Robert Knight


A Monolith in the House

We got one. Seemed like everyone else we knew had one. A little late to the party maybe, but we'd been waiting for the bugs to be worked out of the first release. A search for "best monoliths of 2020" helped us find just the right one for us. It fits in nicely with the collection of vintage post-modern furniture we bought last year, and we've taken to calling it monolithic chic, or sometimes just eclectic. It's kinda cool, standing there in the middle of the living room, in its implacable simplicity, a little god-like in its noble unknowability. Sometimes it seems like a skyscraper, a little piece of Manhattan at home, or an ultra-modern grain silo, a slice of Iowa all our own. It's strange the way it seems to attract opposites and hold them in a mute solemnity, fold them into a solid unity. Recently, we've begun waving hello again to our neighbors across the street, and rather than scowling and turning their backs like they used to, they now just stop and stare, as if confused, and somehow uncertain what to make of us.

From an as yet untitled series

triumphant music plays, almost like a parody
summarizes itself with an image of alpenglow and cold wind
endless morning, constantly rising, that sound effect
that something feels strange feeling -- this is a sign
now nothing but pure magic, a magic act
a recognizable part of some recombinatory virus
carefree, in contrast to the siren
running through the streets sounding scared
urging us to give up, our shallow materialistic goals
wind rising up out of a valley
some line crossed from which there is no return
you wake from it all groggy then realize everything
is different, the words scrawled across the wall in what
looks like blood, probably finger paint


*

violence, the so-called justice system, the convictions of pattern analysis
wrapping up everything into its present representation
our labors, physical, pardadoxical, paradisical, whimsical
a piece of shadow has gone missing, or a strange shadow
is added that has no source
the beginnings of a conspiracy theory
something the wind whistles through
what a marvelous feeling of nonfeeling driving
among the dancing leaves, leaves that look like crystal wet and
highlighted in the sun, in the supernatural world
supernatural things happen naturally
what just fell onto the floor, and other mysteries of
the soul manifesting in the space of a morning's destiny
or am I just again fitfully mansplaining the inner darkness?




Robert Knight works remotely from Middle Tennessee.
 
 

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