in my yes and my no. The gong rings out your hour,
hour and gong both forged in a bellows-fed flame;
your forehead's three forked veins, a trident
throbbing as you stoke the coral bed of coals.
MARK RUDMAN
Modern Disaster: (To a Friend From the Southwest Whom
I Missed Seeing When He Passed Through New York)
I must say I was baffled by your appearing disappearance,
your approximate proximity, your nearness, as Holderlin's said,
and your absence, as Holderlin said.
The impossible blossom of the magnolias arranged,
arraigned on this cross street and others I cross
reluctantly, wishing, half-wishing?, that time would stop,
that I, delinquent, could drink this delicious May.
Without interruption.
Without: soliciting calls, simulations of virtual reality.
Without having my attention drawn irrevocably
to disasters, having my mind taken from me
every time I frequent gym or bar: sound or no sound,
captains-I mean
captions
for the deaf–
are there to trammel on retinal field.
There's no escape from news of firestorms "south of Denver
threatening to cross over into Arizona," or
broadcasts, not the phenomenology of the crash itself,
but of the "search for remains of the ValuJet plane
and its contents" that went down in the Everglades.
(Why can't they cover some other occurrence?
It's not as if they hoped to find anyone alive.)
