Zwijgen (audio only)
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The Song in the Dream
The song itself had hinges. The clasp on the eighteenth-century Bible
had hinges, which creaked; when you released the catch,
the book would sigh and expand.
The song was of two wholes joined by hinges,
and I was worried about the joining, the spaces in between
the joints, the weight of each side straining them.
2001
On. On. Stop. Stop.
In the old recording of the birthday party,
the voices of the living and the dead
instruct twelve absent friends
on the reliable luxury of gratitude.
The celebrated one hands out presents.
The dead dog barks once. We
take one another’s hands and follow their lead,
past the garden wall, out to the land
still stripped by winter. Those gone
do not usurp those here. We keep
the warning close, the timbre of their voices
mingling with the sounds of traffic
going much faster to its destinations.
Is it the size or the scale of the past
2013
Inside
No one to hear but Records for the broken player. No reason for order but order persists, from breakfast to bath to work, rain falling at one speed, the windows darkening and blurring, accident beating against belief. A loud engine, which is one way to say one thing. The floors swept daily, though it takes at least one hour for the first, one for the last. In the pages of a book, quick studies of gesture, tents of hands.
2005