travel voucher
 
out among a line
stemmed
 
the posts were static
the water
 
“a symptom of random charity.”
 
i gather the tickets in a
red folder
and hope someone will come
to claim them
 
the project begins
again and again
of breakers
and poets wandering
among the ruins of
tribal spaces,
of ships buried.
 
again, from here to here.
 
stemmed
placed
 
searching for others.  
 
 
 
 
 
Fir Watcher
 
1.
the notebook falls open to reveal a new city designed at last
for a peaceful people
 
“i was listening.”
 
in the bushes, hidden.
 
i am busy and attempting
to align the field with
hands told to watch
this market business.
 
old words repeat with memories
of where they were heard.
 
2.
we advertise ourselves as a location
among the shops.
 
with shells in jars
blankets, beach suits
with suntan lotion,
souvenirs.
 
we keep our words under the counters
in the obvious but unchecked places.
 
3.
under the fir
anger spills over
into the cracked earth.
 
i concentrate on the motion,
the limbs thrown by the wind.
 
 
 
 
turbulent stillness
 
our burning is a shifting of placement,
and this is our location.
 
--this remedy
of eyes--
 
still
we don’t know
where the wings will touch
or how
our hands will
be when they no longer are.
 
and we
remember
stories of boxes
found in deep ocean
water, of heavy turbulence
in dark clouds.
 
we cannot
shake the bolts
and buttons that define
our line between out and in,
so we rely on the irrational,
 
--aligned for
quick distribution--
 
we want the problem to be fixed without
our having moved.  




a seat is a portal

a slide is a graphical line

a building is a speck

please leave the keys on the stand by the bed.

and it comes with us
across the imagined 
real.








revision

is

 over and over

replaying  
  
  hours
 
 a part as action

this piece

 beyond
  redemption

 until you

succeed.







the news of a voice 
trailing ideas like ice
spreads from line to 
line
          and still we move 
to trace its coming as
high flight or bat trap 
shaking
          (they are dying in 
          thousands with 
          white chins stunned)
but we do not 
capture speed only 
create it and 
dream it to be
          even now 
shared here we cannot
remember its passing.

William Allegrezza edits the e-zine Moria and the press Cracked Slab Books. He has published five books, In the Weaver's Valley, Ladders in July, Fragile Replacements, Collective Instant, and Covering Over; one anthology, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century ; seven chapbooks, including Sonoluminescence (co-written with Simone Muench) and Filament Sense (Ypolita Press); and many poetry reviews, articles, and poems. He curates series A, a reading series in Chicago dedicated to experimental writing. In addition, he occasionally posts his thoughts HERE.