reminder: on seeking and tangentially finding

An impoverished Polish villager dreams of a treasure hidden under a bridge in Krakow. Arriving in the big city, he locates the bridge of his dream. The tollkeeper, noticing a loitering man with a shovel and suspicious intentions, confronts the pauper, who confesses his mission. "Dreams!" exclaims the guard. "Why, only last night I dreamt that in the home of Chaim Yankel the peddler in the village of Usseldorf, a chest of gold coins is buried in the wall behind the stove. So do I travel all the way to Usseldorf to break down the wall of some poor yokel's home?" Chaim Yankel hurries home, demolishes the wall behind his stove, and lives happily ever after on his buried treasure.

late-night lingering

"Come, dear; we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform."

(Wilde)

down to the rose-

Parades

And when you are finally caught and questioned,
it is discovered, sadly, that you know
nothing of use. Your captors exchange glances, nod.
You are released in the freedom of some afternoon,

some autumn of the year, your coat, hat, returned
as if to continue your life. Now it is you

in the world again. In yellowing rooms, life
becomes no more than the places where it occurs.
At the pier in darkness, parades will cross the water,
visible but once. Or I could say

I saw the wind coming hard along the river
touching all it passed.

How are things consequent? When they catch you
again, what will you say? That all things
may be weighed, may be raised and weighed
by two human hands?

-- Jesse Ball

tea in the Sahara with you

Faced with 8:38

Faced with 8:38 (its form & function,
its deliberate countenance), anything I could say turns
cheap & aphoristic. Blush & stumble words
armored in intent.

My time spent (spine bent) in the brevity of
this 8:38 — in the linger & lull of its quick arms
— has been Auspicious. A piece of luck.
& Opportune.

Because time can instruct. Is.
Is always, in a sense, 8:38 & never
a finished thing. . . . Time is becoming less
rigid or more so.

Any form tends to become its own
function & carries within it (clutched
or cradled) a miniature of its own
destruction.

Movement & form are not the same
thing unless movement is given form
(is formed by & accepts
the gesture).

What have I done?         (for example)

My eyes opened just as the bedroom
clock (digital) configured as if on ice 8:38.
Day, thus far, appears convex & not
altogether unpleasant.


On us too

                         On us too
beings & things
cast no shadow

                         morning is slim
sunless & nervous
a minute belies me

                         a minute betrays
a hand's tiniest
hesitation

                         in this kitchen
now
toast toasting in a toaster

                         & time's utter
refusal to obey
the promise of its own

                         consistency, its own
myth

as if planning
already

                         the daily, the small
celebrations
kept secret & to itself

while I have           coffee & toast
8:38 prefers           tea & eggs

-- Mary Molinary