It must be admitted that real
Problems require fake tasks,
The door won’t stay open
On its own, a cloud respond
To any of the intended
Directions conceived for it
From below. It should come
As no surprise while hour
Presses hour into daylight
We are our being put
To work idly like stars,
No sleep per se but from
Time to time an absence
Of events. Then one day,
No, not even then.
And yet. And yet not
So much. At most, a minor
Doubt falls from the agreed-upon,
Filters through distraction
Toward notice, is “found,”
Then carried around as proof
Dooms move a few inches
Per year—life is therefore
Best looked at in passing
While horizons flare.
Things go calmer along
An edge, advancing from
The present set of streaks
Along some decaying paths
Suggesting this halflife is
A makeshift cameo
Where dusk does a brief business
And only rarely does it grow
Hotter overnight, preferring
Instead to pulse and dip
Within a patient mix
As inevitable as avoidable
Where nothing matters so
It sweetly does. That and that
Only is why I continue
To develop useless systems
I’ve already had it with,
Had it on very good authority
Then lost it, exchanged it
For this, this was my maxim
Now (meaning then), literally
The word itself when still
Some blue to its air.
Which tempts one to say
I as though a door opened
In a star and houses were clouds,
Clouds studies in the field
Of breathing bodiless,
Bodies versions of flawed dark.
That and only that is why
I pursues its antecedents
Forward in time across
Their various pulses, counting
On you and the others to provide
The reliable surprise
June rain is, then isn’t.
And specificity all
Wait, no, forget it,
But can’t go out like that
So stays on in a way
Which feels like coming back
Again, one of those houses
That seem to lean forward
When you look at their eaves,
Of which the night is full.
It goes without saying,
Then with it, that this
Habit the environment
Has and wears, spirited
Rumor of pertinence,
Is the matter of fact sign
Of being before great change.
And it’s true I’ve begun to read
Again, tend small things,
Draw the fingers of the left hand
Absently through dark water
Of another day whose stars
Are occluded, siding against men
In any issue, fighting the urge
Not to, preparing each meal
As though it were the next.
Things are terrifically,
Both the point and beside it,
To it, so much blue sky
Poured into a staid mold
Above and around, not
Quite among, not exactly
Benign or ill, just
Running an easy indifference
Almost total but also
Thinned out to where
You can nearly see through
To the nominal source. Time
Needs an antecedent
About as much as I
Need my job, which is to move
All things from their place
To their ultimate destination
Where these are identical
Though not to be confused.