Aught, no. 4 (2000)

Joel Chace

epistemology

merged

 

                                                                swell

 

'd with a

 

                                                                four hands

 

sub

 

                                                                merged three

 

sea

 

                                                                sag



speckle

 

                                                                'd tumbling four

 

hands feel it

 

                                                                three

 

net

 

                                      feet in the

 

and pull

 

                                                net sub

 

with a speckled

 

                                                            tumbling

 

sea

 

net
submerged three
feet in
the sea and
swelled
with a speckled
tumbling

four
hands feel it
tug and
pull


even

stephen         but

odd how on canvasses the arrows piercing his flesh have come
                                                                            from all angles and
directions

even

ing

even

for those not much filled with love and courage zing-rays
                                                                of jaundiced light but

all the same from the same source just

pass on through         flatten          spread poor adherences
                                                                        of molecules just

molecules after all         beat to thinnest air
                                            then stretched out
across

unsoundable maws from toed edges          membranes          out
                                                                toward shores so distant not

 

even

stephens

even

tides

have ever spent themselves upon


godhead

some people have to see a face in it

                                        some people

always want to find a face in it

 

 

above a mountain called Two-Top in Pennsylvania

 

gray sun-spokes striating

 

the high inverted triangle of November raincloud

 

some people have to see a face in it

                                        some people

 

always want to find a face in it

 

 

on an Illinois lake great as an ocean

 

half the flaming ball sitting way out

 

liquid rippled fire spreading close as blood

 

 

some people have to see a face in it

                                        some people

 

always want to find a face in it

 

 

both sides of Highway 40 in Arizona

 

trailers and concrete squares

 

land as flat-dead

 

as if a spackler horizons wide had scraped all along

 

that whole stretch and the voice of legion had said

 

THIS IS WHERE YOU'LL LIVE

 

 

jesus

christ

nobody tries to find a face

                                in that


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