29 June 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 2

Compassion of the Sentence

by LAYNIE BROWNE

Today is ten days, which are one week and three days, of the Omer

Be compassionate for no reason

because you live in the middle of a sentence

at any point suspended and what was

really meant was not the street or the setting

abruptly, not your mental scenery passing by

as if we were to walk within it however

pleasant or unpleasant there seems to be no other.

Going forward is entering because you cast a reflection

of all you have seen. And because the unseen is the premise

from which we must see something beyond

the false parameters of mistaken bowers.

Bending from the waist, and the one solitary

bird is building

You want something based upon form

Emanations which move between two bodies

This doesn't happen from without

When thought is suspended the marks are represented by dream

If you haven't been deserted from your escort in the sandbox

then you aren't akin to the afternoon ending

If you are the night falling you are shaded but not sullen

And the contour we imagine as melancholy is a projection of consciousness

Bright marks of color are followed by silence or darkness

This repetition is a form of trust

If tomorrow does not come I will be sorry

to live in the middle of an unkempt sentence

or disenchantment when what I actually wanted

existed only beyond texts set aside

either swiftly or defiantly, but with a clarity of purpose

These words are only what we become of them

The present pretext is not to shine but summon

those further selves which think nothing of possessing beauty

and therefore can contain a momentary radiance as it rushes through