Monthly Archives: October 2016

October 11 [Book of October]

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October 11

Two nights ago I dreamed of this day:
Sitting up in bed suddenly, eyes

On the clock reading 10:11, although
I had gone to bed after midnight–

Too dark to be mid-morning (and impossible
To sleep through a day in my home)

In my dream I lay back down and slept
Dreamless inside a dream of sleep

Walking through town the next afternoon
The dream came back to me

And I understood
10:11 was a date, not a time

So I waited
Until today but nothing happened

Still something arrived
Like the absence of a body in

A favorite t-shirt maybe that was
What the dream was about

October 10 [Book of October]

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October 10

The invisible tribe sweeps through the sleepers
And for that moment their dreams lay in their hands

Like musical instruments.Who will you wake with it?
Of course your dream was never alive;

The hole you thought was a mortal wound–
Place your mouth there and

A note carries through the night, brushes
The underbellies of leaves and reaches those

Who travel without being heard. Some will
Stop, and look down at the nautilus in their hands

They only now remember carrying, they will put
It to their ears, and hear the same sound,

And while the invisible tribe slips away,
begin moving silently your way against their new shadows.

October 8 [Book of October]

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October 8

I’m collecting my life in quarters.
Every year a bit of alloy. In my palm

A pile of tiny time machines.
Some I have kept close:

A single moonbeam, a summer
Alone, a goat, a glimpse

Of what won’t dissolve
Even when devalued.

I’ve tried to ignore the years
When you forgot my name

And then your voice
And then your self

Because there’s still no coin
Of a realm where you’re gone

October 5 [Book of October]

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October 5

Clowns are falling to earth early
And wandering with the wind.

In the alley between tents
Fear is struck like a bargain, like a match.

No one knows what it meant to their easy ears:
“Allez, allez!” Off you go. Come, come now.

A crackle on the police scanner, the leaf
Crushed under the big high top. Away with you.

 

Author’s note: Regional organized groups of clowns are called “alleys.” The source of the word may be from the alley-like space between circus tents where clowns waited for their cue to enter; or from the cue itself, a traditional “Allez, allez!” which can be translated in any of various ways, depending, perhaps, on the clowns.  // JS

October 3 [Book of October]

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sycamorespring

October 3

Every wind is coming from the past. It began earlier

And it may enliven even the browned-out ground level
Settling of the sycamore’s spring, its old news

Swirling at my ankles at the edge of the library lot.
What did I forget to return? What crisp regret?

October 2 [Book of October]

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October 2 / the dark thought

The dark thought is just ahead
Like a porch off the kitchen,
The door held open
By a painted rock. But the sliding
Glass doors beyond are locked and weather-
Taped shut. I take the dogs outside
Before bed and the sudden quiet
Of crickets as we round the corner
Is like the dark thought. The dull
Glow of the last light bulb going out
Is not the dark thought though
I think it is. It’s like the rocking chair
Which I know I can avoid but
Walk into because my eyes
Are still smarting from the light
Bulb’s ghost, fading memory
Of light, which I turn to curse
And see only the pitch black air:
The solid darkness and lack of
Location: the nothing to grasp:
That’s the dark thought.