes (unlike the rose), to make itself new.

And so their pounded hearts were worn— like a badge or talisman, that canceled almost all their blindness— creation's linkage depending on a drive itself derived from a kind of kindness or desperation, the sense that one's inadequate, at any rate the space for time— water has it, flowing (even from a faucet . . .) and here the black swan glides across it— as the sunlight's suddenly on my back, and now the skin along it's warmer, Lord, which lets me walk by the river . . .