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    An Incident Assembled

    from the Journal of the Perpetrator

    ​

    by Rich Ives

    ​

    ​

    I’m on my way to rebellion                             and I’m there to learn

    bandaged in cargo                                           to smudge my intentions

    drinking spinal pleasures                                 I span the hour

     

       waiting for paperbacks with several hours inside

     

    clouds in the pond’s ceiling                             pale palaver of washed light and still

    overwrought pigs slap the mud                       lever the fence to a bend that releases

    ungainly flung                                                 their dangling trotters up and over

     

      which I greet with my orchard and tiny golden claws

     

    at the silence in the sentimentality                    chuckling down the light like a room

    with branches its body                        slicks the principles of organization

    held by the principles in the organization        and sometimes I fever

     

    my love letters with a pinch of obsession

     

    blossom in my election                                    which can’t process the night transparently

    though the idea dresses                                   and in this way goes out to them

    down blind alleys of innocent resolve and by placing a tender of rest

     

    empty in 3 A.M. in the way of a dancing

     

    I was high school dusty and evasive               only one trouble

    but big and I’d been                                        already named that

    in the season of the rebels                               which captured their anger

     

       like a misplaced empire of ants

     

    the pulse of what was                                      breathing in my wings

    one glass lawn and                                          some teabags withdrawn

    from the moans                                               a solar behavior occasioned by the dew

     

         frozen in last winter’s lips kissing a statue

     

    I questioned the nervous                                 creature who lived there my

    words like fish and                                          tender collections

    it was a camp for that wonder                         with premises vacated yes

     

    anything had happened and happened

     

    and slept there                                                 where I constructed aftertaste

    beforehand                                                      and four of me seemed to know

    three of me                                                      better than I did

     

        I had an olive in my pocket where my lack of money used to be

     

    in two bright canals winging north                  across the possibility of approach

    it’s a dark weightless night floating out           from might have been

    two bright lunar reflections                             clumsier than college

     

     I locked my cylinders into my hand

     

    and I hit on barreling ahead of myself where I had been so often before

    reflecting upon the moon’s involvement         with one sliver of possible

    away and one lecture refusing                         conclusions

     

      the pleasures blemished onto the crutch and sway

     

    actually choosing my foot                               from the stable

    the patient impossible held                              the impossible patient

    while I became my cold                                   self as one

     

       which had entirely too much

     

    body and was out of humor                            needed to get some air

    the two factions of any lover                           confuse the uniform

    uniforms and old weapons                              no one has seen before

     

       if I splay my little finger singing in the mirror

     

    I mean left or right                                           and which way do I

    turn to get back to                                            slant and fold

    the great lift and applause of bone                   breaking over

     

       the second joint stunning the jaw into silence

     

    and a crackle of                                               splintered attention I’ve been

    wearing this decision                                       of interest since Tuesday

    quite funny                                                      how I drive my distraction

     

        into the wrong lake and

     

    still carry the picnic off                                    with memories of worry-rice

    frozen in mother’s father                                 a trail leading maybe

    into a tenderness that knew                             where the old cliffs wanted feeding

     

    rain spread out over weeks and days

     

    calling thousands of the tiny                            wet staircases

    the still whispered                                           into the hyacinths and

    the bleeding hearts                                           there was no abundance

     

     not in the stone and without proof of low wall content

     

    without a few rungs of interference                 many daytime

    scaffolds would be left                                    hangings to offset the climbing

    choruses of resentment                                    held in the cups of flowery pergolas

     

     but you stretch the harbor to what you can almost see

     

    inspect yourself                                               proof of territorial regard

    don’t consider me or anyone else                    with restraint and don’t walk

    in the naming of things                                    lilt but don’t not walk to things

     

                 as I said to the radical brick I’ve already thrown me

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