[Realpoetik] Brett Fletcher Lauer

[RealPoetik Magazine]

A FIFTH MEMORY





Let's not speak of ravens, keyholes at twilight, subjects

immediate to observation appearing partly as a doctrine

of chance. It is unlike me to dispute what is grand.



A cloud field can herald distress, command numbers

to fragment, but the rainfall lacked compulsion, how

birds listed as unclean were birds of prey, not a model



for conduct. Every day began with trust; segments

fitted together like small bodies of animals and plants.

Arriving home a touch positioned your face upright



regardless of industrious wind. Restore me to that

then, however streaked with gloom, however riddled

through with worm and sorrow. Part of the problem



was mandatory participation, the other your radiant

neck from certain sadness, half-feelings in August,

or the will to walk many-sided. Restore me to a prior



arena beyond where this letter fills a hand mildly. There

exists no such thing as three beginnings. Earlier gestures

were vague in declaring intention, and what the echo



from the cliff responds with is a general void, minor

modifications in mood like English weather. Restore

the song its bird, bird its egg, egg to concept. This world



mirrored a wonder formerly praised until we discovered

the structure of horror in all inventions. I anticipated

otherwise, the arrangement of light on a woodland stream



to dazzle; a red fox paused on a hilltop to restore

a condition decayed. What could determine the next

question? What answer could halt the mind and its written



description from an eternity grazing on itself? What answer

could relinquish such control or once more bury it

in a hole with anything else the animals might claim?





NO NEW INFORMATION





When I hang in the air


it will be by popular


demand. There is


a contingency of people


who think loving me


is wrong. I made this


for them. I care deeply


about our republic


but I’m unsure what


to do next. I’m lonely.


Duh. Even I can learn


to endure, but can


no longer speak


for us. Your anxiety


is noted. There is


something radically wrong


in the letter I left


or else Scandinavian.


I feel my apartment


getting dirty. I make


a cup of tea. It is


an accomplishment.


Later, I’m going


to haunt everything



in this room.






*Brett Fletcher Lauer* is the Managing Director of the Poetry Society of
America and a Poetry Editor at *A Public Space*. His poems have appeared or
are forthcoming in *American Poetry Review*, *Boston Review*, *Tin House*,
and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.


-- 
RealPoetik
realpoetik.blogspot.com
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