Sebastian Bach
the indispensables of a major concern

It must seem peculiar to the sense,
that is certain:
every detail
sketching, every
line defying meaning less than meaning tone.

It must be the one, in all events,
kept alert and,
wringing detail
from the many,
first to masticate the marrow from the bone.

It must be that fearsome consequence
of the burden
born by detail:
most unsteady,
crumbling, subject to a will not quite its own.

the art, itself

A parson draws a
circle in the sand --
it is the Sistine

Chapel on a Sunday;
if it rains, the Grand
Duchy of Lancaster.

The granular space between
the edges is a paternoster
in simple granulated form.

Nearby, the gasping sea foam
grasps, perhaps, itself as
a transitory mircale

of attention, a fame
of sound attending it. Fast,
now, slower, then, the man

whose case committed the circle
frames a plan where he may stand:
the waning green, the waxing blue.

The art, itself, the art: make do.

Back to Issue 1, 1999