unfurling (a scroll)

John R. Campbell

remains

The essential relation between death and language flashes up before us, but still unthought.

--Heidegger (superscript mine)

sic intentionally preserving the error

kne never abandoning silence

ssa red silence searing my tongue

sli cunning like that--

ter the very earth,

ary its delicate atmospheres

dev as we devolve

ice pining for cold ages

me and you

an so antsy in

sa your sapphire chair--

re remember

en ending

ds that kiss?

acr acrid moon,

isp an inspiration.

del delicate

ive possessions,

ryy our questions.

ets each morsel,

ome each slat,

thi your thighs pressed

ngo against (o) my thighs,

fth we move ever forth

ees even as time remains

sen where it is

cei see, for this I

slo love you slowly. I

st resist never resist

while

ceaseless winds

pour in from the sea

yo the reason for awe, or

ur ecstasy: existence

wo (and non-)itself, worthy

rt of everything: of rot,

hy of urban decay,

go of travelling viruses, &

al the encompassing smirk

ab of (abstract) death

ou out of molds (hollows,

tt and what they betray)

ob obsessive absence

es rises,

wa wailing

ll at penetrable walls.

ow allow for the dead:

ed (verb) the past--repast

ste steam rising,

mth methodically chaotic,

eti from food, or

deo a series of decorated

fal cakes: red (memorized)

lth oak leaf icing,

isu public & familiar,

gli gliding past the actual

nes past. image as attribute:

s singularity wanes

while

offshore rocks

are stroked by the sea

fet fetish, that colonial word:

chi enchantment, amulet,

sth luck of the seventh son.

edi edifice remains

sta as stable as it is,

nce nicely absorbing the other

ove suns, sheltering eggs,

rwh possessing the whole,

ich forming icons of chitin

win and gold. o, triumphant

dac silence. while flowers

ts( are teased by the wind,

aso associated with the wind

ver by overt (egg-laying) bugs.

wat fervent, the insects

er) are (convey) desire

while

the storm opens

to turquoise

yo I like to sleep

ub in public,

et let my body

ra radiate

ye dreams. the

dm dim (ancient) scraps,

yt spurning reason,

ru rustle

st in the street

lis listless

ten (latent) tension

asm usually assumes

yap its speech:

pet petite nouns,

ite trite possessives,

sin forbidden verbs.

cre creeds emerge:

ase ascendance

in which X is an unknown

number, counting time: the dancer accords her body

the power to alter narrative time, moving back &

forward within a circumscribed space (space

especially circumscribed, ritually circumscribed,

circumscribed by light, separate yet communal space,

in which to enact choreographed time. not ascendance:

steps

and you, so I

so long crave

gone in to leave,

natural for woods

numbers, or peaks,

heavy- for depths

lidded closed-off

eyes not to sight,

exactly precisely

opening, entering

pouting a melancholy

like they pleasure,

taught you, learning

skidding to careen.

in your my lovely

noir car mystery:

on wet the moist

city streets, understory,

hoping fecund

against with decay.

hope my desire:

to acquire to own

a circum- the whole,

scribed to write

place: you my location,

won't you to please

want too a yearning

much plenitude

while

dead gorse

litters the dunes

olo olive-colored

veo veils

exq disquieting

uis vice

ite site of intersecting

thr throngs

ush ushering in

com some new composure

evi evicting specifics

sit of place

mei o metropolis

nmy possessed

sor by assorted

row tomorrows

her hear me not

e swallow me

diamonds in the rough:

I thought of jewels in unruly grass

guess I was wrong

anar Impatient quivering spider,

chai see (with all those eyes)

cski how I praise the open sky?

ll: ho Now I home in only

ldin on the ever-laden moment.

gfor I'll not glorify

thun the thunderous past,

tilt nor pry at a crooked future.

heho Funny how a mere suggestion,

usec a thirty second sketch,

omes becomes a meditative web

down spun of one's own hunger.

while

beachgrass

makes arcs in the sand

It's at this point

information becomes vague,

the banner on the street

of some dark small town: is it

______________ Days, is it

Canyon City, the borders dissolve,

no-knowledge is the core of it,

as Canyon Cities everywhere

rise in the mind

with their staggered silhouettes.

I sing to the music

of this old guitar

as the world goes bronze,

colonized by green. Cities,

a thriving decay,

glitter in the hills. Once

every episode had me as its

center. But then

my body succumbed. My

illnesses won their domain.

I, no longer the

core, have become instead

an enclosure. I am a song:

no longer staid, I

don't deter familiar death,

don't charm or prolong

the moment. I can't

enhance the past. Emptied,

I can only carry

over sleek

& random hills.

_______________________________________________________________________

postscript to unfurling (a scroll)

living winter trees

willful silhouettes

The fervent outpouring

lines,

the time collapsed to

carbon: that we may live,

& transfer

some of these energies

down (generations, o ever-

flowing

genesis). Should we need

to resist, that a matrix is

fixed

against the gloaming. Or,

should it all collapse, our

scrolls

attenuate against a flash,

(o vision inscribed to no

one)

that we’ve had our moment

of more than ash,

our festival

of dust.