Transposition

Joel Chace

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Bless

theory says we see them perfectly              take it or take
some pills              pockets full of blood and bones misprision's
holiness license's script              illegible
stamped-seal blues and yellows              deep as stained glass
even in enemies' eyes              bless all sentences
they escape              bless all paragraphs elsewhere they exist

* * *

one phrase pair smoke held taken deep into lungs              what does
all mean              breakfast coffee grits their expectations were not
high can quit cold whenever              black river at city's edge
so park out behind              wear scarf compose life wages of stopping
weeping so long for been and done              writing will grope
its way then will be there              to meet it we leave from here to here

* * *

this child              often feverish on the way to clinic
future does not entirely              build itself also is
unrepentant              over the riven and through
the words all earlier inks still              having not
dried              or breaking into chilled speeding clarity
would sleep and never remember              middle distance

* * *

place must carry weight              whatever courses through
onward              light snapped on off whole city's ponderable spook
accumulating its long wait for nothing              to end
invention of shadows              radiant horizons
glance only way              at Blake's tree urgency of objects
red house over yonder and the blue              of night

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