World as Voyeur

waves slapping like jello

vanished noises

swinging our naked arms

like the dead

laid down on their pillars

living at the back of the orchard

and called and sent home

and bled

a cadence behind the eyes

voices like bombed out homes

reading the train schedules

reading the hotel menu

reading Ulysses for the first time

at 36. Life happens

in a few fine years

and nothing but doing it all

over again will suffice.

I'm wondering when the river

its course, is a bad thing

when it changes

and the fish all die out

or a good reason.

I practice being still.

I practice

and practice.

I think the poem has changed.

Even though I didn't want to show you that.