DOBBY GIBSON

TRUCE
IN THE MIDDLE OF ZERO IS A CENTER THAT WILL NOT HOLD
FROM BEYOND THE ARC
THE PORTABLE WHITMAN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TRUCE

 

Perhaps this can be understood
only by someone who has already had
the thoughts expressed here,
someone who knows
that you can’t truly understand a word
until you’re already in desperate need of that word,
like afternoon,
like sitting in front of an open summer window,
old guitar falling slowly out of tune.
So far, I have learned very little.
I want to, for instance, but can’t,
render this in something realer,
in a leaves that not only blesses leaves,
but in a leaves that makes them more so.
There is a new word for uncertainty,
and an old word for permanence
that was recently forgotten.
But there is no dictionary for this,
there’s just that hawk there
circling above the river
to perfectly name the way the clouds
blow past us as impossibly as prepositions.
Of this language, which is sometimes not reassuring.
To whatever happens next, which I deserve.
Whatever I can name.
Whatever great light
or greater reason why.
Whatever song that’s better once it’s been heard before.
It’s a powerful idea
to have had the idea before.
I’m so close to this idea, I’m burning.
You’ve been holding me back.
You saved my life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN THE MIDDLE OF ZERO IS A CENTER THAT WILL NOT HOLD

 

At first, the darkness feels like a mistake,
but it is not a mistake,
for unlike the world, oblivion is perfect.
X-rays show nothing.
The divers never have to surface.
And at a limitless, late hour,
an old man wakes
only to roll over and fall asleep again.
It’s an abandoned town that has no memory of being a town,
and the river that feeds it
ran dry long before you were born.
But the ruthless no longer go unpunished,
and your leader can’t mangle the mother tongue.
The young men and women he sentenced to infinity there
lay down their guns and head for the hills
in a gesture that has no moment to hold it,
and if you could make just one prediction,
there would be only one prediction to make,
and you’d always be right.
Goodbye, sweet guesswork.
Poems, a critic recently announced,
need to go back to being about things.
About from the Old English abutan,
meaning on the outside.
Everyone likes having a ghost to worship,
another side to suspect,
people who we know will never need us.
In the middle, whatever’s multiplied will vanish.
The silence that precedes the beginning,
the different one that follows the end.
Before the lightning strikes the pine straw,
or the ball washes up on the beach.
Before the ball. Before even the beach.
But maybe after you finish washing your bowl.
After just a little running water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FROM BEYOND THE ARC

 

Where have we been for so long
that leaves us with the suspicion
we’ve gone nowhere at all?
Watch running fast, clock slow,
screaming at the drive-time radio.
Another day here awakening
to the usual light,
staring out of the two holes in a standard head,
mumbling in praise while scavenging
for forgiveness, leaning into
one another or watching her watch you watch her
unbutton her dress to stave off
the loneliness of a brand new day
in the same old world.
In the middle of the sea,
a captain prays to his map
as his ship slips
slowly beneath the surface,
and not a single cry is heard.
It’s that easy to be erased.
So stand up. So state your name.
As if you’re communicating
with the world at the speed of smoke signal.
To fix your heart,
first they saw you open,
then they pack your chest
entirely in ice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PORTABLE WHITMAN

 

Everywhere. And waiting for you.
And suddenly it’s been a full day since
anyone last gave up or allowed
another poem to end with light, and
in that you can find your own beginnings.
Entire embassies of listening,
the cumulative two years
anyone will spend rummaging through closets.
The race is on and always has been.
A tree middles the meadow,
yet another excuse for the disinclination
of most scenes to resolve themselves.
A baseboard chill sweeping the leg,
every pane of glass that can be cleared
with a palm that once hushed a young boy’s mouth.
Persuasion is an art that you must first
perform successfully for yourself.