This is the Hour of Lead

 

 

We sit 
On the bed
In our underwear
Not even wrong
I’m not sure
If the nouns
Will hold

​

The low 
Gray clouds
More bright 
Than sun
The wide 
Tin bowl of 
Morning holds
More sound
And lower than 
The yellower one
Of yesterday
Did, the whole past
For example 
Of your skin
The stale
Water glass
The hamper 
That one
Tongue-like
Pant leg
Did not make 
It into

​

Each thing 
Even
The dog’s bark has
A thick
Black outline
Around it

​

Out 
There are
Fires, cars
With four flats
Buried in last
Years leaves
A cat
Gets whumped 
Walking
By a handball
Court
Round-robin
In here are
The horizons
Of snores

​

Surely we will pay
Dearly for all this
Orderliness

​

In the 
Disrepair a wind 
Is rebuilt
The wires
Sway 
The light 
Likes you likes you 
And touches 
You touching
And touching until 
It is 
Paleontological, the pressing
Light

​

Over the library
Rooftop comes 
Now a low
And beefing light, late
Cagney light felt
In the jaw

​

Suddenly what is required
Is being startled
As slowly as 
Possible, shyness
Or winter returning
Like feeling to
A limb, nighttime 
Returning 
To us the real
Sky

​

Strength 
Other than ours 
Labors to close 
Our eyes
We say: all sleep is theft!
All waking, theft
All light, worn out darkness
Morning’s fossil
Fingerpainted in the dirt
Dirty sirens
Inarguable as stars