by Nicholas A. DeBoer

      Silt Glints in the Dust of the Stream    

      CXIX119 

      flames ghost the sky in s m o k e

      pins in the slits of my eyelids, light

      directed through the keyholes 

            inside their cracks

            deeper inside the storm-cloud's ceiling:  

                  luna, diaphanous in action,

                  sweeping towards absence

                  a w a s h, this pause full of sacred... 

                        eir trace written as courage: the soles of the feet shift,

                        dust scuffed up behind, to cloud.  little catch of pauses

                        as eir lips are mute, yet speech gives: the red ore steams 

      evaporation, a new sense untested 

                        melody held in counterpoint, patch/paste [temporeal] 

            the attic in flames, arches ash-and-crumble,

                  slowly, the ground carries muddy impressions 

            below the blue lines in the backs of my palms

            life courses [this interim of agerasia] 

                        “i cannot tell you how long this might be” 

      new eyes, a spin that coasts, gaining speed

            that is evaporate [the many, many voices trapped in the ink] 

                        “who is speaking on the page?” 

      one echoing rhyme,  in torch

      passes, the angles become numerous [tied in splintered rope, heaviness

                                         brings silence into voice]  

            clay clamps pale ankles)( 

            attic beams, old oaks in mid-cinder, the vibration tenses

                  as the body resigns

                  in rubble&soil... 

                  i'm crawling towards

                        packs of dirt, flopping

                        bits

                        of

                        oxygen floating a w a y

                        [thrashing gills con-

                                    strict] 

                        before i could touch eir short hair,

                        troubling soft body for guidance, 

                        a sight clinging, watched:

                        silt

                              glints

                                in-the

                                           dust: 

            and 

            clamped

            over

            :words, resin dust speckled on a steel plate

            water poured in color, tonal shades, the heat bites the dust into teeth 

                                          the [s] pectacle, a growth interwoven

                                                      as language, a condensed

                                                      in a lake of tumors

                                                      translucent, impermanence focus

                                                      [daguerreotype, origin-image-made] 

                  in, i, isolation:

                    is a tower, by a tower

                      grass as tight-

                  ening mesh,

                  living tissue

                  fused with

                  earth, a-

                  whim, i,

                  leap,

                  leaning pisa:  

      fresh skin scuffed, gravel caught in the cuts

      . the mud&clay splinters into the stream . 

      i am at the base of a world; footprints

      sinking into the grass, submerged

      gliding along in the [fifth element] 

                        (i) fresh fragments bleeding into the land

                        the body is unfinished, nor razors could swing

                        across these cheeks, or eyes close,

                              nor a tower, simple tower 

                        lived-long-eras

                        mix into dusty silt 

                        into a stream, spilling into the river and to that lake. 

            scrunching

            mud between toes, laying back

                  treading the water 

            specters in fugue, around me, swooping through

            heavy air.  twinkling new sun galloned

                              entwined cloud patches, this epic 

                  framed   with 

                        an   en)) ((trance 

                  the palms of my hands as the setting:

                  stalks of paint for light... 

                                                i have never

                                                shown this

                                                part of myself... 

            craning neck, fictions of an i, re-

            present to my.  the dead give life,

                  yet, w/o extending it. 

            the specters must arrive with me. 

            scraps from the rubble, coming in touch

                  [the old for the new] 

            lifting from the fifth,

            body glinting in each step

                  , out, then

            alchemy, water to acid

            : hollowing the ground into caves: 

                              let me ignite the condensed aroma

                              above my heart,

                              take the glorious blaze

                              into speed, between

                              the skin&blood of my body... 

            smoothing the crevices, this new flesh

            w     a       l        k          s 

                                          altars 

                                                of the body, 

                                                      renaissance     

                        [never][again]

                            begin here 

            adjusting to the light of the red ore smoking 

                  the burning forest dreaming

                  , swathed in and along sweet

                    resting waves down in the

                        tarantula ocean 

                        delicate threads, senses on the face

                        “where does the courage come?” 

            the continuous echo in a spatter of fire 

                  a 

                  i  m

                        e  d   

            darts forming ripples of the canto 

                  , slipping, this whole world if full of specters

                        who will not be larvae,

                  willed as equal parts

                  of the vision. 

            ancient cross-sections of my being, a kind of stretching 

                                    warmglow objects mark a path

                                    my olive walking stick, and

                                          this little boat will... 

                  glide peace, haunting at the touch of tarantula.... 

      it is far away still, mere thin spreads of thought

      clicking at cold temples... 

      eir is a face in flare

      only ever saw in the sight of many... 

                  [[[there is much in the stream of the spectacle,

                        sound staged, echoes

                        over a landscape

                              receding into lavish semiotic

                                    displays...shaping 

                                    our illusion of flames]]] 

                  the deep acidic water pits, lapping up the clay/soil 

                  , making the ground swell as bursting tissue. 

                              “what does it take to conjure?” 

                  no more exhausting faints, or sleep, but shackles break... 

                  “i will reach through the soft ground, where the song is animating vibrations.” 

                  in/on 

                  [eir in the pale half, a first moon: intimate] 

                        as moving towards that lake of darkoilywater

                              the abscience of my words

                                    are protective... 

            yet, the bulging tissue of the earth pixelates 

                  now)(azure: lapis-lazuli

                  construction from ruins 

                  cloud ceiling cracks

                        light

                        between

                        sun/moon, as one [ra|set] 

            tombs shall break

            arrivants disperse 

            an encompassing

                  phantastikon... 

            steam-evaporate off the red ore,

                  eyes alive w/o pins in the slits 

                  i am letting go,

                  eyes thaw from midnight frost: 

            i will fill the plan with the spectral air, it will get me past the lake. 

                  pushing it in, mercy in my ankles, tenderness in the joints, 

                        the clear outline of this little boat 

                              blossoming into acidic water... 

                                                      “how far to the tarantula ocean?”