Five Finger Exercise

March 23, 2005

I.

All the silence gets writen on a Mac
plugged into a generator in Eugene, Oregon
to eradicate superfluous longing
or placate the teacher who has condemned him

to education under the trees
counting out the hours like one counts bees
through a screen. But faking it wasn't necessary
with friends around to drop a quote

that makes him invisible, away from the
suspiciously categorizing: blankets of circumspect fog
over the precision of seeing on a fitful day.
You couldn't find richer suburban comedy than this growth of hormones

blending in with the cars, moss, and Protestants
as organ music wafts over Laura Dern's monologue
in Blue Velvet, the one about robins
alighting from her hair, her wrist watch, or whatever

(Armaggedon can't always be so distilled)
simple strategy for dispelling the mime of being:
lunging onward to the next quatrain,
turning up the dial to drown out traffic sounds, the

microwave door as it is slammed closed
to keep the vigilent from imploding golf balls in it.

II.

Vandalism of the sincere: that's almost a job
when you think of it, something to iron the gabardine for
day after day, priming the fingers
as if for a recital -- only this time it's the sheer amateur

who wins the ribbon, and can be smug
like any sophomore who's made the cover of Art News
before disowning it. That's kind of like music:
keeping the time interesting for the attentions of the addict

to time, and getting credit for it -- for being human -- in an
otherwise mechanical world. But nothing is so easy.
You have to play fair with your silences, let them sing,
and stopping your breath for a moment, peace as you've come to know it.