from Song Notions

Ah Meditation


This is an experience. This is. That? I have. And at the store everyone shops for foodstuffs--'nough said. And, yes, I am enjoying my chamomile tea while rain descends, however softly, just beyond the dumb shade. The drawn night lifts the streets toward familiar feet. Nothing soggy around here, though one wonders. What to say about that, but also whatever this is suppose to be. Not whatever but whatever. Ever, this is. Is.
















The Explicator


I, or how logic is inevitably inadequate. Lot of buttons to push here . . . What scuttles? Always obtuse, rain laps up night. I hesitate to say engine to say esophagus. Or to reexamine the extension of a notion posed however--too--long ago. The syntax of skin. The sung night, summed up as however. Horizon queries.

A memory: Three maybe four years ago--maybe five--anyway this is a memory--I was not sleeping but not awake and the spinning of things was not what I was. In a courtyard dialogue a bird approached me. Winged, I was not. With fortuned fluttering it explicated air, feathered horizon. That it then left, yes, though the direction is not concrete not weary.
















Let's Talk


Marked out and neglected, fevered and gripped, the hollowed o repeats, unfurls in margins. O all this telephone talk. Disembodied . . . should be at ease with voice. As such, as this, fisted and limp. Not you were saying. The light caught in alto, ever an etude. I wimp, say clever, say effected. Tea steams between stems, all wisps and us. Were you not saying? A twirl. A furl. Someone somewhere. There is a pattern to this.
















What Gets Flung Gets Sung


In a burdened niche of the elapsed port: singing, dissenting. Pamphlets disseminated while expected birds took to the wing. I was. Importuned schooners swayed. Some light strolled from the east say. From the north things descended, things caught. Fire rung through and rung through. Other ships vibrated with dawn. I was caught. Someone spoke with the wind, say evening then. Noon was the usual height with some other birds. Some certainty tied up.
















Or--No--This Is Just Endless


There was what, to be said. Heckled and whatnot, questions extended in periods. Of skin of syntax and of what was there, to be said: nothing though thwarted. What extends and bleeds, maneuvers. Through the streets, shade drawn, some logic, some words, dispose some other dark. Nothing pre- or post-what was to be lucid. Out across a body of water or hesitancy ending in period in what is small what is kept, this relaxes this does not seep.
















As I Was Saying


Neglected. Should say "The" . . . What space survives also. Could also say: What survives space. Etcetera, yes. Yes, a frowning in the ear. Some smiling off somewhere, no? There is a pattern to this let's go. Could also discuss the endless fact of what is. O these limited, or entity-dependent, wanderings along the river along the wisp. And then just maybe o.
















Ah Meditation


As an example light intercedes. --'nough said of elucidation. Way a hand--or maybe eye--seeks. Some other licks in the night. Of a thousand--a handful of flocks say--fevers--sun-glazed reveries--and swoops--sort of eight-shaped archings--an expected burst. Meant to say "when," say begin. I'll not say misery, say slunk. Out across the interceding, examples hand out pamphlets. Enviable patterns crash in some night. In the tomb who turns, says endless.












After completing graduate work at the University of Maine, John Hyland lived and taught in Jakarta, Indonesia for some time. Currently, he is a lecturer in the English Department at Assumption College.






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