Gary Sullivan
Refusal of the Real
for Daniel Davidson
The world must be mediated by art--fat
Inklings, cruelty to admire, & tears
Falling into lines of human habitation.
Why is the highway straight? The easier
To carry battle-goods across the Rock-
Ies. Day breaks through this thin lens,
From our mouth to yours, the taste of a
Piece with the style. There are only two
Kinds of people in this world: Those
Herding animals & those of us clinging
To buses, sweet noise wrapped around
Our every neck. Waking up a thousand
Times a day, we just move along, fists
Full of beer, bees, whatever. Rattling
Light, the mouth a birdcage, words birdshot through this stable world of mostly solid
objects, always jumping out of
Hand. Head spinning down the spine--& what else can you do? It's not about
accumulation, & it's really nothing like
Love; It's about change drilling up through the earth, flower noise, intense levels of
energy below particularities on a
Shelf fanning out by itself. Are we willing to accept any situation--however false--and
make it true? Any piece of writing
Patterned to the effect that everyone is everywhere in bondage, this substitution of
language. But where will we go to-
Night? You were watched as you took this upstairs to your room, if that gives you any
idea; the brightness of a forgotten
Sun is placed gratis at our disposal. Countless are the beauties of land & sea we've
already seen, shining brilliantly in the
Light of our eyes. Take a little sun, & make love when you want to make love, however
long it's kept. Pool ideas into
Mail, literally, & grow vague. The stone's poisonous vapors are as yet unspent, and
bees & moths lay dead in such
Heaps that we cannot see the color of the earth beneath. We don't have to get every
detail. Do we? To the sides of the
Road, the country is flat, the soil dry & rectangular. We are, as far as we know, the
only ones here. The only thing the
Matter with this is that, when we leave, "it" will still be here. Its direction.
What separates men is not a question, but
Water, smiles against each evened shore. Someone to stand with for a distance. Someone
twisting through every previous
Example. Dreams & memory on the stairs, other windows facing it--yet this still fails
to explain how objects fly through
Air, burst into flame: that is, fails to ex-
Plain (a) anything, and/or (b) what, if
Anything, we can do about it. To insist,
On anything, whoever's driving, who-
Ever's giving signals, we laugh with our
Teeth, veer earthward toward its feeble
Salute. Back on our back, the battle echo-
Ing overhead near the exit. The waters
Part; a belch shakes you; a lot of talk
Follows. Silence is convincing, a bond.
The infinite trembling of stars mocking
Emptiness, indifferent to our beseeching
Hands, careless of the consequences of
What could never, will never take place.