At midnight in his living room a man
is angry at a fly that is bothering him.
How can this be?
A man is angry at things
that never happened
and never will happen.
He's angry at the woman he'll never meet
because she refuses to meet him
because, not existing herself,
she has no idea that he exists.
He's frying potatoes that don't exist
at sunset. The frying pan is a black sun
and out the window in the gathering dark
the ocean looks so heavy that it might fall
through the earth and join another ocean.
At dawn he wakes. There's a fly in the room
but perhaps it's a miniature bird. Magnified,
the sound is the basso rumbling of the universe
the peculiar music galaxies make when they fray
against each other. He sleeps again, his hand
on his dog's heart which says don't be angry.
She senses the steps of the last dance saved for us

-Jim Harrison, "Despond"

Spring
Up, up you go, you must be introduced.
You must learn      belonging to (no-one)
Drenched in the white veil (day)
The circle of minutes pushed gleaming onto your finger.
Gaps pocking the brightness where you try to see
in.
Missing: corners, fields,
completeness: holes growing in it where the eye looks hardest.
Below, his chest, a sacred weightless place
and the small weight of your open hand     on it.
And these legs, look, still yours, after all you've done with them.
Explain     the six missing seeds.
Explain       muzzled.
Explain     tongue breaks     thin fire      in eyes.
Learn what the great garden-(up, up you go)-exteriority,
exhales:
the green  never-the-less       the green who-did-you-say-you-are
and how it seems to stare all the time, that green,
until night blinds it       temporarily.
What is it searching for all the leaves turning towards you.  
Breath the emptiest of the freedoms.
When will they notice the hole in your head     (they won't).
When will they feel for the hole in your chest  
(never).  
Up, go.  Let being-seen drift over you again, sticky kindness.  
Those wet strangely unstill eyes filling their heads-
thinking or sight?-
all waiting for the true story-
your heart, beating its little song:  explain. . .
Explain       requited
Explain       indeed the blood of your lives I will require
explain the strange weight of meanwhile
and  there exists another death in regards to which
we are not     immortal
variegated     dappled     spangled     intricately wrought
complicated     obstruse     subtle     devious 
scintillating with change and ambiguity
Summer
Explain       two are
Explain       not one
(in theory)       (and in practice)
blurry, my love, like a right quotation,
wanting so to sink back down,
you washing me in soil now, my shoulders dust, my rippling dust,
Look     I'll scrub the dirt     listen.
Up here how will I
(not) hold you.
Where is the dirt packed in again     around us between us     obliterating difference
Must one leave off        Explain edges
(tongue breaks)     (thin fire)
(in eyes)
And bless.  And blame.
(Moonless night.
Vase in the kitchen)
Fall
Explain     duty to remain to the end.  
Duty not to run away from the good.  
The good.
(Beauty is not an issue.)  
A wise man wants?  
A master.
Winter
Oh my beloved     I speak of      the absolute     jewels.
Dwelling in     place     for example.
In fluted listenings.
In panting waters     human-skinned     to the horizon.
Muzzled     the deep.
Fermenting     the surface.
Wrecks left at the bottom, yes.
Space     birdless. 
Light on it a woman on her knees-her having kneeled everywhere 
already.
God's laughter     unquenchable.
Back there its river ripped into pieces, length gone, buried in parts, in 
sand.
Believe me       I speak now for the sand.
Here at the front end, the narrator.
At the front end, the meanwhile: God's laughter.
Are you still waiting for the true story? (God's laughter)
The difference between what is and could be? (God's laughter) 
In this dance the people do not move.
Deferred     defied     obstructed     hungry, 
organized around     a radiant absence.  
In His dance the people do not move.

Jorie Graham, Underneath (9)

Are you scared to die? If the answer is
a) No, skip to the end of the poem; if b)
Transformer station amid receptive cacti
When the air compresses & rocks the whole housing
Octopus-undersides, satellite dishes
Call your brother & compact the bill
Dynamiting little hibiscus almost like Christmas
Causal cell phones all business
Down by the consulates and banks
To get a signature guaranteed
For all time forwards & backwards
Expanding the guest list to include
The group home schizos like communicating bakeries
Though the universe folds its arms around you
Though the whole universe unfolds its arms to embrace you
Though the galaxy takes two arms of its own to hold you
No I didn't get any sleep last night
French language New York cop shows
Algerian TV all loneliness in the banlieues
Spanish adventure movies from the seventies
Emptying new trash into the sublime where we fish
As Halloween democratizing Cleopatra's wig
Falls on a pumpkin, my brown hair

-Ange Mlinko, The Djinn at Your Birth

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

-Mark Strand, Eating Poetry