Trains and electrical towers buzzed in his head. The locomotive is a moth that drinks only from puddles that harbor the reflection of the moon.
And the moth, now a locomotive again, falls into the reflection of the moon.
Later that night, neither the rain nor the rain against the windowpane make a sound. It is the tree roots drinking, it is the roots of stars drinking. That resonate.
A genius for the margins, like a stray shopping cart rolled up and jutting from a snowbank, or in spring an abandoned yellow umbrella tumbling along the gray railroad lines in a light rain,
The reflection of the reddening sky in the west facing panes, or the first crocuses in the city lot shooting up between beer can and soda can,
The chain-link with the corner pulled up through which the kids trespass into the abandoned grain mill to paintball and graffiti, or like the pedestrian bridge over the expressway garnished with fence on top,
Late at night the streetlights filling the rainy streets, taking root in the potholes and sewer grates, as our elbows share a window ledge looking out at thunderstorm,
A cricket lives less than the summer months, a star for billions of years, though a monarch butterfly flies south for the winter, and the robins return in spring.
Fairy tales are true. The birds transform into us, and we transform into birds.
But that’s not completely true. Neither is any of this. True enough mostly works. And the remainder? There’s always a remainder. How true. Even black holes leak radiation.
Complexity long ago outgrew the two-dimensional world. How many dimensions are there really? The solar system is a crop circle of gravity. Unbeknownst to you, your dreams keep a calendar. Wouldn’t you like to know the dates?
What does the cosmos wear? Some sort of driftwood hat? The storms of Jupiter for a buttonhole? All the highways for a fingerprint?
I like to follow along, tag along the railroad on rainy afternoon with waterproof boots and a simple blue jacket. Could this be biography?
It’s also meaningful to just sit and do nothing. And probably wise. I’m writing this in a bathrobe and a few days removed from a shave and wondering if this tooth ache will go away on its own. A garden is lots of work. But I’m glad of it. Meandering is a branch of philosophy. Take is seriously. Eating together is civilization.
Later on, as night sets in, I look out the window. The cold rain is indifferent. Maybe I need a little of this indifference.
How often does
Beauty start as an error
That finds its way
Again
In ambition
Of all that wonder.
Beauty is the set list
Of all lost
And gained
In a life, in a day,
After all these years.
Beauty annealed
By the wingspan and the walking shoes
And all that curiosity and cosmos
Templed
In the open fields.
When a dream breaks the fourth wall.
Like the footsteps of red autumn leaves
Determined by the wind’s simplicity. At night
So much of what we haven’t done
Lies awake. And wonders. The walker
Visits roam. A ghost spiritually can no longer tie its shoes.
All ghosts have untied shoes.
Which is a tripping hazard when going through walls.
Handwriting is a cosmology,
An archipelago of inklings
Like the orbits of our footprints
As we walk through puddles.
Because the calendar still has one foot in poetry,
Outcomes, whoever simple in the moment,
Over time gain in complexity. The horizon is always
Present-tense,
Yet the clouds like coins
In a time machine.
It is all waves. On the largest scales.
And the smallest scales. I am on a ladder
In a dream, sans shoes. The stars bristle over
The sea.
The traffic light blots the intersection
In turn red, in green. It’s raining. I’m out for a walk. It’s all
Chance and honesty. In the end.
And inherent to the universe is complexity, is life.
And all that is breaking. Breaking down. And breaking open.
A walk is a glad
Unfencing of the
Present. The body
Finds it meditative.
Eventually, though, I stop for lunch.
A peanut butter and jelly
Sandwich and an apple.
I sit on some neglected ledge
Not far from the railroad tracks.
The posture of electric towers
Is impressive as I straighten
By back.
In the fields that run along the
Railroad tracks, that’s where
I often walk, I like the belated
Graffiti and all kinds of flowers
And insects, the corrugated metal
Fencing of the junkyard,
On which is spray painted:
"A spaceship
Like a hiccup
Lost of home"
&
"A passing moment
Not intended as far as I know of anything
At all. The rest I leave to the weather"
At the end of the path I am walking on is a
Clearing, where last year someone burned a car,
Leaving its charred remains.
From here I turn back and head home.
And if I have spent my certainties, I have
Also pooled my uncertainties, a body
Meandered into a wayward dignity.
All time is of a length, and all lengths are relative,
And lacking an absolute foothold, proclaims
Feet everywhere.
Listening to an old Walkman
At the bus stop.
The darling splendid ruffling up of
Routine. I took the day off
Of work.
A sidewalk dream meandered
All day.
Who knew the stars in our dreams
Are the same stars when we are awake.
Do paradoxes dream?
Hello again.
The light from the lamppost reflecting off the rims
Of your glasses.
As deep as a well in a fairy tale
The stars burn.
What have you been up to?
I spent the afternoon playing
Mini golf alone.
Sitting quietly listening to the sound of rain on the pavement
Play out its equivalence.
Airing out a bed sheet after calling off work
Turns devotional.
And the waltzes before 6am.
A cloudy cut of afternoon
Along the railroad tracks
And a little rain just started.
If it gets worse, I’ll stand under
The viaduct for a while.
And the lack of meaning or too much meaning in the red leaves
Astonishes even into the cells and nerves
When autumn fetches the hills.
Like a ship
Parting with the night
Of a prowl
Hardly stepping
Of the sea
Till cloud-decked
With purpose.
Primitive loops of wind
And rain and streetlight.
Over the railroad trestles
I walked since a kid
I’ve done this and picked field
For its lonesome.
Heading home at dusk across a parking lot overrun
And left for potholes.
Potholes are nature’s ingrown toenails.
Unless filled with rainwater.
What could a gymnast do on the even bars?
Let’s begin with a mess, shall we?
naïve haircuts 