Tertiary Magnetism


Homage to Breton and Souppault

Remove
one degree and demons
will slide from your eyes
cool as tears
leaving strange formations
in their wake.

*

Look—
she is bound to the red
chair by hostile truth. Her dress
is torn into coded messages
while fingers tap out
Latin words against
wet paint.

*


We do not
need guns here just
tired knives and sharp
kisses that refuse to meet
parallel lines bleed towards
receding waters and they
resent our desires.

*
Tomorrow
is a game she wants
to play but rules
smell too much of pine tar
and ennui She will stay
tied up and happy
in her very red chair.

*

All of this
happened before
any of us
were born All
of this
will happen again
and it always
reeks of mirrors.

---

Improvisation On A Theme From Aragon

Chanson du Miroir D'eserte, Elsa, 1959

Here is a song from a vacant mirror
Abandoned in a hallway slightly askew
Forgotten limned with dust never quite new
Glass waits patient before tarnished silver

I watch you slip out and in arcane doors
Composing your face without ever looking
I see your tremors how your hands shook Things
That you hope are hidden are my daily lore

I’m tired of lurking glanced at but unseen
That’s not your worry I always spot you
Wrapped in your smoke clouded in your youth
I hang to reflect your cigarette dream


I’d attack you but you’d never know it
I’d take the plains of your face the retreats
Hardened against hope that are your teeth
I’d conquer you with my faint blue tint

I await every post-coupling triage
When you renew your face dust off your smile
I am the only witness at this trial
A cloud a gray ghost a silver mirage

---

Imperative Song

I am on the outskirts of some non-existent town, the long-winded prologue to an unwritten book.
—Fernando Pessoa
The Book of Disquiet, entry 28


You must not go there.
The water is so cold.
It’s hard—a tarnished mirror.
Your lost eyes will follow you.
Now you’re old,
sad. Each shade of blue
sticks to your coat like cat hair
on a hot day. Don’t go there.

You must not stay here.
Leave before he comes
out of a silver nowhere.
You only know lies—untrue
as a nun
escaping the new
red rising moon. She’s near
enough to teach. Don’t stay here.

You may not leave now.
You’ve lost. This is home—
Cold, binding as a secret vow
that pawns your soul. There are few
doors. Unknown
daggers fall like dew.
You can’t hide—you don’t know how.
You have no chance. But leave. Now.

---

Housecleaning


It is futile
to keep dusting
the mirror:

Dust never sleeps
and the mirror can’t lie.

It’s best
to leave the whole thing
alone.