TIME AND MATERIALS

1

To make layers,

As if they were a steadiness of days:

It snowed; I did errands at a desk;

A white flurry out the window thickening; my tongue

Tasted of the glue on envelopes.

On this day sunlight on red brick, baretrees,

Nothing stirring in the icy air.

On this day a blur of color moving at thegym

Where the heat from bodies

Meets the watery, cold surface of theglass.

Made love, made curry, talked on the phone

To friends, the one whose brother died

Was crying and thinking alternately,

Like someone falling down and getting up

And running and falling and getting up.

2

The object of this poem is not to annihila

Tonot annih

The object of this poem is to report atheft,

In progress, of everything

That is not these words

And their disposition on the page.

The object o f this poem is to report atheft,

In progre ss of everything that exists

That is not th ese words

And their d isposition on the page.

The object of his poe is t repor a theft

In rogres f ever hing at xists

Th is no ese w rds

And their disp sit on o the pag

3

To score, to scar, to smear, to streak,

To smudge, to blur, to gouge, to scrape.

“Action painting,” i.e.,

The painter gets to behave like time.

4

The typo would be “paining.”

(To abrade.)

5

Or to render time and stand outside

The horizontal rush of it, for a moment

To have the sensation of standing outside

The greenish rush of it.

6

Some vertical gesture then, the way that anger

Or desire can rip a life apart,

Some wound of color.