J a m e s W a g n e r










POLYPHONIC #1-4







Husk of love
in a heel,
that sleeps
uncertainly.


This pain
is not great.
A black duck
says so.


You heave.
You eye.
You desert.
You lessen.


A jaw in awe
on an ocean.
With fish, each
brief thing.


























THE SECRET POND








The woman in the water::::::

where she pivots into an unnecessary

shade ---myocardial, incidental, human

in the timbre of listlessness.


Fake and peck, elide this

mica hiding spot, with plurals

of things without singulars.


The venting of the nets is for whom?


I cannot order a brawl, an establishment of nails,

scratching for pentagrams. We have

spoken in hoarse hours about the

midway breathing of vegetables, and yet

the sweet trees teach us

of several levels of patience.


To find what in the damp palace,

destroyed like a humorless

county, where a crease comes

for all?


The present is anyway

wider than its survival.

The heart starts

like a dumb gushing lump, confused

by fictive time and false echoes. No


one goes when they are going.

There is a tarfield beyond.

To say the sky

appears is an appearance we

agree on. Like mice or vines.