Tom Beckett



Image of
A torso,

An environment,
Something made

Of unfoldings,
Somebody going

To a movie
Or a rectangle

(wrecked angle),
Our better angles,

Unrecorded saxophones,
The story

Of words remade,
A bed

Of oysters,
Grace notes

Shyly colored
Would have been

Tumult otherwise,
Concentration

Rescued by
A couplet

Or an
Accumulation of examples,

It is
A strange space

Not synonymous
With variation

Or insomnia,
Accusations relive

Fixations, elaborate
Simmering daydreams,

Obsession is
An engine

Of beauty,
Memories are

Embodiments of dreams,
Grids and things,

Emblems, edges,
Voyages and cracks,

In touch with
The thickness of experience,

Quickly emptying depths
Through a screen,

Appearances being
What they seam,

  Lapsing objects
  Surrounded by

Feedback systems’
Incessant mirror effects,

Shadows resist nothing,
Awkward position

(Poetics)
Of being entered

(Broken into)
Like a house

Where the furniture’s
Been rearranged,

Somebody goes
To another place

Does something else,
Writes something down,

Obsession is an engine
Of repetition,

Memories are
Mutating stencils,

Image of
Image of

Image of
Image of

Fading thing
Fading further,

Butterfly fluttering
Above somebody,

Somebody who,
Somebody who,

Would have,
Could have,

Should have,
Lyrically speaking, stopped.




Tom Beckett lives, writes and will likely die in Kent, Ohio.
 
 
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