In Defense of Nothing. Peter Gizzi
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perspective. This place where
sight informs the eye as gate
to phenomenon, a bridge to
impulse the imaginary. Simply
she was feeding bread to pigeons
in the park. So begin this sentence
with rain and square the surrounding
flat with common traffic. I
move through, to get here. If you
want me, you will find me in
the garden of vestiges, next to
the sweet water cistern. Where
the old port remains, a water
mark on granite, abutted with
grass and a stone path leading
to other places that for the moment
I am not interested in, as I take
serious your claim to provoke you.
And I will follow your instructions,
however silly, however sublime, until
you have found me, indistinguishable
from what you call your self.
The way I wear you about my
mouth, as a crease, deepening
every time I smile to look at you.
Look at me. I’m serious, I must
find the way, to say, we have arrived.
For it is you who instruct me in
the laws of perspective, these many
converging lines, drawn to perception.
So that I have become only a star or
an asterisk or a compass rose. Signifying
location, this possibility of place. True.
It’s been said that the burial of the dead
is the beginning of culture, as we know,
no other. And I remain raw.
Vapor digit tapping at my wrist,
the talon, the dorsal fin and the panther
claw. The value of negative space
and the rationale of talisman does
not parse, will not parry from this
dearth. As emotions surround the edge
of the planet adjusted to actual people we meet.
What could the difference of this construction
intend in a world of moments, merely
fragments provided to express conversation
or random noise signaling gray space,
to be inserted within an imported structure?
Birds migrate over cityscape and arrive
in my backyard to a mutiny of peaceful
dawn. Then a description of equality
is scored, as a rhetorical flourish is installed
for testimony. I flag. I stammer.
A banner to the burden that all things
that are, must not be, in me. Only,
will you not smile when I wave?
STILL LIFE WITH AUTOMOBILE
He was going to take it to the next town.
Though the park was empty
the pond bristled with life. He had
not an answer within 100 sq. acres
or it was only answers that tweeted about.
Who was this lonely figure in a landscape
and once he is made known
would the narrative slack and come
to a warm bed and slippers?
It was no no and yes yes all afternoon
on the thruway. It was a big state said the signs
and so did the sky say big state.
THIRTY SENTENCES FOR NO ONE
It begins with socks in a drawer and continues to laundry bags to the future. In the Food Mart everything is above the child’s head. Always looking up. Always lifting our eyes to heaven. The horizon is your mother’s repose on the divan after daily chores. Outside rain repeats rain. I remember wanting hugs but was given food. I have grown into the sweater my aunt gave me. I was born on the third chapter of the novel forever asking what happened in the beginning. In the beginning sky. In the beginning earth. The aquarium is a prism at sunset in the library which articulates light on the spines as both a constant and ephemeral beauty. Come over to our house. I have grown into this sky I wear about my shoulders everywhere I am. The hamper in the mind is endless. Let me work my image into soil and treebark and leafstem. This is not who I remember. The first body was an environment a land-mark on the frontier of tomorrow. The body of discourse is an apology of abuses and I am without reparation. In the meaning of the day the way one turns and looks—eyes for hands. Today the stranger the exile and spook are in my shaving mirror. In my dream you are real. I am as one who each day stands behind the tapestry and receives the needle to pull the thread taut and pass it back through. The design is no one’s. Is there justice in every sentence? Then I read “death is not being unable to communicate but no longer being able to be understood” or something like that. Grass was the first species to cover the earth. I am incomplete. Indeed. All that was left is the state and the miles under my feet.
POEM FOR JOHN WIENERS
I am not a poet
because I live in the actual world
where fear divides light
I have no protection against
the real evils and money
which is the world
where most lives are spent
I am not a poet
because I cannot sing about
lost kingdoms of righteousness
instead I see a woman in a blue parka
crying on the street today
without hope from despair
I am not a poet
for there is nothing I can say
in smart turns to deflect
oncoming blows of every day’s
inexistence that creeps into
the contemporary horizon
I am not a poet
but a witness to bear the empty
space that becomes our hearts
if left to loiter or linger
without a life to share
I’ve seen sorrow on joy street
and heard the blur of the hurdy-gurdy
and I too know what evening means
but this is not real—poetry is
and from this have I partaken
as my eyes grow into the evolved dark