substack
(p.s. drag me!!!!!)
The Comet
I’m
full of much ordinary-
ness, and while the sometimes spectacular
shape of my limbs or my words
do have the power to besot,
to consume one’s mind, I did
see a comet today and all it was
was some blurry lightness,
and that’s regular. Blurry
lightness is all around, shrouded
by blurry darkness, and among blurry
otherness, too. I’ve been meaning
to learn the names of the constellations,
as if putting language to the universal
organization of things would further
the spectacle, would bring poetry
to things, would make the stars
more than that. More than things
idle, sky-stuck, there. As if language
hasn’t distorted meaning enough, already.
As if after distorting, it could save. As if
naming the uniqueness of something
doesn’t just reduce it to something else
named, something else out there
with the same syllables, the same
turn of mouth of or-din-ar-y.
ness, and while the sometimes spectacular
shape of my limbs or my words
do have the power to besot,
to consume one’s mind, I did
see a comet today and all it was
was some blurry lightness,
and that’s regular. Blurry
lightness is all around, shrouded
by blurry darkness, and among blurry
otherness, too. I’ve been meaning
to learn the names of the constellations,
as if putting language to the universal
organization of things would further
the spectacle, would bring poetry
to things, would make the stars
more than that. More than things
idle, sky-stuck, there. As if language
hasn’t distorted meaning enough, already.
As if after distorting, it could save. As if
naming the uniqueness of something
doesn’t just reduce it to something else
named, something else out there
with the same syllables, the same
turn of mouth of or-din-ar-y.