True Discourse on Power

When I say the ghost has begun

you understand what is being said.

That time is not how we keep it

or measure

first there was then wasn’t . . .

It twitters and swerves like

the evening news.

Now outside is 3D. Inside non-

representational space.

Every law has an outside

and inside

I have witnessed cruelty

break and gulp and sweat then

punch out a smile.

To be awake. This talking in space.

To be absorbed in the ongoing.

Belief’s a shadow to be looked into

and into

until relief is gone. The dark

triangle settled in the midst of

traffic is on us.

Time comes in adverbial bursts,

a glass of beer, a smoke . . .

The evening air refreshes, startles,

and the questions grow deeper like

shadows across storefronts.

A forsythia ticking against

the dirty pane.

This was time. Up. Down. Up.

And you were a part of it.

If I say it can you feel it now?

Imagine. Lightning strikes. Rain

falls and drives.

Clouds pass. Night clarified. Stars.

In silent pictures the tree falls

in the optic nerve.

The sound is chemistry.

There’s no getting to it or if

getting to it

feels like the actual sound

is that silence?

Alone here with my shadows

drawn . . .

So what’s this about?

A horse and a castle, a tree

and its leaving?

What’s this about in solitary

splendor?

The undertow and its threshold,

a door and the opening sky?

Or because a play of reflection

lit up my bumper

and caught my eyes

I saw the shadow of a falcon.

Because a sound a poor man

uttered

reached my ear I fell into song.

If the syntax of loyalty is not tragic

then what is the wager?

If there were time, would it be ours?

Copyright Credit: Peter Gizzi, “True Discourse on Power” from Threshold Songs. Copyright © 2011 by Peter Gizzi. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Source: Threshold Songs (Wesleyan University Press, 2011)