Wow Moment

From the guts of the house, I hear my mother crying

for her mother and wish I understood

the principles of tranquility. How to rest

the mind on a likeness of a blast furnace

framed in formica by anon. A photo of lounge

chairs with folded tartan lap robes. An untitled typology of

industrial parks. The gentle interface of yawn and nature.

It would soothe us. It would soothe us. We would be soothed

by that slow looking with a limited truth value. See

how the realtor’s lens makes everything look larger

and there’s so much glare the floor looks wow

under the smartificial xmas tree.

After studying Comparative Reality

I began Die Polyvinylchloride Tannenbaumserie.

Turn off that tiny tasteful star, I commanded.

While you’re alive there’s no time

for minor amazements. Turn off the sallow pages of

your paralegal pad. I don’t need a light to think

of you. I don’t need a god to pray.

Some things are glow alone. I said one thing you said

you remembered I said. Was it will you be my

trophy friend? Or are you someone else’s

difficult person? I mean the more myself I

become the less intelligible I seem to otters.

I know what you mean you said.

It’s like the time I was compelled to speak

on hedonism to the monks and nuns.

Did I say most religion is devotional

expediency? Or religion doesn’t worry about being

religious, its wisdom corrupted by its brilliance as light

passing near the sun is deflected

in its path. Deep in its caprices,

the whole body thinks it’s understood.

To think otterwise is isolating. When I said

hedonism stressed cheerfulness,

there were disappointed groans. Look, I’m sorry

I gave you an ornament shaped like a hollow look.

I liked its trinket brightness. Just don’t give me

a water tower dressed up as a church steeple

or one of those silly thunderstorms

that hang around volcanoes. See how those teardrop lights

make every object jump? The memory does.

You made me love. Was it exile in honey

is still exile? Am I the fire or just another flame?

Please sell me an indulgence, I begged a monk.

And tell me what creature, what peril,

could craft that sound that night

dropped like a nubile sliver in my ear.

There is no freedom of silence

when morture forces us to speak

from organs other than the heart.

It was something about love. A far cry. It was come to me

unmediated, go to god lengths. In great things,

the attempt alone is sufficient. I think this

’cause I’m finite. That’s an understanding

to which reason can only aspire

though an entire speech community labored

for generations to say it in a fair hand clearly

dated and scented with lavender. My one and only only

a crass color orgy will see us through

the dusk ahead, the months gray as donkey.

See how it grows its own cross of fur

and bears it on its back? I showed you that.