Sketch of a poem ending with lines by Robert Duncan
by Stephen Collis
tuning
this stray moment
rainy day
locked round roots
flooding from moon and stars
continuous stream
chthonic
cemetery walk dreaming
animals
in and out of shadows
along the edge of wood
or down through valley
holes carved revealing cold constellations
arrows that are arias (areas) of light
shot through to the breathing blood
the music
run through to bone
in arteries / images
it contains in itself all the middles of things
and we drink from a fountain of fire
as there only is soil
because living things have died
anima
animals
inhabiting our arteries
I touch you shaking
fist of hair / animal smell
you open your
hand — a light there
heat / you say
it’s the first real idea anyone ever had
word / image
tool to dig with — what — I ask
harmony you say / biting my shoulder
you never sleep in the same self twice
and who says what communicates
through feedback of changes
in the alley light fixtures
smashed a
tattered Aeschylus falling out the open window
tissue within tissue
sum total of animals for the holocaust
bulls rams lambs and kids
are numbers
what about a white she–bear?
repeating itself in incessant circles which aren’t circles
the difference which is used as a new input
many of us camped along the shore
the water’s own pulses
yes / we are poets / but it’s not our fault
compost or
I sensed I must work not with my abilities
but with my inabilities — not with what I clearly thought
but with what I could not think clearly