I.

for any set

of rules i’m given.

sets of treatises

and laws, flowers,

inconsistent state

-ments. like, “i

think it’s very beautiful.”

and “i think

it burns in the night

like a necklace

on my wrist

and neck.” “i think

you keep the light on

when you

cultivate dreamlight—

will,

tearing

away at the line

between life and

sleep,

obedience and dis-

cipline. will we

still train our

forces on

as beautiful, as ordered

kingdoms.

will we still

have this

when we era

-dicate life?

for bresson, i read,

the dullest, flattest

parts when

filming are

the ones that,

on the screen, are most

filled with life. life-

machine. four nights

on a boat speeding

down a river

called victory

in france. people live—

just people

live (ikon.)

and will contin

-ually be upset,

dire, although correct,

with themselves.

you (people) will

always live

without knowing why,

—without choices

to live we will always

live without choice.

here, the least

crucial

choice being

love. and

you come to me

through the babyness

of the world. (you

(people) come to me

through the babyness

of the world. you

(people) wash

through the weight of the sun.)

II.

the totality of night

in this poem

has to be

continuous with

the totality

of night.

the continuous

has

to be the irreplaceable,

every piece

a distant

murder

that we are

just barely

able to

understand, a

deal gone

sour,

catastrophic

just

at the point

where we

almost (and this

is where

night has to

be between

two people,

but then, when

they aren’t expecting,

involving

everyone else)

made all the money.

(and this

is where

you go

wrong. where,

thinking

out of frustration

that you don’t

understand me

at all, at any

crucial

instant, you

actually

understand

me completely. take

a detour

through the gallery

of modern

art and meet me

there, at

the dazzle gallery.)

of course this

means

we could live without

any money, although

we would

rather die first.

of course this

means

if you were living

without

any money, i would

live with you, just so that

—without, both

of us, together, living

with money—

we wouldn’t both

be living, together, without money.

somewhere in between

those two i’ve

already loved you,—

this being a love

poem in

its innermost continuity,

the one in between negatives,

predicates, nights,

—this being

night from inside

the perspective

of the dream, the

night you build

a pool around me.

these are my socks,

love. this

the word for frost

in spanish, love.

these are the books

i’ve read, love. these are

pieces of the night

in its totality which,

being continuous,

is a surface whose every

section (not piece)

should

be deducible

and yet isn’t. which means

any piece

that’s lost

is lost. thanks

to the totality, its rules.

what does it mean—to

rule,—for me

to you.

in the spirit we’re on the battlefield.

III. godmother

one. moments

will pass over

-head the houses, in

-side them. one.

roof trusses from

your houses have

been used as

charcoal, your vase

is emptied of beads, one

plus one. you

have stayed up

all night (he is gone)

and the morning

light is an

interiority

that excludes you. the

only exclusion that

is believable, lovable,

—the great beast

will tell you this too,

against its

own interests in you,

you immediately have

to live

like this—is

the scenario which, in this

act, you don’t enter

into, but

in the next act

you do, (ignoring

all pretenses

of the last act’s time, that

this is actually a

disguised return, a

return hidden from

everyone in the room at

the precise moment when

it resembles

itself, for you

to sneak in, in the very last act)

playing your ghost, which means,

in this current

act the beast

needs you to move, quickly.

through the forest like

the forest’s own dream

in the hair. and all

for what?, this

becoming-ghost, this image

of the dream only

the hair on your head

sees. a dour

love (one), never

on time. your childhood

dream of a little igloo

on that hill, stoppered

with jacquard honey,

a swarm of wasps so

intense it is like

you are here in this room (one)

writing. for years i have

run wild and now?

a warm welcome.

a bad dream.

you are here in this room

and you are alone but every

saturday will meet

everyone else

on this mountain

for synaxis—and

when you forgive yourself

you’ll have great

spots on the beast, great leaps

in the other different

room. every

thing—just then—you’ve

done will return to you again

as its night, you (the you

that you’ve managed to pull off) as

your-night, the

house as house-night (here, the sky

gets darker

and darker until you form a

tense and beautiful cage with

it, and here, retain

both yourself and the night sky,

like bait,

you know its eyes are on you and can see you…)

the inner product as inner

product-night, the outer product, things

that i’m holding for you in people,

as outer product-night. night is

when i can see you. when something

disappears, not in the place

it occupied but to its side, in

this place’s shifting i can see you,

not the place

you take but the place you use.

between 4am and 6am is

the orchard’s stretch, and

the pails of cold water

in the orchard, and the orchard

is not opposed to the night but

the diagonal

cutting

across it,

parallel but above

the dream, drowned not

drowning. awake, not waking.