John Most

 

 

 

Star to Galaxy Is a Speechless Participant

 

life on top of life—

            wind to sky is a
bird in flight, cloud to mountain
is someone famous—

relation, what is in between, what can be seen—

that is really really real, very real. creek to bed
        is a cold room at night, a slap, an idiot’s
                                  gambit—

or the ends of segments
  spreading layers of stone & sand
  stone & sand

 

 

 

The Shape of this Land or Jesus Christ Foresees

 

[Tom Cruise droughts, in
                conjunction with minimum wage
tornadoes, beguile the related—

aluminum can spirits divorce shopping cart
     birds, doormat handshakes wed
festival smiles]

authentic residents spray visitors
with broken products & wet history

 

 

 

Say the Timeless Voices

 

describe the
 unimportance of—
bothers, influences, defines

a place name is worthless
     vacuous, Superior, Huron,
Michigan, Ontario, Erie
      a heron's descent

a porcelain elephant
unanticipated elegance

every moment the great
  flood is retold by firewood, doorknobs,
birthday candles—

listen—

the booming voice is
the pearl of Caesar, the Soviet Union's
eggshell, the Socratic spaceship that

                          dreams of the uneven
      shoreline, the mighty rivers,
           the collected waters