i would tell you a story
but the story (of necessity)

would become entangled
with a hopeless inaccessibility

stuck in the throat where its own
breath its vehicle (of necessity)

its birth slowed
to a devouring of lifetimes

& we would have gained the story
but not the story's origins

the true body

ii.

so let us speak solely of origins
in a unison like light
dressed in light cut from memory

it is no easy venture
to speak solely of origins
with or without ample companionship

(the origins break ranks incessantly:

iii.

some have been
heard hiding assertions among angles of ink
on scrolls of discovery shifting
in the night

assertions about patterns of need
impregnating origins
broadening burying them
in vast impossibilities

restrictions fed into delicate matrices
of mind against being encountered
anywhere but in the act
of breaking ranks):

iv.

our origins do not desire
any position above or beneath us
any specific grip

they are the fixtures of mind
we cannot eschew

the story must always pass
wide-winged willing
where the origins

aggregate (disseminate)
romp & salvage

v.

the unspeaking air wants words
with mischief unprofessed

calculates a mystery
moves gently over one's guard

encounters shields against happenstance
& makes camp

vi.

the unspeaking air
has an instinct
for colonization

that floods enraptures
your host terrain
beguiling guest concepts

a zenith
of uncertainty keeps
you clamped

vii.

quiet

viii.

i would tell you histories
but their common lust for
the story's wrangling lustre will
distract you
from the project
of hearing
unswayed

the
quiet

ix.

you might locate
a selfhood

metamorphoses
for libation

a sanctified impossibility
resonating merciless

in blanched uncommon
spaces teeming

quiet

x.

if it is a wheel
we have in mind we
may behave as a wheel
envisioning a life that rolls
servile interminable

if it is the clear
night sky we have in mind
we may behave as ten-thousand
stars a copulation
of glinting longevities

[ © 2001 Joseph Robertson ]