Timmy Straw

Method of ascent

Sure of one thing,
there is no sham
hostility.
Thought then, the brain’s intrinsic light
is ghastly,
a copier that flashes out
and outside earth does not occur,
its auspices do not occur.
Who calls me by my fix is not my friend,
thought then.
Thought then, that in that glare
we looked and saw
no malice for us;
that this was miracle enough
for us, that it was good,
good lien on stolen house
whose rooms
found us––we were not there. The wind blows thru
the snake looks back and slips
into the mown
grass, unmown these days, away.

The outdoor pool in Lents has been let go.
No swim today. Walt died today and with him
smut, that purest glass
thru which pours sun
til both in shine are
none and we can see unequally
We are nowhere anymore. As sense or wage
is sediment, having no say in it:
that I from others took
that love is strange to me, took
my unit of heart in those good faces
took it up, in sponsorship, self-fashioning,
in other things whose words
the social keeps that we
forget and live––
still there are windowsills, allegiances
to look out from on scenes,
intricate and vanishing.
Little words that wilt, grow snow.
Diminish in certainty
in the marketplace of certainties.

Words that in their instance wilt or link
like promises or vice
into an I––this time a she
who goes sleepwalking, finds the door, the latch,
fields glibly twelve
apartment steps,
goes out into the street,
bodega lights, the paper fan
of city, open,
closed. You want nice things
so have them then,
I viciously said. And paid my rent. So incarnation ends
in one small room, a bed,
an ocean overhead. And that it was
and is and cannot be
enough
has been enough. Good I say
so let me lie
who has no heir. The cry so rarely suits the mouth.

It ripples across the public dream
That stone. Like boyhood
In the mouth, it holds,
Abstains
and grows,
its mineral consequence
––and who died for that gold––
we heard said,
whip the horse that it might
signify.
Friday to Thursday.
“Preacher only wants one day.”
A stone whose center is the sea.

Announcements make and vaporize
this camp
into thin air––
a wrinkle in the sunlight
pouring thru the glass. Deposit in the limitless
even this
splendor
and there is,
o cherubim, o army, o my man,
no men: but pain
and o
more debt.

Then said the king, your reasons are
too shallow and too quick.
Then the chorus back, o no our reasons are
too deep, and dead.