The Deep Blue Throne of Arp’s Star

The spoor of a star in snow
Last year is now the dry spoor

Of a bit of rock from space
On a bit of rock from space.

It seems to you as if all
You do is to move your hands

And signs cleave bits of the air.
Where were we? The trees of shells,

Shirt fronts, forks, and laws of chance
All dance, but it’s the late prose

Poem, quite short, that we see here
In this dust where we wrote snow

Like a word, like one of us,
In ink, spoor stone’s throw, last year.

No Need of Aid from Them

Thought, stroke of light

On bark or walls,

Quote words like us

You’ll need to give

Us some good friends

To sit with us.

We know you paint

Your thoughts and lights

In frame to hold

Your flesh, your lives,

Your talk of you

And yours, all you

Care for the most.

The land, the scenes

And scents of dirt,

Just serve. We’ll wait.

The Sound of a Broom Swept by a Ghost

A strange voice for a bare floor,
There’s a word loose in your head—

Could be more than one, could be
A whole, dried tongue cut from dead

Flesh of a time when the words
Were slaves to tasks so long gone

You’re not sure what it might mean
If you heard them yoke yon kine.

No one doubts words live the lives
Of tools and, like tools, lose use,

Lie in dust, gyves, banes, clews, clouts,
Get sold for junk or tossed out.

But tools can’t mean on their own.
One broom’s sough still fills the room.

What Was That You Said?

The dead squeak and hum,
If they’ve lost their words.
The words sit and wait,
If they’ve lost their lives.

By means of a voice,
Words can wreck or rule
Worlds, but with no words
A voice haunts at best.

This is why the dead
Of your kind spook you—
They’re right there as words
That don’t do a thing

But wait, and then, when
The words get in you,
You think you hear them
Call, the dead, the dead.

But that time you thought
You saw a known shade,
What did it tell you?
It just creaked and moaned.