from _MILESTONES, FRACTAL SET_ by Karl Young factories at night the rest of your life in light mist make a song of that chaste moon a clock as easily and gracefully nimbused in mist the red and the blue a sign-off prayer such delicate gradations light on particles their even but definite flow as elements functioning in closely related states to a lover of cities distinctions of molecular structure to me driving home patterns of turbulence pure fluted white nearly matching each other quarry brought with it the slight disjunctions place to build creating the variance of color sea coming in the modulation of light in darkness had to go that far round to convince yourself of the local a thousand miles inland mist comes in from the lake as the feel of the city sulfur from stacks beautiful for words do not confirm or deny and are not indifferent it is simply the comfort delicate and overwhelming of this mist this sulfur this light the breaks in this life these enshrined factories the distinctions we need look different now the systole/diastole wrench in the guts of day and night after cleaning the walls see what you learned of tannery vats actions extensions of nature through a Man-Power job each has tried chalk and effluent to understand his ground chest limed with acid the innocence of place air too heavy to breathe the elements of light our visions are one individuation remains /has the satisfaction in any case of this utterance take light from the water left me with the complacency find rest in combustion that seeks to break up take breath from the earth the great confluence mine the skies @ intensity of smog opaquing room door seen from the deck twelve hour days this week lights of the city starting to fray them schemata of waste arguing in the next room their strength and their anger so quiet in here remaking night might as well get it over with scum on the river for a funeral parlor red or organic don't want to see proofs ashes in fields all the typos oceanic detergents seem like gallows humor travel the seaways just for this job follow earth's tunnels as far ahead as they can the paths of the sky have to work even faster migration of stars have to do it over again noumena remains get a factory job compressed from starpoint no responsibilities pollen in sunlight know what you're supposed to do points of light justify a mapped sign face in her eyes a tough knot on Silver Spring @ can only articulate for many years where we are going suggesting verse by whatever road back into English or returning to silence and letting you enter a kind of sound poetry hope and psyche or spoken backward before going to sleep till the beginning of time poems I'd write the language I speak through all of your lives something remembered by her evolving presence when I was a priest red and black ink I study now her powers of vision sleep induced words as she rediscovers them she turns on the recorder as she unfolds it I don't remember I wish I could follow when I wake up parallel or apart familiar things lives past and future triggered by the sounds of metal and rubber cars glitter past me in those infinite lives I've encountered today though she might see what many looked like things she remembers I don't know how many she sees in the dark enclosed in their capsules that come from my mouth the great choreography from her previous lives intertwining and running still she finds traces on the freeway today any dreams or sensations of this endless adventure I wake up or stop the paths she remembers and painted the books from a past life that must have been graced in Nahuatl or Mixtec or speech that was garbled or simply ur versions a car skids off to my right let me follow you back if that isn't possible before waking up I'd speak in a language formally structured without saying a word hoping that will suffice keeps opening doors when I'm not aware enter my life rolls out before you on some unknown level deeper than images I see from my car she's tried to make tapes @ coming of summer force of days air changes patterns heat rises this afternoon the front hall door dust on the windshield I try to close softly dust on my hands pulls my hand dust storms rise windows open upstairs out on the street wind blowing above me the world's abrasions pulls the door from my hand rise around our cars a door somewhere else wind in my hair slams as loud bare arm out the window the clotheschute today cool as I move the back hall when I stop sound as willed heat and dirt always something to run for resettle on skin the pressure of days car gathers heat pushes against us voices rise on the heat whatever lies ahead up with the sounds of voices seems like a vacuum doors slamming drawing us forward simplest joy in the word frame of bones human sound heard holds us here without articulation flesh in the wind simple need to hear voices sail of life without articulation common arrangement sound formed for a purpose of doors and windows purpose lost houses and rooms but need carried streets and destinations gesture of lungs extended remains as pressure or vacuum beyond particulars of speech as our words the need to keep some speech in flux draw us forward residuum of dust @ This Moon - 2 Venceremos and as my feet watching the same moon I feel like humming Mary Ann and I watched or clapping my hands we're seeing tonight is silent beside me we saw an eclipse discussion and singing passing between an evening of hope we see the moon none of us trust inside the car that most Americans to the waning disk demented aggression other than talking however weak from different locations a time to speak the things it suggested to feel the unity of literal context seems to create it made us feel by the sense of brotherhood so far apart of universal peace watch that moon a passive entity twelve centuries ago while she does her job when its beams touched her hut takes her notes when they reunited but she at least when they were together and ask her questions we're reinacting I got to stand older than Tu Fu to say what I felt only the details and let nothing disturb daughter of sunlight her reporter's detachment to eclipse the moon she felt tonight and silence the whispering to join the rally and astronomer kings that what happened tonight is only a product to feel as I did brought back to me restraining my feet of industrial machines habra gue romper in some other way The first four poems in this group were first published in TYUONYI #8. The fifth poem first appeared in BULLHEAD #1.