Adam Clay


          
                 










 
[LEANED AGAINST THE TROPE THAT DEMANDS TO BE DENIED]


Leaned against the trope that demands
           to be denied, this tree grips

the promise of abstraction in its faintest branch.

An altar presupposes a promise.

The existence of a tree assumes nothing
and a river is a mirage in the mind of a tree.

I am doing everything
                                  in my power
to avoid the urge I seek to end, but that doesn’t work : SO I paint a portrait

of my confession wearing my clothes, a zipper
down the front of its body,
and before it I would kneel,
but my knees are shot to hell.
I once stood on the throat
of a promise and heard the strangled
phrase it whispered back. I am no
more.

A tree knows of nothing but narcissism.

            There.

Now this fact is a bone tied to a clothesline.




**




[ABSENCE NEED NOT BE STUDIED LONG TO LEARN IT MUST BE LEFT ALONE]


Absence need not be studied long to learn it must be left alone.

This punch-line I have grown tired of
           so I drink alone, the terrible

weather raging outside, the immortal
mechanical bull stomping its feet,

a single ripple in my dram half-filled with light.

What feats can fury perform.
What failure lives in fasting.

Failure is slow.
I have an interior monologue in five.




***




[I DREAMT A TRIAL DIVINE. I RECALLED A LIFE I LIVED]


I dreamt a trial divine. I recalled a life I lived
earlier, a life without repentance and borne to malice.
In this life, someone told me that what doesn’t rot
on the ocean floor will grow old gracefully.

Hence, the model of all modern architecture is the ship
with the mast being the obvious explanation of this occurrence.

Our ship was certain. Our ship had no name.

I do not remember enough to say what happened.

Sea Nymphs never called us to the rocks.

            The water is what we heard.

On the open sea, water proposed a simple answer
to any question I could think to ask.




****




[A WORD TO TAKE MY PLACE. A SCAR]


A word to take my place. A scar
to erase the memory of skin.

The shape of things can change; yes,
           the puppets

on the wall are barely intention working
their way up to join the atmosphere and its
dusty will.

           The valley of a scar demands dormancy.

Good, I think, to understand the roads which my skin
has not taken me down. Inside the curve
of an ailment, I watched every speck

of my desire fragment
and Immortality’s first lesson was dun.
















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