MICHAEL JOSEPH WALSH
from ARCANA
PROLEGOMENON
our imaginary friend has the gift
of appearing as a blood
relative we had of course witnessed
the refinement of these early
innovations the growth of the fire
in which we can’t
even hear you in the night each line
a glass lion a little world
unharnessed
as hermaphrodite
by the expedient of a tossed coin
in order to emend our errors
this breeding ground
fills the entire world with
the ugly signs of our visitant
it was a pity
that the little girl saw
our visitant the ugly signs of it
if admired admired for anything but
a unity where meaning
accumulates
powdery gold
lying in wait
or sometimes something like a scream
of which some were
handsome and others
not so handsome
our minds stretched
as alive as we felt
at that instant
all the arms of the trees
grinding up men
pursuing meaning
fleeing meaning
it nearly collapsed behind us
into the infernal pit
consciousness becoming
other to itself
into little pieces
we heard it hit they felt it
hit a masterpiece we arranged
for our dog to exercise
its traditional power of
reassembling
dismembered parts the beating
of its heart more intense with every
step a masterpiece
we had grown used to
unharnessing the tender flesh
of scrapped taboos
constructed in one spirit
received in another
we arranged for a dog
we were never at a loss
for ideas our growing interest in
fragrant faces against one’s cheek eyes staring
sightlessly at the sky
visions bending and straining
each line a little world
on a tongue
which death had not
stiffened i must admit that i was
disappointed
things kept secret becoming
widely known by the blood
dripping down
but things were not the same
devolving to dust and water a vague repeated
grimacing nod and the brightness
that held us
well under fire
a crowded afternoon
cured only when we stopped
seeing our visions
panting up the spiral stair
nothing but a straight razor
describing a slow semi-circle
in the air where the living are
most likely to connect
with the dead unstiffened
streaked through with tendrils of black
these tensions explode
wouldn’t you be afraid?
whatever technique you choose
to prepare yourself
a crowded afternoon
on the tongue
devolving to dust and water
the last kiss given
to the witnesses
as the image bursts and
dissolves into plain
statement a vague repeated
grimacing nod
or sometimes something like a scream
D4E5V4I9L3
Some consciousness survives—right?
Right.
He answered as it were in his natural
voice, the sonorous sound of metal
heavily smitten.
Over the fire his face was a great
study and a great puzzle.
His face was beaming.
S1U3N5
Was he a devil?
He never said anything to the woman.
She recorded messages that were like
well-managed horses and could tell
when to stop or turn.
An almost universal death omen is the
bird that flies from a supernatural
worldview to a materialist one.
We had no doubt that the man strung
up by his feet would have a reason for
this belief.
Everything’s very ordinary now.
E5M4P7R9E5S1S1
I shut my eyes.
I could see her making her endless
circuit, room by room and secret by
secret.
I could not understand how these
movements could be produced by the
baby inside.
But I immediately recognized the
allegory.
The death of the body, that is, which
is one of the origins of rhythm.
I wouldn’t play you any music.
There’s, I guess, a deep place where a
person lives on, repeating and
repeating his last act.
That’s one lesson I learned this
season.
H8A1N5G7E5D4 M4A1N5
We were a great cloud of witnesses,
naked and white in the gathering
dusk.
We would feel a sense of peace, as if
being loved by someone, the moment
the human vessel proved inadequate
with a sort of rending or tearing
sound.
There was no smell of rain in the air.
His hands were perfectly white.
Reach out your hand to my head and take
what you find there.
Take the charm away from me.
In those days it was impossible to
distinguish the healer from death on a
white horse.
In those days our accidents were truly
accidental.
At midnight we heard feet parting the
prairie grass.
We rose, with freshened eyes,
coughing a bit as if strangled.
Michael Joseph Walsh is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Denver and co-editor for APARTMENT Poetry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cloud Rodeo, Coconut, DIAGRAM, Fence, PANK, RealPoetik, The Volta, and Word For/Word.