word-of-mouth salvation and the great leaning back

on a long walk down coasting hills
steps without weariness,
an ease fell across me and subtly,
in whispers, i wrote a book
of poems so searing that the poems themselves
wander the earth teaching other poems to burn
scorching the violets and weeping willows
and spreading (which is
almost certainly a quality of grace)
across continents and upstream on highwater rivers
into the breaths of those living
and wall-lining folk, feeding the
torn-flip-frenzy of the dead
below and making (as from paper machette)
light from dark and dark from light-
upending the inside of slow-witted fellows and
drawing sighs from the feverish women.

getting home, the smell of stale smoke,
a cracked beer, cigarette, watching the unfolding
phantasm of wandering poems
fill the earth with sweat and fury and blissful sleep
i put my feet up on the coffee table
and forgot the poems
while i took a nap.

you make your trades when you can.

2004-09-12 | 2:28 p.m.
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