Notes

Fragments, field notes, stray lines.

Notes toward poems, books, films, and the in-between places.

The compass hit
dead north
Thunder
over the alkali plains
Where is she?
A caravan
oxidizing
in the mirage
set against
an iron horizon
Grey-blue wings
larger than a mountain
Here,
the earth cracks open.
Wilderness
Wildness
Follow
the skeleton owl
Things got quiet.
Sit beside me
Throw your rocks
into my fire
of animal bones

Her house
was in the hills,
at the edge
of the world.
She was at work
reshaping memory,
nightfall
after nightfall.
They came.
They went.
They existed.
They ceased to exist,
like fireflies
outside their bottles.
At dawn,
everything
would be different.

Brittle stars,
long dead,
in a sky
not quite black.
The cliffs here
were once a mountain range,
peaks higher
than the Himalayas.
The skeletons of conquest
lie scattered
around the bay.
The old whale’s heart
gave out
after a thousand years,
and he fell
to be among the others
on the abyssal plain

The prisoners are lined up
To be sent down
To the black mines
Seven candles
In the window
Blood
In the snow
I see dead leaves
On the ground
You see signs
In the sky
And if thine is mercy
Then mine
Must be dust
Eyes burning
Yellow bright
Beyond the timberline
He was sent for
By whom
No one knows
Strange symbols
Carved
Into the cold side
Of a birch tree
Some time way back
Long before
The swamps were drained
And we become
What we were ordered
To hunt
To capture
To kill
Sure, they’ve got
Their Scriptures
But I've got mine