As his lips ripple, he's not on them.

How a ghost is denied intimation--

presuming to speak for him.

Now listens intently, understanding

that silence isn't pretending not to

speak.

That sort of painful loquacity.

Then there are words that speak to

silence--which silence may or may

not speak.

Silence is a word, a word is silence--

their speaking out of turn can **** the

ghost.

The colossi of oblivion derive their

stature from what cannot be followed.

Twilight's pallored collapse gripped by a

leathery leaf, a pair of checkout keys on

a blear nightstand.

A mouth private about age gargles with

salt, then drags slippers away.

Lone headlights go off into a self-effacing

whoosh, an incomplete: bear in mind.

Then a heaviness is quietly told to be

seated, as if by a priest.

When some diabolical cleverness works

garlic cloves into a brain, as one grins

like a holiday lamb.

Evils that slur the speech of sleep, eight

hours of crime scene photos--fighting off

The Prince of Peace.

Where the colossi migrate as a state of

being, bring forth signs & break off into

smaller groups.

Until all that is left, can't be followed.

A pregnant woman smells a *** of

lavender, while running her fingers in

mince meat.

A gold crucifix's vintagey over-gleam, as

it pokes her cleavage line.

While cameras follow her sigh to a copse

outside the kitchen window--whose

distant image shrinks with signified

exhalation.

Now she's on a cable rerun no one is

watching.

Something fidgets at such odds--like that

can't be, & what's not happening will

come back with avengance.

A fictional character that memorized her

lines, & acted out of character.

As the scene called for her to act out of

character--but ended up being her true

self.

Non-acting in a scene written around her

maternity leave.

Filmed during the seventies, the set had

a lot of MASH-green, as if put together

from a present day thriftshop.

Believably lived-in, the dizzyingly

unplaceable scent-stain of home-cooked

meals, what people used to smell like.

A far more forgiving zeitgeist--whereas

even her true self seemed like subpar

acting.

This particular episode was at peak

viewership, what force drew all that

free time?

Perhaps the same force that plays its

rerun, at the same time it airs in a

parallel universe.

Coincidentally--her son is among those

not watching the rerun he bulged her

stomach in.

a pronounced profile without pensivity--

turned sideways, like that.

an installed idiot, an endless green

stretch, beyond curious but not curious.

imagine no further than the following:

his mind consists solely of a thought

that will not come to it.

only the lingering impression of having

to recall itself--seven Sundays in a week.

what would it be to look for the light on,

without knowing it?

it would feel like you're always about to

die, without knowing what death is.

what if such a one was charged enough

with impending death, to suddenly recall

more than the mind.

facing forward now, like that--as would

one about to recreate a week.

canvases recognized your coup de

pinceau, as the easel teetered.

an energy field so kinetic--its excitability

still cannot restrain the subject matter.

as you bit down ******* your pipe,

squeezing paint directly from a tube on

to the canvas, it lumped light years.

just as you slow-cooked your hand over

a flame, to know how a flame feels.

wore the blood-wheat beard of dusk, to

be fired as a preacher.

went coal-faced, cool & damp as the soul

of a potato.

learned to draw without drawing, like

answering a knock on wood.

watched the belly of a ******* swell

with stones & rubbed it as your own.

you knew not Vincent, as they didn't--

how could thirty-seven years of merged

light know?

how could the bullet in your belly know,

how could the crows over the field know?

how could the ear to the wall of the

Yellow House know--the same sound the

sunflowers you cut knew?

the ones you went into a vase with--the

housewarming that unsettled Gaughan.

the artist colony of two, its more than

complete history.

the taste of  paint & turpentine,

withdrawal from coup de pinceau.

baptized in the frigid waters of an

asylum, so your senses could deliberate

on a verdict.

unanimous as the bandage around your

head, Theo!!!

hiding the ear you handed another

*******, a ****** shell to listen to.

suddenly you came pouring in from

everywhere.