Or to Begin Again Read Online Free Page A

pertinence.
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    In a dream of the girl and the lover,
now forgotten as the day, inevitably, is forgotten,
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    there is a difference between being forgotten
and being among the dead, but
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    given these episodes,
their proof turns to night and stone.
5.
    The ears are ordinary, the feet
distorted. The girl has a condition
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    not announced in the greenroom
but nevertheless leaked to the press.
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    Biography has its compulsions, its regrets.
It could be the materiality of opaque gold
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    and the severity of promises,
their promiscuous gift,
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    oaths made on pillows between lovers.
There, in the eventide,
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    a strangling usurps the petty comma,
staggers from rejection to confirmation to murder
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    institutionally foretold. O Francis!
Do you stand for the cold, the cruel,
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    the bargain between such desire and such trust?
Take no prisoners. Let the homily endure.
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    The holidays are adept at the spectacle of divorce.
They specialize in silence, gala silence.
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    Masterpieces of the still life
make their way onto tables of the celebrants.
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    Holy! Holy! Holy! intones the priest.
Things are given and taken away.
    Here is a token of my affection.
Here is my child.
6.
    Turning the figure away, removing it
leaves its replica shadow
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    to shift with the gloating wind.
Later, the sculptor
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    pieces together poor bits of fabric,
copies from memory the shape of the lips.
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    The original remains vocable,
escaping the dream’s
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    unscripted solitude, conceiving night’s
blind, its familiar embrace.
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    Francis is silent. He has taken a vow.
Suffering unfurls its performance,
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    elicits revenge. On a ladder,
the man turns to address the public.
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    He imagines strangling the woman.
He speaks of his future in a nest.

AFTER TOURISM
    Disturbed over her marvel I heard her say
something nocturnal I saw
mystery as merely change I saw
envy and the illegitimate mile I saw
under the formal atrocity at the messy embankment
all these and vocabulary lagging behind its science
tramp unknown soldier cop
talking strange talk
under an altered light under daze
I heard her say tomorrow as if she knew
I heard her say come back
and I choose you
as analogue of the yet to be.
Do not foreclose
investigation, but come along.
I will try not to protract my look into
now I will continue as if
you were next if you will I heard a man say
on the radio the other day, well, yesterday
talking about headaches
if you will
and today I had a look at
a Chinese cabinet only it is not clear
it is Chinese it
may be from another country I took
measurements nevertheless
for my next life I am thinking of requesting librarian
although I am as yet not on a list
of possible survivors I am
    thinking of erasing the word sorrow from
the world, hurting under an illusory pennant
master of ceremonies hidden behind its junk
I am thinking of coming back as
part of your coat as a tree is part wind.

FIGURES MOVE (SAINT PETERSBURG)
    Back from the thunderous geist
bills to pay, grass to cut, fish to fry.
The spectacle of tasks
importuning, scenes
folded under scaffolds of lore.
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    Figures move
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    collapse of particulars
reformation borrowed from chapter
and force.
    VIDEO CLIP
    Para enters, carrying Doxa,
aided by her friend, Lysis.
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    They live in the City of Ancient Signs.
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    Para is thin, very thin, and Doxa is heavy, quite heavy.
Lysis is listless, fatigued. She has been idle forever.
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    Under the Golden Arches they see a winged horse.
Lysis says, “Mythos.”
Doxa agrees.
Para is fearful; she feels left out. She consults
Doctor Noid. Dr. Noid is annoyed with Para.
How many times do I have to tell you
to take your camera wherever you go?
How many times do I have to tell you
to record all events, sounds, weathers?
How do you expect