lightness of being
it may be
none of this death & suffering
means what “we” think it
means
doesn’t matter whether “we know
what it means” or not
it should stop. why can’t we stop it
those who love humor more
than the mortgaged people
timing out their breaths
in emergency houses
for this is emergency too
untouched, unknown,
in a kind of pain that can’t be spoken
this orgy of suffering draws us out
of our private little hells
it draws all our pain out and magnetizes it
and to master the horror of it
we spew opinions, judgment and rage
i too do it
everyone is doing it

I felt a pressure not
To write. How
Can I explain it.
It was as though
Embarrassment
Had been connived
Into language—
Which could not any
More receive
Reality neutrally and, well, 
Express it. For me. I felt
Yes, I am writing but
It wasn’t accurate.
There was something in the world 
That hadn’t been named
Or studied—a kind of suctioning 
Action mostly at the border
Of my perception and just beyond 
That did not need to communicate 
Directly to me for its force
To be felt by me. I had trained 
Myself to resist whatever
It was, for years. Even this
I don’t know how to explain.
My troops were at the border. But
After a while things got confusing
And I started feeling tired all the time
Wanting to lie down in the road
Or just stay in bed which
Was also a form of resistance
Or so I was told and even
When I was feeling vigorous
And cultivating desires—because
If you don’t want anything it’s hard
To move your body—I felt something in me
Always wanting to speak or sing
Tell my lover something
I wouldn’t end up knowing
How to tell them, that when
I wrote it down it also just did not
Feel accurate, and this went on for years
Until a cultural phenomenon caught up
With me and now shame and cruelty clung
To words and they no longer seemed godly
And my experience of the world stayed inside
The world, never reaching the threshold
Of its transformation, never reaching your ear
However you might name the edge where all I feel
Drops off into infinity, canyons, a hole
To put it mildly—this frontier—
The place from which I write you
A light year in the future
From where I perceive the grid
Of our developments and ideas
Eaten away at and gouged by hands
Of wisdom and also of rage. From
Where I perch like a bird.
From where our yearning used
To meet the beautiful languages of our century
And from there, into our bodies
Or did the feeling hit our bodies first
And trust and love make understanding?
Is there such a thing as loveless telepathy?
I don’t think I’d want it.
The way my man friends spoke of the future
It sounded like a dead neutrality in which their ideas
Would enjoy free play.
The child’s head presses down
At the door of the world. The cow’s horn
Prods infinity. In infinity the cow eats patiently
Beyond the sounds that shape the mouth
And borrow the air for our voices
I lost faith in my strength to say it
And lost trust in your desire to hear it
I stopped hoping my father would call me
Eventually I had to accept that I also
Could not call him. Silence
Is golden. Silence is dignified.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
There was a vogue for silence in writing
Among adults when I was younger. It was taken
To be the correct consequence of slaughter
And those art works and forms that figured
Out how to contain this silence were considered
The great ones. “How can a secret
Be known as a secret,” asked a now
Forgotten philosopher. It is no
Exact science how a world takes form.
We know the old books speak
Of the word
Splitting the darkness. Gods seem
To recede for lack of love—they begin
To resemble ghosts; forgotten history
And also the distortion of something
Talked-about if you never get
To hear anything better than the talk.
So. The female form representing
Universal wisdom is fashioned And
refashioned again. “We never
Learn” is true in a way. But truer
Still the monument to a kind of time
That does not age. If you feel
It then you know 
For Mai-Thu Perret ♦