Variable Songs
Patrick Morrissey

Each attempt to seek

      a ripple in the structure

   interval moving across

 

water sounds against walls.  Not

      a room but a chamber

   bound by a tremor in the ear-

 

drum, into which one casts

      small variables, breaths to ring

   the surface, to sound a depth.

 

 

• • •

 

 

Breath’s flung tapestry,

      diaphanous cathedral

   evening thrown through

 

with light sung upward.

      Behind the screen, the stone

   structure stands, gathering

 

its meaning.  Within its with-

      held cavity, a rigorous

   silence expands and arches lucent.

 

 

• • •

 

 

The tongue occupies

      a silence at the heart

   of the sentence.  If I

 

look long enough my mouth

      opens to expose a sung

   negative: if I, if I.  Syll-

 

ables fall into a small

      heap of conditionals,

   so many attempts to see.

 

 

• • •

 

 

As seeing would have it

      the landscape impresses

   a surface behind the eye,

 

invisible optic

      pulse persons numerous

   and things, the curious

 

thing between us the day’s forms

      printed in relief explain each

   other each single instance among.

 

 

• • •

 

 

Earth become information

      the news always arrives to

   a body placed in a public

 

clearing in which one occasion

      of sensitive life attunes it-

   self.  The dailies, the differences

 

one wakes to find make the city

      one lives in.  Walks across

   bridges, under arches of language.