Manskeetr

True Discourse on Power
Peter Gizzi

When I say the ghost has begun
you understand what is being said.
That time is not how we keep it
     or measure
first there was then there wasn’t …
It twitters and swerves like
     the evening news.
Now outside is 3D. Inside non-
     representational space.
Every law has an outside
     and inside
I have witnessed cruelty
break and gulp and sweat then
     pinch out a smile.
To be awake. This talking in space.
To be absorbed in the ongoing.
Belief’s a shadow to be looked into
     and into
until relief is gone. The dark
triangle settled in the midst of
     traffic is on us.
Time comes in adverbial bursts,
a glass of beer, a smoke …
The evening air refreshes, startles,
and the questions grow deeper like
     shadows across storefronts.
A forsythia ticking against
     the dirty pane.
This was time. Up. Down. Up.
And you were a part of it.
If I say it can you feel it now?
Imagine. Lightning strikes. Rain
     falls and drives.
Clouds pass. Night clarified. Stars.
In silent pictures the tree falls
in the optic nerve.
The sound is chemistry.
There’s no getting to it or if
     getting to it
feels like the actual sound
     is that silence?
Alone here with my shadows
     drawn …
So what’s this about?
A horse and a castle, a tree
     and its leaving?
What’s this about in solitary
     splendor?
The undertow and its threshold,
a door and the opening sky?
Or because a play of reflection
     lit up my bumper
and caught my eyes
I saw the shadow of a falcon.
Because a sound poor man
     uttered
reached my ear I fell into song.
If the syntax of loyalty is not tragic
     then what is the wager?
If there were time, would it be ours?

(Source: poetryfoundation.org)