Author: William Cowan

Sensing purpose, you propose:
Totality always overflows the edges.

The storm reaches farther than thought
Possible, lapping the inscrutable.

Casting off with no directions
Courts sensuality is irrefutable.

Other than that
Hold the thought up to the light

Breath the description,
Hear the events, sing their song

With all your might.

There coughs the stars
The fading stories quench
Polished wisdom never hence,
Filing down clipped rows.

Grasp the bracketing particles
Rasping night air with a stare.
Row out to daunting crags where
A fallen rock is participle

To all sown seeds that flare
On windy paths now silent.
Vestiges reform our efforts curved
Out the stream’s muddied glare

Where past is ground pumice cleared
For fortresses hiding where relics seared
The story of convoluted traces
That bring in private a savior feared.

We have packaged all the deals,
though they are combustible,
into a great bundle that congeals
for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Please accept a token gratuity
before we eat your lunch.
We surge, we merge, and urge you to
remain silent and uninterested

in our gradual debasement of all
you hold dear. Is that clear?
You are not covered in any policy
we hold, but also you are not covered

in oil. Be grateful, just fold.
We could clue you in, but we hope
you remain clueless. Stand over there,
there will be some nugget bits

plus chits for you to sign
before all dignity is gone, & you
are in a bind. Hey, there is still music
as you know, and we as yet do not control

all its flow. Night gathers us high above.
Do not look up. Do not cough. Do not
organize against us,
for the gloves will come off.

The distances have composed a message
that will continue to become clearer
as it rolls toward you, some days
silently, all oil and promise

and at other times the scraping
is overwhelming. Otherwise it blinks
like decaying neon on a roadside bar & grille.
Once Ruscha-like it dared resistance.

Hey, doc have the wheels come off?
We do fade in and out of coherence
as twilight approaches on its sliding
Potemkin boards of dismal science.

Placated by the tips of trees counted
out the windows flipping by on the ride
to dissolute summer and its relentless
beating against all tranquil defenses

brings to irresolution a quiet coma
and drinks at the picnic table. Light
chatter of no consequence follows the crumbs,
& bees, our knees touching to comfort our hearts.

are you ready
to catch incoming

or are you laid back
strumming

as the scene slides by
trip hopping

while you’re busy
mopping your unused brow

pick the one
that holds you up

take her hand
sup from that cup

that we all could share
if we owned more

than just a tare
the true weight being

just elsewhere
& forgive me this aside

detour as I approach
the next chore

of aligning the pieces
on the plate

to please the Gods’
& our ongoing skate…

To catapult is improvisational.
Landing will surprise.

The rise, the ride is it.
To fame or market’s bottom.

Who is there
For your arrival? Will

You be gladden
by their waiting? Or

Removed from all
Caring in a flash.

I’m watching those
Fly overhead without

A seeming care. Two
Minds are observable:

Those with their eyes
shut tight

And those going wide-eyed
Toward glory or the abyss.

Driving Out Somewhere

To come out of the haze
that hung on the street
was a deep breath released.

Turning catches corners
lifting angle glance windy
sparse grit clutters angular walks.

Tied to bullet response held
back along drives away along
avenues dimly lit hushed fever gulf.

Roped-off personal folly comes
as the mind in the humming car
envisions the circumstance called the world.

All At Once

Register will and clock from silence.
Aperitif greets the meat of digression.
Happenstance fades to glimmer blade,
bends the corners of not quite.

Once there was subterfuge in the telling.
The all encompassing let it out.
Partial explanations for this moment
will never bond with your idea of narrative.

The alpha and the omega of transport blues
parks outside the newsstand playing
for change which is transitory.
All at once the measure ends, gathers dusk to its side.

Tossed pejoratives have narrowed the field. Out back
The grass grows while stasis and beautiful sunsets go hand And heart. From the north the glove is removed.
Satellite pictures gloss the subject. A vast patina
Has descended. “And, am I glad to see you.”
Others find the fog and traffic a distillation connected
To the end times like the frost on the lawn that stretches
Away from early times. Discontent has moderated
The flow of things around the basin.
Tasks were started up and rejected

Out of hand. Perspective is a two-way street.
Dinner arrives quietly comforting no one.
A tossed narrative, such as this,
Disjointed such as it is, links the shy
And the bold in a leap time devours.

Indirectly I still love you.
This essence is not linear.
Encouraging modal tones over abrasion
Is the way we survive.

Torn about and washed by turbine heaven,
We are flipped snaps,
Vignettes someone watches.

Newspapers whip about our ankles,
Trying to tear us.
Consonants claw us; vowels violate us.

The late hour cloud our response, blue to black.
Just this once let’s not talk. And,
May sparkling stars embrace us with tender years.

These predictable cries ring the mountains.
Help me hold them back. For whether it is dirt in your face or another wrenched from the womb is unimportant,

kiss me.

Ashes to ever. I stain the sheets
with you. Almond eyes that you
bring to the shadows lighten our efforts.
We join, taxing the reserve
that luxuriates our limbs.

Afterwords the dryness is gone.
The rumpled mess created is pillaged
time well spent. The air singes
my brow and wisps at the papers discarded
on the table, chairs, whatevers, cares.