EXCRETA 
 an electronic chapbook
 by 
 HARRY POLKINHORN
 _________________________________________________

  
 1
 mote in light and light through leaf
 white web strand in open air
 gentle shadow
 
 because after the clinging and wailing
 years later from a benign
 perspective the deadlines are again
 dead and some sense of space
 
 stretched thin as hammered thought
 a colossal edifice to catch insects
 no matter at what scale a mere
 energy concentration dumps its
 contents freshly conceived
 
 unable to say no point blank a
 way through these thickets
 human say to chop with chunks
 they scream and laugh-water
 on skin and skin doing
 its job to net another breath
 
 2
 comfortable among the fabrics of dreaming
 series of easy challenges
 to your sense of a customary morning
 being less than the others because
 of a cold hand laid down coldly
 across your body
 that exists in its own right
 one learns through stains that accrue
 where to resume that task
 drinks at dusk in the heat
 each chiseled cheekbone
 having achieved its destined glow
 home life that escapes your grasp
 amusingly you salute the day
 with its variable quotients
 of accident victims and political
 lies just so we can recall
 our birthright, our greatness
 as fleas and mites that rule
 freely time bombs of illness
 at war with these open moments
 these fully loving subtle trees
 
 3
 then gone because of wind
 available at last only through thought
 taken as an amount of energy
 green with traces of sunlight
 how often you've looked out
 or listened to a secret voice
 valved by the sea's restlessness
 having forgotten your own voice
 or never having had one
 the servants lower their eyes
 express another presence in time
 as feet descend the staircase
 a man in a dark suit walks
 slowly lost in their dazzle
 and neither words nor images
 match your unpatterned view
 that just takes it in unguardedly
 a pleasant dogma as if rain
 and clouds buffeted about
 cruel passage through rooms
 and streets stunned with
 how much there is
 
 4
 due to the irrelevancy of place
 which is all you have
 you've decided to return to Rome
 or Berlin smoking in the dark
 its machines at the ready
 as your hunger builds gracefully
 and whirling mirrors at the feast
 of the assumption, objects that
 don't wear out simply
 by being gazed upon-it's time
 you packed your flowers and air
 calendar pages ripped out floating
 down-river where later you'll embark
 again having carefully removed
 identifying labels the dust storm
 blows away and a morning fog
 flows imperceptibly, each drink
 taking its toll as if grander
 ambitions were to be reduced
 to your level, your pitiful human
 tinsel and flash their winking
 in the cold blast
 
 5
 known but a view across
 the canyon to the evacuation
 site, for fear and a lonely
 factor brought up on charges
 because you can't buy your way out
 of this one, and anyway they
 can't see you so you're hiding
 in a dream world stripped down
 to the chassis where the water
 dumps out of an apocalyptic sky
 like mucus and old semen clots
 so somehow you recognize a common
 poverty where adults are concerned
 people who've felt removed or think
 they can imagine a long afternoon
 of life's making-it's the raw
 stuffing spread out under the sun
 revealed in all its splendor! you
 cringe as if seeing what you
 shouldn't and rightly so since
 we hate the dark door that
 beckons in the floor
 
 6
 in radio contact at Mach speed
 you crawl across a galaxy aperture
 hacked out of the imaginary
 the sweating workers their pinpoint
 pupils barring access but you won't
 accede and press on-lawsuits
 lab reports the terrible chit-chat
 that filters in when noticed
 the saddest passage up stairs
 through dappled moving shadows
 as though we'd wanted our tiny
 flames to waver these fortunate
 engines in running order you speak
 an archival language to no one
 the editor of the dead intent
 only on metallic formula vision
 simply in order to proceed but
 their steeds of desire are asleep
 and using stealth you kidnap back
 what once was yours, a child
 now living in memory
 the bed empty
 
 7
 where werevyou? later you felt
 that because of what happened
 you had changed into another person
 even your cells had shifted, your
 ability to recognize light
 by inference or a cognitive
 adjustment to factual
 legalities, whichever most
 nauseates through sheer obduracy
 meaning only it takes longer
 to erode your recognition
 as the packages come and go
 their precious cargo of tears
 that have a phenomenological
 short-circuit, an unconditional
 claim on what's most intimate
 this year in the crosshairs
 of wilderness survival just
 in case while small armies
 of the heavily damaged
 hide out in the mountain
 outback and oil their guns
 
 8
 numb from being beaten
 by a grayness, you stumble
 in speech to keep from dying
 any further as an image
 of her face and form on
 leaving childhood behind forever
 only to go back in a fake
 mode of remembering which one,
 how they fashioned a line
 and forced you to buy it
 since they wanted their names
 on the checks so everyone would
 know who gave the most
 while ghostly smells of loam
 and wax-sealed wounds
 the stockpiling of wheat oil
 beer or just hands setting
 a table and turning wood
 for these few moments to create
 a picture of what we do
 as a doing itself, a breathing
 in its own right
 
 9
 harvest of warmth to get you by
 a practiced motion, something cleanly
 simple achieved by removal of excess
 your body hurts infinitely
 while your mind roams through it
 yet you cannot accept the gift
 but want to be imperious
 and measure your outbursts with
 a pistol butt or tire iron
 so here comes a thief of time
 whose mask couldn't be more bland
 a million miles away from threats
 and subjugation you bluster
 and strut until claimed by
 power's curvature and invisibility
 the dog days gone we glide
 imperceptibly down into an autumnal
 explosion of deliquescence, the richly
 minor key, the prelude to
 checkmate in the park followed by
 a deadly laxity or distension
 the animals of another night
 
 10
 as if anything were guaranteed
 a manhunt or lineup to prove
 that stepping off into a canyon
 of facts gone sour with the heat
 degree by degree the flow of feeling
 hummingbird dance, you swim up
 from the sleep pit unresolved, unrepentant
 because no one touches you
 no errant ways to chart
 felonious assault in the mind
 directive or retrospective mania
 you tried to understand those ideas
 while listening to construction
 and traffic, awash in books
 from all over the world
 until latent symptoms appeared
 and you knew you'd run your course
 through illusions too huge
 to fit, so now you intuit
 the shadow kingdom where
 even the winds of your last hour
 have fallen mute