Joshua Keiter

Deep—the night whispers
A breeze comes thru the window
Crackle and static

I take a picture in reverse
in place of the real reality
it turns to infinite regress
back thirteen billion years
to a point of light before
it was called light of course
before there were words
used by humans or gods
proving for once and all
in the beginning was a non
sequitur it didn’t really go
down in such an unfashioned
it was much more humble
and quiet you would hardly
notice in fact it made no sound
unlike the anachronism
enacted by our breaths
in mobile pendulum stream
believe me if you were there
you wouldn’t believe your eyes
not that there were eyes
then or beginnings or ends
just a solid sign sighing
and yes I said yes I will Yes

In places where the landscape
bears traces of upheaval rather
than renewal the house siding
is laced with coal dust
the overgrowth retains texture
of perpetual winter although
the sun continues its disintegration
on this long late spring day
the forecast didn’t predict this
warmth but it increases
as the hours wear on
looking for something to
photosynthesize at some point
if you keep digging you get to
the center of the earth
and come out the other side
where the sun isn’t shining
at least not at this moment
but there are no privileged
frames of reference there’s just
the sense that this way of life
is unsustainable that soon
there will be no earth left
to dig up the seeds will scatter
on fallow ground which is
another way of saying
that nothing will grow
here ever again anymore
until the light finds home

All day the fabric of my thought
has been suffused with last night’s dreams
just enough to remember emotion or image
not enough to recall narrative or sequence
so I propose in my near waking state
that this is what the previous life
or the next life should wind up being
a shift between consciousness with
no information passing between the cusps
except for the premonition of existence
just as a glance puts you in the perspective
of one approximating an open window
the leaf upturned awaiting the storm
the humidity thick with anticipation
on another world there are oceans underground
plumes of spray exalting through the crust
I take it in as I take in this memory
of what I was going to say were I not
interrupted by what I want to remember
as last night’s dreams of waking life
but the moment has passed and becomes

The thing that causes you to see
would deliver you blind
if it had its own way with you.

The idea of not being able to see
god probably came from the sun
but it’s much simpler than that.

You need to go below the surface
if failing to strike the source
keep digging until you get there.

I can’t tell you how to get there
you have to find it yourself
through rigid self-controlled discipline.

Everything you learn becomes chalk dust
coats everything in a veneer called things
only dish detergent will get it out.

Even then it’s a close run thing
the odds aren’t likely to improve
the face washing onto the shore is your own.

In all likelihood
the several dis-
concrete elements

will be pulled together
in sound of discord
shuffled off by

pressure distinct
incontrovertible
the mandible aghast

in midst of distemper
tempting the flood
of consonants

deliberate obfuscation
permitting the dis-
tourist direction

toward the unmediated
path through labyrinth
distended unalloyed

with gates swinging
wildly in the wind
district of riven seeds

planted in breeze
dismembered until
remembered then

unspoken disabled.