i

Denying the most plausible hypothesis
Proposed as a double-blind by a blind proposer
Neglecting uncertainty (the gasp of the calloused experience)

With facts and a language we go forth

ii

it was our hometown but our hometown
being not a cobblestone Paris or Munich
it was therefore not

on my bicycle i stopped and saw
that hunched overcoat and i, alone
cast to the ground, screamed

(the blow had strangled all
the rest into a mangled, glistening
silence) long into the next day

but you see the flames were long quenched
by then: the pain was in the retelling,
my mind performing countless murders, later

and the deaths? what were those?
pure imagination; the unintelligible border
between the completely real and the complete

dream

iii

In the question of something after life,
in grasping for both infinity and now,
we discover (or fail to find) the truly
beautiful snare of the language we speak.

It is impossible to shape
the most necessary things--
and these poets fail,
eat rhubarb pie, shower,
and resume their long work.

07/10/2005

Author's Note: do thanks to johnny for edits, though i'm not sure i got where he or i wanted to go

Posted on 07/10/2005
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