Joel Chace

from timocracy 

Trembling puddle:  he’s on that path though he’s made his cane
invisible.  Such terrain as is ours.
                                                                   At last, they’d
done it, arrived at city’s end, blackened façade rising,
curving above them.

                                                                              untenable
                                                                              uneightable     unsi
                                                                              xable     un
                                                                              fourable     untw
                                                                              oable     unon
                                                                              eable

                                                        So they turned back, saying
they hadn’t wanted to leave, after all.
                                                                           To neglect 
music, exercise, and begin to gather wealth.
                                                                                         Unseen cane.

                                                                               puddle
                                                                               trembling
                                                                               under
                                                                               swamp 

*Letter makes a sidewalk curb; word, an alleyway; phrase,
a block-long street; clause, a bridge; sentence, a
six-lane avenue down this city of speech.

                                                                               His cre-
                                                                               do, next thought, best
                                                                               words; his speech, crook
                                                                               ed, duck-
                                                                               like, dull.

He wants to hide his feebleness; hence, the cane.  And, though,
it’s immaterial, has become weapon, mutilating
those who care to study him too closely, those whose
scattered remains  —  one’s sinew here, another’s
bone there  —  gather themselves up to make a whole
witness, the one only who will escape and testify.

                                                                                Blood has a
                                                                                lexicon; spilled
                                                                                blood, its own.

*A new Sphinx claws its way over the walls of the city
of speech.  This time the beast is male.
                                                                            Each day sickness spreads.

                                                                      Ramparts would weep if
                                                                      they understood.
                                                                                                             To un-
                                                                      riddle the riddling 
                                                                      double-beast’s singing
                                                                      whose music is not
                                                                      music at all, dance
                                                                      that knows no music.

This time it gives us the answer first:  catastrophe; and,
to extirpate the curse, we must say, in exact
words, the riddle.
                                        But our sentences slur.

                                                                      The word of truth is
                                                                       singular in
                                                                       nature, and no
                                                                       flying dream.

*In this lake  —  in  —  lies a corridor; watery, long
container; narrow, floating stage:  scene, a hallway; he
stands at the far end.
                                              As he walks toward us, doors 
on each side open.  From every doorway, an arm
thrusts forth, with clipboard and document attached.
Without even glancing, he signs sheet after

                                                                       sheet, un-
                                                                       til, blur-
                                                                       ry-close,
                                                                       fade, cut. 

He’ll never make a dive, back to that reenactment, that
reprise of how he brought himself to now,

                                                                       when li-
                                                                       quid dark-
                                                                       ness over-
                                                                       whelms his, on-
                                                                       ly his, sight.  

*For the walled garden, he hired decorative
hermits   —  then forgot he’d done so; then forgot
them; then forgot the garden.
                                                               They’ve sheltered in
brambles, kept accounts with sticks on leaves, and

                                                                       made plans to
                                                                       show him.




                                                                       The divid-
                                                                       ed line.  
                                                                                           all
                                                                       that is mir-
                                                                       aculous, 
                                                                                           and
                                                                       he be-
                                                                       lieves in
                                                                       just him-
                                                                       self.

With stings in their fingers and hell in their toes,
they shall come at him with thorns from a rose.

*

Joel Chace has published work in print and electronic magazines such as The Tip of the Knife, Counterexample Poetics, OR, Country Music, Infinity's Kitchen, and Jacket. Most recent collections include Sharpsburg, from Cy Gist Press, Blake's Tree, from Blue & Yellow Dog Press, Whole Cloth, from Avantacular Press, Red Power, from Quarter After Press, Kansoz, from Knives, Forks, and Spoons Press, Web Too, from Tonerworks, War, and After, from BlazeVOX [books], and Scorpions, from Unlikely Books.
 
 
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