Force is force, matter is matter, will is will,
the infinite is infinite, nothing is nothing.
âLeo Tolstoy, A Confession
[ Dark Matter ]
The flat black
of the cast iron
pan, the pull of
flame. Not the iron,
its ferromagnetic
birth drawn deep
core of earth;
not the earth
but her elements.
Not the pan,
but the pig iron,
the bituminous ash.
Not the ingot, but
the sand, the mold
to mass; not the load
but the scour, the meld
the eutectic; not
the molten, but the alloy
the liquid tug of mass
to mass; not the cast
but the pan, the gray
tuned to black
patina of lipids
âfat of animal,
of olive, of living
accumulation
of use. Not the
flame, but the
jet, not the jet
but the burning.
Not the flame
but the light;
the wavelength
blued, of red.
Not the spike
but the interval.
Whatâs between,
whatâs missing;
to be there and
not there; to be
Oakland; to be
and not to be.
The evidence,
the gravitational
lens, the curvature;
postulated, hypothetical
question, rotational
speed of galaxies,
anisotropic apostrophe,
signed and signified.
A hunch, a heft:
a cast iron pan
curing on the stove,
a mundane matter,
dark and certain.
Blind Contours: Night Sky
Since the stereoâs playing vintage arrangements, synthetic and pervasive
as microchips, tonight may as well be rushing by
like the cityâs sodium lightsâan amber countdown elapsing its sequence
past the cranked-open sunroof. Your faithfully
falling apart Volkswagen ferries you out past the light-pollution border
to the clarity of ocean air and dark
heavens: the brittle riddle thatâs annoyed you to steering until the
only road left dead-ends into dirt,
the scruff of rock-brush, black and rolling surf. And now at least
the frame stands still against the sky
and the musicâs turned kind and melancholic as an old scarâa music
that suits your self-indulgent brood.
Because what haunts your mood isnât as beautiful or false as a girl on a dance
floor where other lights beckon the
unsteady question that troubles your restlessness. Youâd curse the stars
if you had the courage, curse the crude
body that propels you through the firmament. And now, because youâve
no answer, only more corpulent questions, Vulpecula
foxes herself carefully into the center of your cosmos as the sunroof frames
stars into a simple pattern of coy vixen,
a trickster, a trixie full of guile in the dumb beyond, her slow stumble clarifies
whatâs left to youâbequeathed as breath.
Take inventory. Breathe and keep doing so.
The night is sleep-deprived whilst the Greyhound lists toward dawn.
Landscape falters out the window: youâre aching homeward, frazzled
as the fields of Joshua trees stamped against the troubled half-dark.
You canât trust your senses when they reveal the skyline of a distant city
that gleams its broken oath in art-deco arcs & limestone façades, temples of chrome
burnt white, shadow of the dome of pleasure, a prophecy of towers built
from nuclear steam, seams, & edgesâledges of the streamlined Lost Horizon;
Carbide & Carbon, Coit Tower, a Chrysler spire, Boards of Trade, pearl studio
of the imagination; Moderne & rippled radiators anchored in the obsolescence.
City of the aborted future, shroud of parallax. Then a shifting of winds, of gears
grumbling through transmission, a tuning light as the bus angles away from sunrise.
The refraction of glass refocuses form against sky & the phantom polis evaporates
at the edge of night. Less than hallucination, more than semiotic ghost. Whatâs
lost is nothing as tangible as your uncomforting seat, or ...