Photo: Jane Marsh, Sydney, 1985

      Tension is something
                     we
                      actively
                     bring
                    into our bodies
                 as a way
                      of
                      readying
against the next attack.

                  bind together
                  without
                simultaneous rather
                and
         all of you
             torque, pull


            the wonderful potential
                consuming all
          it touches


           its ability
              makes peace
             by forcing
             their best function
rather than themselves


                  two energies
                torquing
                   magic
        active and human
                of life

           being
          aware
   you can bring
 a meeting place
  the body – your only
           function
        functioning naturally,
         a place

        to be inspired
         environment
           motivator—
       sparks that trigger
        self-concern
as it should
    inhabit.
        we begin to
           clog up and
          ignite
      the openness
         light and loose
          springing response
      an unconditioned
           coiled spring
          that
  (coiled metal)
this transformation
     must become
    creative deluge
       dancing

       If you find 
         your knowledge 
        you have 
         undoubtedly closed 
  ensure that you 
             evaporate, 
          capabilities 
 made for the first time
     living like this 
           in your natural aspect 
              voiced and applied 
           only 
              limits 
    from whatever time 
        rest then 
            requires remembering 
          though it happened yesterday 
           half asleep

           oh
         made for
           damsel and hopeless
      whispering
         unity made
        his world
           so fair! The
           bride, and then
         seek the lowly




      seeketh
        flower
            and
       the branches
            the branches
            walk
           so pensive
         spirits meet
     they make solemn vows




      singeth
        sadness
          death claims a
           bride,
        night
          now
           to the
            reading of the
            kind companion

Silver glance

flakes from

every leaf.

Swans swim

on flooded

fields.

Today the downs

that meet the sky so gently

meet you in me.

we are the back-door
try to reason into language

what I have can equally
be stone work within that

just here between metal or urban
such early stages not only

but simultaneously
a place of beginning

tipping between
a live place

I once was able to peg this tent down
by merely reading you a paragraph
so before I get off the floor
you can join me there.

Her dance
enabled her to
advance upon the
not quite solved.

And suddenly
we permit ourselves to ride
our previously earned knowledges
where the dead spots in all those small places.

Her hair disappears as a factor:
warriors should tie their hair out of the way.
Her neck is liberated
in the direction of the true function.

any resemble
"systematic"

the air
in those things

indeed the noun
is felt to press home

the root
has this power

from what travels
one is home

an insistence
distinct

for Caroline Ross

we are labyrinths
open spirals or cones
governed by
precision & touch

we also sharpen
with everything to
the sun itself
a question of primaries

an animal would
lay out the first
and dance complex
clues to the intent

the generative act
surprisingly close
an implicit or
hidden actuality

simply alive by
thigh bone and
their own doings
I write

Soft Incisions

I was suddenly
required to be
like my soul:



the growth of
experience can
motion itself



the single
engaging
principle



our aloneness
who we are
that it is landscape



is it conceivable
& so be responsible



with what
each of us is
his or her job



and enable
that simplest
one



the widest places
where man began
do you begin



a common weed
of blue secretes
the study of this



precise answers
transformed by
dooryard plants



something
we could not have had



the fact
of scholarship
my point is otherwise



by
already
no further



red ochre
as they lived



turning to
abstractions
the pattern on the cow



I have planned
a fable



anything
one specific



wise men
I remember
they sat down



always
the most beautiful
since



the internal environment
of ourselves



we think
the hard
in



you might think
I had gone soft
instead



you are
ungraspable



the natural
so complex
but



in this
engaging
I ask you:



for a moment think
these muscles & legs



measured
who I am
if you like



his careful
personal garden
that confusion



not at all
and every



that each
prevented
the same



the climate
of our being



of those
like what
from your



leave us
the soul



any
proper
working



decisively
to lay before

  A way of being
     human
believe it. Then
     the slightest

Deeper than
permissible

but never
not possible.

Nothing at all
never said

never even
produced.

Another
on his mind.

Sweetheart,
let me hold

you alone
as if the world

will never be
anything else.

But to have
the words

the texture of
words

in his mind
the leaves, trees

the pure mountain
in his pure room.

He had written the
fog as it billowed

before everything
made it new

free from
dreams and

exalted surges.
I feel I am truly a

great man.
I have been asleep.

Toward measuring
himself
some
possible
agency
with sympathetic
release:
the sympathies
fail

Taught by
the largeness
moving within himself
the truth
which is felt
has only
fixation by
internal means of
transcription.

for Sam Stout