Peter Gizzi

1 I wanted out of the past so I ate the air, it took me further into air. It cut me, an iridescent chord of geometric light. I breathed deep, it lit me up, it was good. All these years, lightning, rain, the sky, its little daisies. Memento mori and lux. 2 And you can’t blame me. This daisy-feeling. I was a poet with a death-style of my own waking. I occupy the rest of it. A blue-green leaving feeling. To no longer belong to a body sometimes open to air. In rain, in early morning rain. 3 Today was the day of the amphitheater in mind. The day of a dreaming speech where the light is dope and that’s all you can say. When a feeling degrades and evolves into thought like 2 a.m. dilated, revealed a star. It will say this long agony is great being awake. It is being lovely now. 4 All the stars are here that belonged to whatever was speaking. I built my life out of what was left of me. Sky and its procedures. A romanticism of clouds, trees, pale crenellations, and poetry. A musical joybang. Touching everything. 5 When the words come back their fictions remain. Thunderheads and rain, lexical waters raking gutters, carving a world. The stylus will live in the flash. A daring light from pewter to whatever. Now discrete observations produce undramatic sound, like I am a bubble, make me the sea. O, make me the sea. 6 For a long time the names of things and things unnamed. For a long time hawks and their chicks, fox and their cubs, mice and their mice. For a long time bunnies and boojum, and a name for every bird in me. I am native to feathers — their netherside. 7 The sun was a goldish wave taped to a book. A wavy diagram in a fusty book. Foxed old wave. A soft electro-fuzz enters the head. A soft fuzzy opiate lightness. What could be the message in this pointillist masquerade. What use memory. 8 I came from a different world. I will die in it. Someone saw it, I love them for seeing it. I love seeing it with them. Love watching it die in me. It wasn’t behind or beside me. Finding it wasn’t it. Being it was everything. That was the thing I thought as I fell. 9 I am that thing in morning, whatever motors in the skull, something is claimed. Sudden rain keeps it real. Rooftops from the window look stunned. Cleansed. Looking out over the day, the pale performing day. I always consult the air before composing air. 10 And what have you been given, the blue nothing asks, who are you under clanging brass? Who are you, Saturday; sing to me. See the crows thread summerismus. Afternoon shade mirrors an issuelessness. A perfection of beetle slowly treading summer’s blade. The leaves broadcast color. I was born in summer, my conqueror, breaking into wisteria. 11 The sun was a golden rag nailed to a ladder. And here the marigolds grow down to the banks. The mayflies drowse above water. How then the dazzling surface and its dictions under piled clouds, and clouds sitting there by place and sound. One thing. This thing and sound glitters. Indicative transitive particular battles the void. All afternoon a green-gold silent light on the spotted grass, sprung. 12 I know it’s summer even if I can’t decipher the call. I believe in the birds haunting me. I held on. I’m full of bluster but also full of vision. I’m not ready to put the book down. To stop singing bright spots thrilling the quicksilver over my torrent. I make sounds, forget to die. I call it living, this inhuman conch in the ear. A pewter sensation and wind. 13 The sun remains a yellow sail tacked to the sky. I am climbing air here. I am here in the open. The kestrel swerves. Its silent kerning. A stunning calibration of nothing. I’m left to see.

Is this what you intended, Vincent that we take our rest at the end of the grove nestled into our portion beneath the bird’s migration saying, who and how am I made better through struggle. Or why am I I inside this empty arboretum this inward spiral of whoop ass and vision the leafy vine twisting and choking the tree. O, dear heaven, if you are indeed that or if you can indeed hear what I might say heal me and grant me laughter’s bounty of eyes and smiles, of eyes and affection. To not be naive and think of silly answers only not to imagine answers would be the only destination nor is questioning color even useful now now that the white ray in the distant tree beacons. That the sun can do this to us, every one of us that the sun can do this to everything inside the broken light refracted through leaves. What the ancients called peace, no clearer example what our fathers called the good, what better celebration. Leaves shine in the body and in the head alike the sun touches deeper than thought. O to be useful, of use, to the actual seen thing to be in some way related by one’s actions in the world. There might be nothing greater than this nothing truer to the good feelings that vibrate within like in the middle of the flower I call your name. To correspond, to be in equanimity with organic stuff to toil and to reflect and to home and to paint father, and further, the migration of things. The homing action of geese and wood mice. The ample evidence of the sun inside all life inside all life seen and felt and all the atomic pieces too. But felt things exist in shadow, let us reflect. The darkness bears a shine as yet unpunished by clarity but perhaps a depth that outshines clarity and is true. The dark is close to doubt and therefore close to the sun at least what the old books called science or bowed down to. The dark is not evil for it has indigo and cobalt inside and let us never forget indigo and the warmth of that the warmth of the mind reflected in a dark time in the time of pictures and refracted light. Ah, the sun is here too in the polar region of night the animal proximity of another and of nigh. To step into it as into a large surf in late August to go out underneath it all above and sparkling. To wonder and to dream and to look up at it wondrous and strange companion to all our days and the toil and worry and animal fear always with us. The night sky, the deep sense of space, actual bodies of light the gemstone brushstrokes in rays and shimmers to be held tight, wound tighter in the act of seeing. The sheer vertical act of feeling caught up in it the sky, the moon, the many heavenly forms these starry nights alone and connected alive at the edge. Now to think of the silver and the almost blue in pewter. To feel these hues down deep, feel color wax and wane and yellow, yellows are the tonality of work and bread. The deep abiding sun touching down and making its impression making so much more of itself here than where it signals the great burning orb installed at the center of each and every thing. Isn’t it comforting this notion of each and every thing though nothing might be the final and actual expression of it that nothing at the center of something alive and burning green then mint, blue then shale, gray and gray into violet into luminous dusk into dust then scattered now gone. But what is the use now of this narrow ray, this door ajar the narrow path canopied in dense wood calling what of the striated purposelessness in lapidary shading and line. To move on, to push forward, to take the next step, to die. The circles grow large and ripple in the hatch-marked forever the circle on the horizon rolling over and over into paint into the not near, the now far, the distant long-off line of daylight. That light was my enemy and one great source of agony one great solace in paint and brotherhood the sky and grass. The fragrant hills spoke in flowering tones I could hear the gnarled cut stumps tearing the sky, eating the sun. The gnarled cut stumps tearing the sky, eating the sun the fragrant hills spoke in flowering tones I could hear one great solace in paint and brotherhood the sky and grass. That light was my enemy and one great source of agony into the not near, the now far, the distant long-off line of daylight the circle on the horizon rolling over and over into paint. The circles grow large and ripple in the hatch-marked forever. To move on, to push forward, to take the next step, to die. What of the striated purposelessness in lapidary shading and line the narrow path canopied in dense wood calling but what is the use now of this narrow ray, this door ajar. Into luminous dusk into dust then scattered now gone green then mint, blue then shale, gray and gray into violet that nothing at the center of something alive and burning though nothing might be the final and actual expression of it. Isn’t it comforting this notion of each and every thing the great burning orb installed at the center of each and every thing making so much more of itself here than where it signals. The deep abiding sun touching down and making its impression and yellow, yellows are the tonality of work and bread. To feel these hues down deep, feel color wax and wane now to think of the silver and the almost blue in pewter. These starry nights alone and connected alive at the edge the sky, the moon, the many heavenly forms the sheer vertical act of feeling caught up in it. To be held tight, wound tighter in the act of seeing the gemstone brushstrokes in rays and shimmers. The night sky, the deep sense of space, actual bodies of light and the toil and worry and animal fear always with us wondrous and strange companion to all our days. To wonder and to dream and to look up at it to go out underneath it all above and sparkling to step into it as into a large surf in late August. The animal proximity of another and of nigh. Ah, the sun is here too in the polar region of night in the time of pictures and refracted light the warmth of the mind reflected in a dark time and let us never forget indigo and the warmth of that. The dark is not evil for it has indigo and cobalt inside at least what the old books called science or bowed down to. The dark is close to doubt and therefore close to the sun but perhaps a depth that outshines clarity and is true. The darkness bears a shine as yet unpunished by clarity but felt things exist in shadow, let us reflect. Inside all life seen and felt and all the atomic pieces too the ample evidence of the sun inside all life the homing action of geese and wood mice father, and further, the migration of things. To toil and to reflect and to home and to paint to correspond, to be in equanimity with organic stuff like in the middle of the flower I call your name. Nothing truer to the good feelings that vibrate within there might be nothing greater than this to be in some way related by one’s actions in the world. O to be useful, of use, to the actual seen thing. The sun touches deeper than thought leaves shine in the body and in the head alike what our fathers called the good, what better celebration. What the ancients called peace, no clearer example the broken light refracted through leaves. That the sun can do this to everything inside that the sun can do this to us, every one of us now that the white ray in the distant tree beacons. Nor is questioning color even useful now nor to imagine answers would be the only destination to not be naive and think of silly answers only. Of eyes and smiles, of eyes and affection heal me and grant me laughter’s bounty. Or if you can indeed hear what I might say O, dear heaven, if you are indeed that the leafy vine twisting and choking the tree this inward spiral of whoop ass and vision. Or why am I I inside this empty arboretum saying, who and how am I made better through struggle nestled into our portion beneath the bird’s migration that we take our rest at the end of the grove is this what you intended, Vincent.

When I say the ghost has begun you understand what is being said. That time is not how we keep it or measure first there was then wasn’t . . . It twitters and swerves like the evening news. Now outside is 3D. Inside non- representational space. Every law has an outside and inside I have witnessed cruelty break and gulp and sweat then punch out a smile. To be awake. This talking in space. To be absorbed in the ongoing. Belief’s a shadow to be looked into and into until relief is gone. The dark triangle settled in the midst of traffic is on us. Time comes in adverbial bursts, a glass of beer, a smoke . . . The evening air refreshes, startles, and the questions grow deeper like shadows across storefronts. A forsythia ticking against the dirty pane. This was time. Up. Down. Up. And you were a part of it. If I say it can you feel it now? Imagine. Lightning strikes. Rain falls and drives. Clouds pass. Night clarified. Stars. In silent pictures the tree falls in the optic nerve. The sound is chemistry. There’s no getting to it or if getting to it feels like the actual sound is that silence? Alone here with my shadows drawn . . . So what’s this about? A horse and a castle, a tree and its leaving? What’s this about in solitary splendor? The undertow and its threshold, a door and the opening sky? Or because a play of reflection lit up my bumper and caught my eyes I saw the shadow of a falcon. Because a sound a poor man uttered reached my ear I fell into song. If the syntax of loyalty is not tragic then what is the wager? If there were time, would it be ours?

I am not a poet because I live in the actual world where fear divides light I have no protection against the real evils and money which is the world where most lives are spent I am not a poet because I cannot sing about lost kingdoms of righteousness instead I see a woman in a blue parka crying on the street today without hope from despair I am not a poet for there is nothing I can say in smart turns to deflect oncoming blows of every day's inexistence that creeps into the contemporary horizon I am not a poet but a witness to bear the empty space that becomes hearts if left to loiter or linger without a life to share I've seen sorrow on joy street and heard the blur of the hurdy-gurdy and I too know what evening means but this is not real—poetry is and from this have I partaken as my eyes grow into the evolved dark

If today and today I am calling aloud If I break into pieces of glitter on asphalt bits of sun, the din if tires whine on wet pavement everything humming If we find we are still in motion and have arrived in Zeno’s thought, like if sunshine hits marble and the sea lights up we might know we were loved, are loved if flames and harvest, the enchanted plain If our wishes are met with dirt and thyme, thistle, oil, heirloom, and basil or the end result is worry, chaos and if “I should know better” If our loves are anointed with missiles Apache fire, Tomahawks did we follow the tablets the pilgrims suggested If we ask that every song touch its origin just once and the years engulfed If problems of identity confound sages, derelict philosophers, administrators who can say I am found if this time you, all of it, this time now If nothing save Saturdays at the metro and if rain falls sidelong in the platz doorways, onto mansard roofs If enumerations of the fall and if falling, cities rocked with gas fires at dawn Can you rescind the ghost’s double nakedness hungry and waning if children, soldiers, children taken down in schools if burning fuel Who can’t say they have seen this and can we sing this if in the auroras’ reflecting the sea, gauze touching the breast Too bad for you, beautiful singer unadorned by laurel child of thunder and scapegoat alike If the crowd in the mind becoming crowded in street and villages, and trains run next to the freeway If exit is merely a sign

The shine on her buckle took precedence in sun Her shine, I should say, could take me anywhere It feels right to be up this close in tight wind It feels right to notice all the shiny things about you About you there is nothing I wouldn’t want to know With you nothing is simple yet nothing is simpler About you many good things come into relation I think of proofs and grammar, vowel sounds, like A is for knee socks, E for panties I is for buttondown, O the blouse you wear U is for hair clip, and Y your tight skirt The music picks up again, I am the man I hope to be The bright air hangs freely near your newly cut hair It is so easy now to see gravity at work in your face Easy to understand time, that dark process To accept it as a beautiful process, your face

Those notes are fetching when they touch the ear. It's true, there are more tears in sand than water. "Come out and play," the song's refrain in my head, my sawdust showing. My heart, your eyes is what the day made. There, the notes, the song, the besidedness to live on Saturday, to walk out, wanted to, right out the frame. The sadness, gas pumps, sunshine on oil, that crow overhead destroys the picture. Everything faking it so badly. What's so wrong about the real, so off with clarity, dumbfuck, shirttail-hanging scatter-brained word. Shattered-pane world? The whir of the camera inside pictures but we want the voice to lift, don't we, across the mini-plaza to where? How about pulling taffy for a living or a rabbit from one ideal-ology to another. That's the trick isn't it, parallel lives? You know, here a dumpster there a Dane. On the street I see birds, bricks, clouds I see a friend getting into her car I see myself in the puddle I see. And even if we pray to remain unabated, a minor chord can sometimes reconnoiter the most distant thoughts camouflaged in lace and literature. O western wind let's not decorate the light with roseate diadems, plumbago shadows in the rushes. Haven't we heard enough from the birds, their annual trips and cross-talk? Listen. The arc of a rocket is louder than a rainbow.

A morning's silver announces sky Speech bent the tree into a new posture My smile is becoming different from you. —becoming—and you crave an earlier affection Where was the silver becoming from? Who forgets that we dream—who forgets we dream The dark is near! That loss was dark; there that's darker! A page, we become *         *       * You read the page —you read this page Once upon a once there was a once and that once evaporated into air it was said it once was all over the sky then once came back and died You understood what I saw You understood everything —close the door now It knows where to be Here, can you explain? A light bulb replaced the silver *         *       * The page is silvery—almost as silver —announced a child— When it went to the town —it had changed When it became the town —it changed its shape Afterword said it didn't have its own way It didn't have a once in its life— a once and for all It took a wife . . . The end, the ending *         *       * Children ran from the tree Silver poured from the sky —in the garden birds bathed— bathing in the garden birds sang It was dizzy in the air and rosy on the wind Once once came along and spoke to the bride It thought the wood enchanted Afterword said it was empty Afterword came too and spoke to the groom It thought the world was wide Afterword said it was narrow *         *       * Syntax bent the child —playing on the page Speech—be quiet! To see you reflected in the smudged window now. Night reminds one of fingerprints— unlike a face —in its orbit Tips of hair sweep by like fronds —"just like fronds!"—you exclaim —show me the fronds if you please *         *       * Becoming a tree —the children . . . Becoming a page —the birds in unison From here to the nervous system—A body sang Suspended above the page Above the total mass of trees Willows bend to console the child From here to . . . —a lovely thing— Becoming a tree *         *       * Let us return to speech— Silver morning—bent to break —syntax Up there on a stage Children carry silver leaves —carry birds on their heads You fasten me with your songs The Fables say— where a page is a page and a tree tree I used to be a book Now I am a book All the endings say All the dreams say All the children say *         *       * Once upon a once there was a once and that once evaporated into air it was said it once was all over the sky then once came back and died It was said— my smile is becoming a page —becoming an adventure It sang— my smile is what the children say

I guess these trailers lined up in the lot off the highway will do. I guess that crooked eucalyptus tree also. I guess this highway will have to do and the cars and the people in them on their way. The present is always coming up to us, surrounding us. It's hard to imagine atoms, hard to imagine hydrogen & oxygen binding, it'll have to do. This sky with its macular clouds also and that electric tower to the left, one line broken free.

For why am I afraid to sing the fundamental shape of awe should I now begin to sing the silvered back of the winter willow spear the sparkling agate blue would this blade and this sky free me to speak intransitive lack – the vowels themselves free Of what am I afraid of what lies in back of me of day these stars scattered as far as the I what world and wherefore will it shake free why now in the mind of an afternoon is a daisy for a while flagrant and alive Then what of night of hours’ unpredicated bad luck and the rot it clings to fathomless on the far side in winter dark Hey shadow world when a thing comes back comes back unseen but felt and no longer itself what then what silver world mirrors tarnished lenses what fortune what fate and the forms not themselves but only itself the sky by water and wind shaken I am born in silvered dark Of what am I to see these things between myself and nothing between the curtain and the stain between the hypostatic scenes of breathing and becoming the thing I see are they not the same Things don’t look good on the street today beside a tower in a rusting lot one is a condition the other mystery even this afternoon light so kind and nourishing a towering absence vibrating air Shake and I see pots from old shake and I see cities anew I see robes shake I see desert I see the farthing in us all the ghost of day the day inside night as tones decay and border air it is the old songs and the present wind I sing and say I love the unknown sound in a word Mother where from did you leave me on the sleeve of a dying word of impish laughter in the midst my joy I compel and confess open form my cracked hinged picture doubled I can’t remember now if I made a pact with the devil when I was young when I was high on a sidewalk I hear “buy a sweatshirt?” and think buy a shirt from the sweat of children hell I’m just taking a walk in the sun in a poem and this sound caught in the most recent coup