Ocean Audience (3)
Robert Lietz
Chip-speeds treble in a breath. And the rain
blows prompts -- where rain's
been more than satisfactory -- pounding at the shops
and easing a little now --
veiling the P'town Light in hermeneutic transience.
Supposing what's said and what's possessed
/ supposing the weight of stars -- influenced by stars --
the sky's blue shimmerings --
and now the news along the fish-ladder / the news
in windfall / wind-woven circumstance
/ in this spawning seen -- as through a sky-wide pane --
in the grey and give / go
patternings and art songs / the slogans and brands
sandblasted off the floating surfaces.
Here were these words like canopies to come in under
and be known -- words
in the Vinyard's greens / the stars over Hyannis --
aspiring to more than capable / aspiring
to more than ginger and to fish -based recipes --
to this ocean audience -- light gasping
in the walls -- where they were going someplace
once -- through the stuccoed / lost
and modular amusements / reconstructed
smugglings -- the reconstructed
shades and man-sized occupations --
configured
in local speeds -- configured
in these scratched lines
and hip-shot
negatives.
You could play that alphabet and still not catch the names.
But what's the mystery? And what's
the story now -- the personal mint grown tall
/ the Bon Air ruined -- lost
as her sympathy for socks that never seemed right
for the trousers? But what's the story now --
the grimace say / or recognition in her winking?
Insomnias traced through tans
and greens / in homes supported over water --
implying we only half-belong / we're
only half-sway shown among the conduits
and credits -- fat kids moshing
/ passing flesh --peddling
the predetermined
stone in casual
defections?
What was that mystery after all -- coaxing
these ghosts in time -- ready
for beds and breasts and bedtimes with an interest --
and wearing their hats one way --
their pants down on their heels -- their urges
deepening -- having gone through minds
across the green edge of equation -- coveting
the signs to be exact -- the minds
and fruits the old men sipped on their verandas?
Think how the novels tantalized
/ how the poems obsessed the ocean audience --
as moved ( let's say )
as paper hearts and prospering -- how that large Ford
must have filled
the panel of the rearview -- coming
through rain and fog --
taking on itself the looks of some days
in the country -- conceived
conditionally -- compositionally
and quick -- here
in the mega-mystery / in the spans
and trumpets
and guitar chords commenting,
in the acidities
and plastics / no matter
what they'd
seemed.
Robert Lietz has a lot of publications. If you google him, you'll find many of them.
