Van Stanley

Not The Railing, Not The Pool

Stop, at any means, to prove
a passing thought.  What
was said?  Who — to what … Why,
wherever I’ve got to pause
I’ve never got the conclusion — think,
instead, of the physical! the material!
Divert, if you can, if you must
& you must:  “Irony is truth standing
on its head to draw attention to itself.”

Debussey’s compositions for children
tickle up some ballet for the keys
of the typewriter to shake to.  Think
of what the hands can conjure
before the brain conjures.  A spliff
at 6 a.m. — think
of rudiments, of regiments.
A crown of thorns.  Sparkling electrons.
If there is a universe in every atom — well,
then there are too many atoms!  Billions
of people & not one exception.  My god

is a tumbling hourglass signifying nothing
but the motion of grains recessing, passing,
tunneling, mounding, filling…
Why should the earth & the sun
mark the year?  Why,
off the rotation, when both feet take
the final step off the atmosphere
& I am fixed in space … 

Why, I am of no age!  Not child,
nor anything.  All my life’s pacing —
for what?  For toughened legs, now jerking
an homage to futility
in the landless void of space?  My books
are, like me, flipping, turning, recording
dust, fixed in a float as the universe
orbits around us, breathless,
tickled by photons coming in & shot out, as
some reflections take to the earth
where-from we seem to dangle & linger like stars.

(Source: vanstanley)