In Defense of Nothing. Peter Gizzi
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picnic of description that spells glee on the new
horizon. Time is our only subject
and the mutability of forms. Time compact
and out of sight. I want the whole essay.
Collocated with clouds and silver.
Still, sky makes its cinematic sweep over
this burg and to think we get to have coffee
together now and then is pretty terrific
don’t you think? I have come to tell
of the discrepancies of light, material
or otherwise. It makes no difference as the meal
went to waste outside on the knoll where
the neighborhood is tucked into the nights.
Rest safely my beloved for I am coming.
I was going about my business, the way I do
and then from nowhere came a fable
to my doorstep and would not let me alone.
Not now. Not ever. This neon winked its
marquee on my forehead and it flashed—true
and good. Not just any good, but good
as in a farmer’s prayer about earth
and work and rest. O mommy is it true?
Do these beans grow to the sky?
It is the alphabet lies close to ground.
Broken tile to marvel at and so much emotion
goes into learning to make these letters.
A spell against time. Chumming for clarity
and a pronoun to share. Though twenty-six
sounds are not enough. But what the news
didn’t say is she loves her darling Comacho
the darling way he attends her every sob
and whimper. And do not mistake this freedom
for a swagger. My heart was shorn
long before speech and the act itself
overbounds my physical bluster, here
in a body, where an axe splits the wind
from my mouth. This trill at the edge.
Look kids here’s the tempo. So pick it up.
The name of this song is new feeling, because
that’s what it’s about. No monk on a stoop.
I am here. Ask me now.
Saying leave me alone, I am only a poem,
what do you want from me? What do you want
from me teeth? To incise earth? No rest to pillow
my weird. O clack of breeze. I am not abated.
When is a child’s bottom lip enough to say—quit it?
This thought bit me the other day. As all
my pictures have fallen but that don’t make ’em
go away. Meanwhile there is not an index
or CliffsNote for you, wanting to walk
blankly off into a grove where all punctuation
lists, like you, brilliant in its particularity
and distinction. The grass outside is waving
and alive with protein disguised in so many
colors and shapes that form itself is
the only envelope I await. “God
bless Captain Vere!” Now winnow me
under harbor lights. Who sleeps in the now
of flowers my bed of prince? I capsize into the birth
mark on my thigh. I am marked and can
never be yours, but this allows me to be
eternally deferential. I dream of pulleys
in the sun all day and no water will cleanse
the little stain I wear about my smile.
For shame is my hidden lever to fulcrum
the earth. “How’s your gear
Squeak? All in order?” O leaf out my window.
O sky where the tape is blank
and loops. I am sad and strange
in the late morning, in the early afternoon,
in the middle of the night. Yes moon!
My hands shake. Where the distance
of my life is my arm’s length. No place
to live I’ve been told. No place, I’ve been
told, and still you want to throw me outta
my tent. Having lived among factories
and highways in the nuclear age,
I have learned to pronounce “love”
and to recognize my name written on trees
on rocks in the sky above. Yep, that corn’s
straight off the cob, mister. Then it said “I love
Dolores” in white paint against iron
on the rusted trestle. On my way to the heart
of American radio or summer. I was
going to see my friend the human. Do you
understand? When lips kiss and make
a seal, this is the first hermetic doctrine.
I wanna hold your hand. Is there something
I can do now? When the cello bow abrades
my breast will I dissolve finely into air?
Do I have to die for you then to hear these lines
that I make profligate and plaintive for you.
They are parallel lines whose origin is
irretrievable. Each one tells a history.
I remember streets houses trees overhead.
Someone called my name, my dogtag
whistles over here; over there as an adult
I want to thank my family for how I feel
this morning, living under a bridge
scaring children. An unforgivable geometry
insists its repertoire on our dialogue.
Learning to say “my wife my car my color.”
I have seen your thin purpose all my life.
So what is an anthem, and growing up there
is a lesson in it. When all forms have been
emptied can I begin? I doubly derive my body.
Running ahead of myself, beyond memory’s reach,
the source sprang incarnadine. Teeming
with information. Trembling my standard returned.
I knew then this body was not invincible.
Who shall know this posture, this morning’s slide rule.
I needs. I wants. A