What the lyric means
by Hunter Larson
The theory of the lyric is the body.
Be definitive when you say it.
The little abstract gaps between the body
and what comes after it.
Release the body to vivid abstraction
the body on the line, a tonal shift
bury your head in the lyric.
A candle lit in the empty window
of a church, a little rustle
in a bush like the chime of a name.
Dull sunlight against a window pane
reminds me where my life is at.
Do you trust your art, the state
of things? Do you trust the rapid world
as it rearranges in the blank space
between your face and mine?
This is a love poem for anyone.
This is a poem about being absolutely
and irresolutely changed, mid-poem.
The sound of my blood flowing
is a prayer in the back of my throat.
The theory of the body is the body.
An instinct hanging over
everything like a motor.
Today it’s purposeful and aching
everything hurts when you say it
like that, fluent in narrative
buzzed in the evening.
Press the screen to your mind and thumb
the wide world of representational
beauty. The hum of it. Photos
of plants breathing. Photos
of people. Reinvent your life in the gap
between touch and touched.
I choose the great poem of disbelief.
Older now and happier, I carve our names
on a bench in the park cuz the movies
made it look so romantic.
At exactly 2:17am last night
I walked down the street and heard
the distant sound of the train
with a sudden clarity. I opened my bag
pulled out the book you gave me.
The plan is the body.
The sky is the sky. Who can read it.
The theory of the body is the lyric.
The night revolving in the street like a reason
to pass some time alone, etched
into light by the movement
of the body and the movement of the hour
as it hums across the moment like
a track of velvet, a disaster swerving to exist.
I choose the great poem of relief
in the morning, desire
at either edge of the day.
And the threads of our lives keep falling
from the eyes of the day like strings
out the ears of people on the street
walking their dogs in mildest reproach.
And the sun keeps doing what the sun does.
And the hours drop like belief.
Something universal in the air
like forgetting where you parked your car.
Like forgetting who you came here with.
The theory of the lyric is the body
and I live on the third floor
above a florist. Every night I go outside
and watch the planes fly over the city.
Every night they skim my mind
like rumors, like little backwards prayers.
I try not to love them but I do.
Glowing like the seasons do
right before they blend, tell me how
you always know where the light will go
and how to go on when it leaves us.