Drew Gardner

 

____________________

 

Alarm Transmission

 

 

but the door is open, and the bodies fall

the interrupted colors of approach

are a frightening apparatus in the hallway’s corner

the latticework of cracks on the 1 train window

now crashing, now twittering, a sudden blast

of yellow leaves, the siren engines clang

 

people of the earth, the dazed gratified walking

is a cool law, don’t even think

of opening this door, beginning

as a muted reddish truck passes

from trying to bring together

is aging in a dream

to the separated parts

connecting you, previous to and beyond

any hardship or discontent that

the slowly moving brightness clouds

in Union Square this afternoon

are a gradual rush of feeling

inside of which a fire

of singularity and destitute

perseverance still bends, and gets up

to walk away

 

the stars are not arbitrary

from the fountain lion’s crane against the sky fits together

now with the certainty of taking off your clothes

rest to slip by offering the very thing

you could not remember to neglect

 

to pass through gracefully to work

receiving though materials are no physical eyes

dissolves again

is as everything as fire

 

an unusual mistake

is your color

by careful darkness

past war and years

 

but maybe I should be more like Phil Whalen

 

I don’t understand all that my sister tells me either

 

the alarm transmission

is the whole earth spinning

 

the singing of birds is a factor too,

some drawbacks of advantage felt

the voice skipping like a wall

 

that the window is steam pouring out of the street tonight

such were the reasons of the lives they lived

sounds like the rhythm of lava

 

since you don’t smash down,

if you are willing, if you are light

 

the miles into the world will see

materials, who offer some recall

 

when they study you, you study them, that’s a fact

but for a front suspended

is today in the mirror

a dark astronaught walking in a barren valley

that turns out to be Earth

 

____________________

 

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