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                               Hartshorn & the noumenon

 

The retablecirrus as if behind
the sun by it and outremer oblated
a carmine rink from which lone figures twist
in upward bloom then virga; nightlightning’s
protraction when meeting the ocean outside
of Stintino;…the skag perdu pretended
to naught that we may judge and own our hearts,
that we may sink meontic, quiet as
is possible let go: this last is now,


a phase becomes a life beneath a sun
always kenotic and without exception
outofcontrol, a skag attached to everything,
the skag attached to everything, the tholing sky
our hypovole, the sun our mirror, trapped,
insensate, sans will at pith and willed, fixity
willed Tophet’s freedom. Bel, sometimes I still
see us up late with our blueprinted plans
for our parents’ quietus, sketches of symbols


faintprinted on bags from Kmart or Meijers,
the razors on lifelines to nix what will come
and to toughen us up, but king as now
our apathy precluded action: with maps
the key’s not it as dreaming goes but rather
the canthus one looks through at it or It
wherein a key might fit…I miss the being
sick all the time yet everable to get better,
the hartshorn of the moment inbetween, seeing
one thing as if unseen, feeling a will
not my own, the awesome sad inhuman truth,
the circus left, the ringmaster approached.

  Joseph Harmes

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