Thirds - On Light's Long Subterranean History Poem by Warren Falcon

'Language seeks vengeance on those who cripple it.' - James Baldwin

'It's difficult to talk about poems in these circumstances.
[The country] is a razor, an inflamed calm has settled,
we're trapped outside on its rim.' - Sean Bonney



A hamlet pulls its covers tight.

Rumble seats between houses

prevent coarse entries,

boxcars, mysterious strangers,

best to keep lights out, or low,

call no attention to any glow

before or after what bodies

make of engine drone

fast past alarum tolls,

cross-arms down,

flash of signaling

reds on a bedside wall -


stop stop stop stop


sloppy seconds in a life

of halves, first and last,

let it all pass, wash

well a.m. radio's

in-and-out-tunes'

static comfort while

spigot's glottal

drips drops


stop stop stop stop


make a prayer if that's

what it takes. Take air.

Stare down, fading

Cross-stitched Clown

framed on the also

fading wall, you,

framed in whispered

happier times,

the war was on,

no matter which one,


when hoboes

blazed new trails'

whistle songs

in thirds,

words unheard

neurotic gestures,

cryptic, foredoomed

cyphers' connections

between air and wire,

a hidden fraternity,

mutual satisfaction

deeper than upward

facing snow's sky

paces of needful fall,

intimations' nuances

blind, feeding on buried

source, hints a course

to take, inclines a

notion for catastrophe,

savage mutual rebuke

from porch to pane

to open rails scarring

beyond recognition

mute corn flowers,


trash daisies between

ties, iron, mudbanks,

cattails stubbled fistulae

teeter in flatter estuaries

where a schoolboy

dreams jackdaw tongues

where the stumbling

river has a strange drag,

and a late willow lisps alone;


just today, finding

no stone in hand,

truant boy throws

in the knife,


so what?


finally a smart kid

without nows blade,

a bundle of rags,

before you know it,

a final scarecrow,

right on time in

dream and poem,

roams, he is


zig


zag


beyond fields, their

lewd undertones,

phone lines knotted

ditch-dancing clotted

tangos in ambiguity

most pronounced;


there Stitched Clown

finds himself, you,

yellow decades long

caught between Indian

wars, and Civil, too,

sore, surrendered dictions,

bunkered idioms not

to be confused for

idiotdescants

though scores do

garble, do choke

to keep old meanings

if not relevant then

at least resonant.


Zag you, who's

who stitched in

time woven?


Zig guards, or

tries, the multiple

force of speech.


After all,

Deja's fool,

red light's reach

reach again

no matter straw

fingers.


Crossing bells

nevermind design

dread delays on

Adder wall edging

the ancient bed


stop stop stop stop


sloppy seconds,

a life of halves

first and last,


pass by,


awash

a.m. tones

again

out

and then


again

in


stop stop stop stop


static comfort,

scareder mortis


just stop


faucet

drip counts

something

toward

prayer or

drop it


just

stop


what it takes

approving

privileged singularity



nightingales look

back inspite of

good counsel

not to do so but

like most they/we


do


gathering

past momentums

confirmed by

and of mystic

traditions


or so

then was thought


now memory's

lucre, and this

verity, at the

beginning is

there too at

the end where

prophetic word

ceases

or may

a great

light extend

to topos,


surge incommuncado,

into contradiction

as light not only

passes to speech

but becomes itself

speech, clueish trills,

songs in thirds


stop stop stop stop


spills the daring

day, Stitch steps

out instead in

unexpected

bestowal where

nightingale claws

unstitch thru yard

to road, thin mud

bearing bird-weight

parsing direction,

conjugant veils

knife swiftly on

night rails'

whistled songs

spiraling

dragged in

boxcars

paling

wakes


stop stop stop stop


at furthest reach

where they border

on lilt, on light, its long

subterrainean history