WEBVTT

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This poem came from
going back to Chicago

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after having moved away
and taking advantage

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of very different museums--

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one, where Jeff Koons had
a display with a giant

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mirror like bunny that greeted
you and reflected you and then

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down to Hyde Park to the
Oriental Institute, where

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on the same day, I was reading
fragments of the Dead Sea

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Scrolls.

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There is also in here
this strange thing

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in 19th and 20th
century linguistic,

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where in 19th
century linguistics,

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an asterisk that printed
meant that it was signaling

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an ur-form, a source word
that having found it,

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meant there was another
source and couldn't exist.

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And in modern linguistics,
the same symbol--

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meaning that it was
marking an impossible form.

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And there's lots of
asterisks in this poem.

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And I'll mark those by
doing jumping jacks.

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And the poem is titled Museums.

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Must I in this
question I am asking

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include myself for asking it?

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Must I include my face,
my face that I cannot see,

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through which I speak these
questions about my eyes,

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about the field of vision, in
which my hands press down these

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letters unattached to my arms?

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The sunlight comes in the
window and lights up my hands

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as they work.

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The world is not being kind.

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But there is the
sensation of kindness.

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There is an appeal to
a rule when we realize

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a term behaves uncomfortably.

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God falls down into
grammar and says, I am.

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But the words are spoken
from a bush on fire.

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God is included in this grammar.

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Philosophy offers to the
flies stuck in the bottle.

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There it is on
the table, walking

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in circles within
the empty bottle,

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pausing only to rub
its four legs together

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in anticipation or prayer.

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I remember walking into
the glass walled museum

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and seeing myself
reflected in the head

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and in the belly of the metal
rabbit's mirror-like skin.

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This was not long ago.

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This experience of the ancient
world reasons simultaneous with

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appetite, watching myself
think, seeing my eyes thinking,

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my body-- a body that contained
this thinking that I write

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in the margins of
the books I read--

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a script that over time
appears less legible,

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a form-- a cuneiform.

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I cannot read myself what
I wrote in the margins.

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There is a fragment that
floats in the air, floating

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in my mind, spoken by a
voice, not mind to study--

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circumcises the heart and calms.

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The book studies the heart.

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Many words are
missing or illegible.

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If not, to turn away, fire
courses through the veins.

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Many words are
missing or illegible.

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Then anger, anger-- leaning
back in the tall grass,

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putting my book aside.

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My toe covers the sun.

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I am imagining this world,
but I'm inviting you in,

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so I can join you.

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In the old language, the
language no one ever spoke.

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The language, whose words
in the scholarly papers,

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are marked by stars--

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asterisks, that say,
this word exists

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by not existing, the imaginary
route pushing down from the sky

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into our heads, the
root of the tongue.

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In this language, I meant here.

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It did not mean me.

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It meant a location in
which this body I am it's

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not an expression of love
but a word of presence.

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Here I am-- voice
and a boundary.

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And this place I am,
I once had a dream--

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cylindrical seals rolled across
the Earth, printing in the mud

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the image of a woman, braiding.

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Her hair was loose, and
then her hair was bound.

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These roads end at the
horizon, where I also

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end, present in this
world as the alphabet

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is present in this poem.

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Asterisk-- I, asterisk--

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I. Sometimes, asterisk--

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I like to stutter.

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Asterisk-- I like to
think the sky is blue.

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Asterisk-- I see
sometimes it's red.

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More soon on the nature of
impossible constructions--

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the man in the moon, the
sea rose, the living room.

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