Building a habit out of ivies and orange flowers. Leaking away the time of possession, seeing without haste. The music has no purpose, neither the candles, neither the water. Words paired together too often become anathema. A revolt of the inner mind is underway. It can be stopped with judgement, with caution, with pardon, and if that is the case then belief is uncertain.

I. Haunting the Streets

Haunting the streets when the ghosts have all been laid to rest. Several methods of joy suggested, antagonistic to the idea of proving anything. Everything in the world can be stolen; not everything can be returned. It becomes a collection of strange aphorisms with no value, it becomes a stage upon which the emotions can play. A flat plain of existence, a sharp pain in the kidneys, an overactive mistake. What these things have in common is their erotic nature, hidden beneath layers of tongues. Absolutely: no coherence, not even with itself. And there is an inherent thrill with this, like pushing away clean sheets and finding a chasm.

Then there were the ideas of sex as a mutual belief in the greater good. There were ideas that flowers were metaphors for illusion. There were ideas that did not matter and there were ideas that had an impact not dissimilar to a catechism. Repetition under fluorescent light: at night the gazes wander, they trace sharp lines and leave the curves alone. Again, a powerful impossibility. Careful structuring is the enemy of lips, the enemy of partition. Another method of joy, partial and unfulfilling, still the longest road to travel. Better to undo the zippers down the arms and the buttons at the base of the spine, better to leave the clasps alone, better to do nothing well than to do nothing at all.

A turning point is concocted: the potion boils over on the stove, smelling of dust and lavender. Thoughts are removed from internal organs, displaced. It is this way and this way only; to dispute is to join the ranks of heretics and jesters, who in their mocking make it all come to fruition. Dance and laugh and cry. Dance while underneath dying, laugh with bells, cry in a graceful motion. Theses things can all be stolen but they cannot be returned, and if this is a joyful thought then remember that an allotment of joy can be turned around only once. After that, senses must be remade in a new image, the smell of skin will be real, and touch will be silently masked but still vibrant and whole.

II. End of a Richly Imagined However

End of a richly imagined however: now the reality of stubbornness sets in and she is nowhere to be seen, only heard. Her voices float somewhere above, as in the atmosphere, the stratosphere. Presume that her long lonesome body is like an uneven picture. Presume that sometimes she likes to be held too tightly, her lips wrapped around the engine of her sorrow. If only these diametrics could come together; if only these disparities could be wrapped in the blanket of articulation.

What gives is the hardness and the softness is unyielding. What comes undone are the long yards of hope with which legs are untied and economies revamped. And if she is in space and beyond all reach then it is all lost and the images grow dim; still they were only imagined to begin with and therefore cannot follow, only precede. Time lost and time regained. She is there in the shell, the dark home. What gives, gives in; what continues is the sound.

And desire: desire in her is desire in the saturated air, unpredictable. An oil well burning the reserves of future humans, a seagull at the pier without food, a collection of old postcards from a forgotten journey. Now it could be understood that fingers interlace of their own accord but bodies do not come together without interference. And now it could be understood that the diametrics have come together, the long yards of hope have come unraveled, time is lost, thought regained.

III. A New Type of Emptiness Is Needed

A new type of emptiness is needed. There: it has been said, and now the wars can begin. A tension is produced between the written word and its unknown components. Some call these chains and some call them elongations, and it is unclear whether one or the other serves an end and therefore the call for a new kind or new type, therefore the foam of words, the collisions. Whatever it is, it will be unconditional when it arrives in brown paper wrapping and with no note.

It is asked what comes between two things when they cannot seem to reach a mutual condition of being and the answer is always the same and is always ignored. Imperatives are issued, inconstant revival of this thing heard in the deeper resonant levels of mind. When it rises it causes a fear and the fear breeds in the abdominal cavity and then goes away. In search of a new subject: a new story: a new layout of the internal dynamics of catharsis and release.

Here explodes the last thing. Defiance can take place in new forms; power remains constant. Contentment: the new emptiness is the old emptiness and in the return is has been discovered that there is no need for newness, only parsimony in what is already there, what always has been there, and what always will be there.

IV. Yelling Spitting

Yelling, spitting, an act of mimicry. Here in corners of belief dark and unknown, a man in robes comes calling and then retreats. His message is garbled and deciphered with the help of an almanac and several old maps: speak, speak, and then listen. The boats listing on air will not return, the cars will swerve to miss the flattened bodies of pigeons. Darkly he goes, unheard, and nothing is changed. Later in the year a spell will lie across the town like a bard and no one will cross streets without looking. If there is a reason in that it has yet to be determined. If there is reason at all it has yet to be uncovered. But it could happen.

When the writing was like this, the emotions were decorated with illumination. The painstaking labor it took to erect a building without windows, the light let in through holes punched through concrete and chicken wire. The heart vibrates and small circles expand from its core. The body is clogged. It will come clean with a fast of berries and nuts and ruptures will result. Cleaving to a person like this is uneven; poetry is the language of frogs filtered through a mesh screen, boiled to an essence, and poured across the floor.

Here the man in robes who is young is at a disadvantage. He sees with his spinal cord. Everything is a challenge but the real moments of triumph are small ones, neglected ones, things like lighting the burner on the stove, things like having a cup of tea without the phone ringing. Sometimes when these small things pass they leave a small space in the mind, the kind of space that can be filled years later, when the reconstruction of a damaged soul is underway and the frogs are singing again and even those objects that have been misplaced are once again comfortable and sated.

V. Carrying the Process to Its Conclusion

Carrying the process to its conclusion. Here in humid blueness the air clings to the horizon like a bad sweater. Without this the silver is tarnished and the plants grow weak, but also persevere. Where there is no perseverance there is no continuation and clutter is one result: also disorientation, nausea, morning erections. A conditional statement has the power of suggestion. Watches are broken and vertical lines transverse the screens of waiting minds. In search of: however, a kindness, a smile that reveals teeth. Here it is, clinging, lifelike, in need of motive, in need of structure. Then, declined.

But conclusion is the point and declension is not conclusion. So the humidity changes color, goes to ground, becomes new again. So watches are unbroken but not repaired, in need of faces, no teeth in their unsmiling displays. The urgency of it is misplaced, a sin. Either it is lost or it is present in an unfamiliar way. Wordplay becomes a dangerous end because there is no conclusion in it, only open doors, heart surgery, thin air. Breathing takes its toll and breath is wasted, leaving time, leaving openings in dark corners full of lint and hair and the bodies of flies.

Then the thing to do becomes put on the best suit and the worst tie and go out in public and make small noises with feet, ambiguous gestures with hands. The thing to do becomes retaining interest without speaking words. The thing to do becomes truculent, a truism, a transition. But the plants are growing, comes the response. And the vertical lines are gone. True, true. Only one thing can be said and it must be said again and again for it to become real, but there is a danger in this, and an anger. The dark corners are found, explored, and they contain lint and emotions and the dead bodies of flies.