Changing Light in August
1.
Zero hour. Waiting yet again.
This breathless June night.
Moonglow starts from scratches as my oval
tilting inwards
converges with lamplight
ten days back
elemental, refined
glowing blue of moon-drape summer
stillness.
Moments on end
lasting a balmy forever
each passing second
passing, dense, quiet.
The polite starlight filling in.
The side of me that you see
flung against the ceiling--
the shifting light
through curtains blowing
curving pattern of hard-movement turns
cars and lights
going somewhere else
In darkness.
An imagined dark, a stage
a blank page
white
Athens in April
California in July
the collision of thoughts, fast-dash choir
of presence
the collision of sound and bars.
Come and go in the mists
of calculus and rumor.
Three intensities of Prussian blue
cascading, overlapping
cloudlets giving way
Underfoot
crumbling, washing, flowing
with wringing-wet of unraveling rug
Sleep
sheetless
rivers of sweat in closed-in
cockroach scratching
silence
Awaken. Eat. Read the mail.
These are the rituals of life.
Night excitement
the buzzing buzz-blue of a porch zap
gripping cups and cold, clustered half-shadows
June leaking away.
Streetlights leaking away.
2.
Slapdash trickery
of old friend-foe
the thrill of a new calendar
the movement of people and places
through time
burned and obscure
hated and chased
clustering roadside weeds, huddled.
The creeping in,
creeping doubt.
Since we were 6
running bare-foot, candybar joy
raw desert, raw lights
under Los Angeles afterglow hum
black widows under porchwood tilting
That July of damp-refrigerator
cold-shower
broken window wood…
All things left behind.
In hallways and walks and room-corner shadows
boxes
of schoolpapers and toys, books and plans
mapped, sketched, piled, traced
in hot nights ignored
dumped
In the desert field
dumped
by the Joshua trees.
You here, now.
In the passage of June-July
the curiosity of bathroom-tiled dorm,
the felicity of red umbrellas.
The cat who cried at the window
for her, and my sister.
You here, now.
Something in the sad
end-of-season light
remains unsaid
3.
Hallucinogen, chorale, horoscope:
each its own world, hypnotic, many-sided
Facet of the universal gem.
Observing
that his lights and darks
were a projection
Observing
that all lights and darks
are a projection
I haven’t sat next to you
on ivy-porch nights
chattering of insects
watching a street
watching
the flash of neighbor’s TV
bent steel trashcan cluster
with arms and insight
intertwined
The failing light
in August.
Absalom, Absalom!
Itinerary--
rolling, steam-hot blanket of light stars
filling cracks and streams
and corners of apartment-hole madness
falling into shadows
the wished-for
and the wished-against
That you move through this August,
you, now.
I haven’t sat next to you
in blowing August-night,
with Albuquerque stars overhead.
Will there be this August?
Absalom, Absalom, Absalom.
--Ren Adams, 2015
1.
Zero hour. Waiting yet again.
This breathless June night.
Moonglow starts from scratches as my oval
tilting inwards
converges with lamplight
ten days back
elemental, refined
glowing blue of moon-drape summer
stillness.
Moments on end
lasting a balmy forever
each passing second
passing, dense, quiet.
The polite starlight filling in.
The side of me that you see
flung against the ceiling--
the shifting light
through curtains blowing
curving pattern of hard-movement turns
cars and lights
going somewhere else
In darkness.
An imagined dark, a stage
a blank page
white
Athens in April
California in July
the collision of thoughts, fast-dash choir
of presence
the collision of sound and bars.
Come and go in the mists
of calculus and rumor.
Three intensities of Prussian blue
cascading, overlapping
cloudlets giving way
Underfoot
crumbling, washing, flowing
with wringing-wet of unraveling rug
Sleep
sheetless
rivers of sweat in closed-in
cockroach scratching
silence
Awaken. Eat. Read the mail.
These are the rituals of life.
Night excitement
the buzzing buzz-blue of a porch zap
gripping cups and cold, clustered half-shadows
June leaking away.
Streetlights leaking away.
2.
Slapdash trickery
of old friend-foe
the thrill of a new calendar
the movement of people and places
through time
burned and obscure
hated and chased
clustering roadside weeds, huddled.
The creeping in,
creeping doubt.
Since we were 6
running bare-foot, candybar joy
raw desert, raw lights
under Los Angeles afterglow hum
black widows under porchwood tilting
That July of damp-refrigerator
cold-shower
broken window wood…
All things left behind.
In hallways and walks and room-corner shadows
boxes
of schoolpapers and toys, books and plans
mapped, sketched, piled, traced
in hot nights ignored
dumped
In the desert field
dumped
by the Joshua trees.
You here, now.
In the passage of June-July
the curiosity of bathroom-tiled dorm,
the felicity of red umbrellas.
The cat who cried at the window
for her, and my sister.
You here, now.
Something in the sad
end-of-season light
remains unsaid
3.
Hallucinogen, chorale, horoscope:
each its own world, hypnotic, many-sided
Facet of the universal gem.
Observing
that his lights and darks
were a projection
Observing
that all lights and darks
are a projection
I haven’t sat next to you
on ivy-porch nights
chattering of insects
watching a street
watching
the flash of neighbor’s TV
bent steel trashcan cluster
with arms and insight
intertwined
The failing light
in August.
Absalom, Absalom!
Itinerary--
rolling, steam-hot blanket of light stars
filling cracks and streams
and corners of apartment-hole madness
falling into shadows
the wished-for
and the wished-against
That you move through this August,
you, now.
I haven’t sat next to you
in blowing August-night,
with Albuquerque stars overhead.
Will there be this August?
Absalom, Absalom, Absalom.
--Ren Adams, 2015
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