these fish return
from being buried in the earth
to absolve the desperate wilderness
and to leave it wild
and to make it home. the waters
that feed these fish
are our tears, the light that feeds
these fish are the flashes
that explode to frighten us
just before sleep. when the oceans
become distant
they will plant themselves in miniature
in the egg of witness
inside our hearts,
they will remove the dangers
of the remote refuge
of my Darién. then, I will live there
with my love
again, and become the particle
indistinguishable
from the wave. we will be together
always, to fly
like giant hummingbirds
and reflect the sun
to itself

arrives       in this weak
and fast extinction

it cannot fall
for the seed
of your morning

memory, and the war
floats our beginnings
as we want
to know the freedom
of our solitary
animals. make one

see itself, as it knows
the farm grids
from above. (together)

we do not remain
outside, in
seasonal knots –
the abrupt unity
will carve a refuge
for the world

it will last
as among your flowers
the birds reveal us
as disaster
heals impediment, and speaking
to us – in the vision
of our disease
will see itself

and move
to be born

Removed.

Is the mind
unlocked

but not fully
in nature?

It’s always there, hidden by the brutal
information
of housing. What is
the true
secret that I keep you from?
I’ve told you
everything, and will continue
to. The secret

evolves endlessly, always
pushing out the light, because

all the pictures possible
are like reflections
of a shiny row
of large red and black ants
about to be extinguished
by the spray of cutting fear
alarms, the light of which, reddened
as it is, will burn through
any possible connection
by which we
remove ourselves
to each other. Each time

you give me the word, I absorb,
intentionally, fast beyond my knowledge,
the ignorance
of both of us. Everything
we sing to the ocean
bleeds us through
making the light
with which we see
with waves. Fly high

like the train that dies
with the host. You will arrive with them
to the desert, where
all of us evaporate
to the suns,

with a romantic view
of horses. Keep
the faith
as I am determined
to move through this light
slow and thoroughly
and with a single
wheel. It’s already done.
All of it.

All I have to do
is put my body
through it.

Roberto Harrison (© 2010)

and disappoint
as there is no silence
from the one
that does not divide.

the silence
arrives from before
as I am
to be from…

the snow
the tropics

the silence
does not carry

with those here
in this town
on earth

or does it?

she holds
to the tree
as it grows
stronger
in the wind

she is the earth
that is noise
and poison

for what purpose?

she is the earth
that found me

to live free
where we hurry
toward a cliff?

to live free
in the timeless
shorelines

held hostage
by hawks
coyotes
and the deer?

she brought me
a life — she and she
and she

the three together
as one woman

young
equal
and aged

in one
and three times

the most fused
embrace
of the earth

scabs
the fields

executions
I have seen
but have not seen

programs
behind the scenes

a throbbing world
of light

a vision
machine

(of hermaphrodites
and midgets)

no
more layers
between us

keyboards
and a screen

to make a ground

to disconnect

and live

for the games
of disappearance

or for me to walk
to the other side
of the lake
around
and through
where my friends
live?

in Chicago?

our silent moments
are necessary
as the air
does not belong
to country — but no music
arrives

all of it is here
I hear it

here

as I love her
to destroy myself
and see my name
as if for the first time

my face
returns again
to the coasts

destroyed
and loving

to see there
on this side

to believe
as I was there once
to live
Here

to have a home
as refuge
in the silence
of the ritual
of death
of humans

across

the street

at Heritage

funereal.

the line
does not carry

how do I prevent
myself
from doing harm?

I fill balloons
with blood

and lob them back
to those
I took it from

far away

I lie to myself
of my own personal
sacrifice

to where the edge
of cutting comes

from outside
labeled “love”
but writing “harm”

to be deciphered
a long time after

here

she
in her wisdom
of old
grows
in me

believing
that one world
does not know
as I

do not know
myself
to speak of
with you

a son
of evil

the greatest
of all problems
is love

thought
makes it so

shallow waters
pour
into the oceans

and are cut
by the rain

either

I do not know
how to love

or

I do not love

and

I am homeless
as the earth
is homelss

the one
shining
distant
beauty
of youth
burns

far away
pristine
into the air

imploded
like an old
mushroom
endlessly

knowledge
brings sorrow
and thought
is not mind

as she grows
another
for the world
in Chiapas

explosions
of the stars
to guide us

a white
angel
of exception
to which the war
is rooted

she loves
without me

I am
to love
the world
as one

is wrong
in this

her picture
shines at me
from many places

her home
is my home

her ruptures
send me
to the fires

there is no one
there, as everyone
is in you

I see one
and all
before me

I turn
to move
and see
another

I help her
making holes

and love
to help
to make
a home

in this neighborhood
of our nearby
Latin light

past race?

as we wander
Indian Summer

and I accept
her deerskin
desire, like
Neil Young

embraced

calm
within myself

pummeling
the butchered word
of Others

Jesus

what chaos
will not be
the sea? none?

it’s the same
with everyone?
is it?
really? why do I see
peace
in others
in love? and not
myself? what are
these wounds
and can I
blame
them? I do not see
myself
with you, regardless

of who
you are

is this the curse
of being

on the ground
and making?

a solitary
sentence

of endless
black dots

period?

hanging pictures

hanging Molas

I make my rooms
as refuge
from display

does the silence
fill the light
of the moon

with darkness
in which to sleep
in a rage,
peacefully?

even the false
starts that remain
false

do not arrive
at the slightest
answer?

even the loving
advice
that’ll drop me
into temporary

limits

from the wrinkle
of light
of a momentary friend?
where there is
no silence? of love?

even my saying
that no one
knows

does not help
those of us
who do not
know

and say
they agree
and see. all is hell
to speak
and think of

in a Christian world
before the fullness
of the Void. even love
does not carry
except in Nature

exterminated
for the Home

to speak of
in Silence

.
soon
I will be dead

I live
and see
with the borrowed
eyes of arrested answers

join me
in a blind
vision
of animals

or dissolve
like the sun does

and the stars
that cut
the moon
and deliver me

to bleed —
a prolonged squealing

of a rabbit
as she breaks its neck

to end this here
for you

.
a moth enters
the dark
empty rooms

and erases
with a patter
of its wings

the knots
of the night

as the light
of the ringing

bells outside
push it through

to end there

.
start here

Roberto Harrison (© 2010)

Only the light.

Only the darkness.
I returned
to find the moth
on the honeysuckle
trellis. After many rains
it was
no longer there.
I looked for it
on the ground
as well, and could not
find it.
As I sat
in the hall
seeing clearly
with no future
and no past
to speak of, fully burning
in the present moment,
I heard a thud
as someone fell. I was one
with the man
as he fell. Immediately
I looked to help
and found myself
warm
like the sun
in the common
bond we shared.
There are no words for this.
“May you be safe.”

“May you be happy.”
I thought
that he might die.
It rained.
I wept
for the fear
I let go.
My mind
was blown open
by a storm
of the sun. There
was no place
for wasting
lines of capture.
In a single moment
in a single face
I see everyone.
Not you.

Not me.
On the last day
I went to see
the horses
as I did every day. I was
not to find them
there. I sang my songs
and held my palms
open to the world. I moved
in circles and felt the ghosts
of the horses. They
were in my dream. The woman
with the long braided
ponytail appeared
to plant her plants. I asked her
if she still
had the horses. She
said yes, that the flies
were so bad
that she’d put them
inside. I thanked her
for her horses. She was warm
and solid
in her welcome. The horses
were inside
forever.
I felt the air.

I felt my breath.
I sang softly
all the way back.
There was a toad
with a small bloody wound
on its leg
on the road. I picked it up
and let it go
in the comfort
of the darkness
of the grass
by the side of the road.
On the last night
as I walked
toward my room
I saw
a black fox
with a white tipped tail
in the light
walking
toward me. When it saw
me
it turned away
and disappeared
into the darkness. I received
its answer. Black
and white, on
and off, near
the wilderness.

Four times I saw the horses:

one black stallion,
with a lightning bolt
of white
streaking down its forehead,
and two brown mares.

Each day I sang to them
and showed them each
of my hands.

The first day all of them
came to the fence
to share with me their origins.

The second day
they were already at the fence
when I arrived, to fill
the balls of light inside.

The third day
a black cat
with a lightning bolt
of white
on its chest, came and played
with me as the horses
breathed quietly
at a distance
far away, but also
on the inside
of my heart. They were

at the dividing line
between each breath
and carried my light
from one breath
to the next. The cat
was happy
as it was the night
where morning
must be born. The last day

the two mares waited
apprehensively for me
as the black stallion breathed
upon the fence

all things
must cross
and which divides
him
from the mares.

I sang to them each
day, and each day
showed them each
of my hands. And on the last day,

I fulfilled my promise to them
that they would be
the horses of my dream, that I would
ride with them through all the lands
that now arrive
inside the breath. And as I said goodbye

and left, I walked away
and further on
I heard the hoof steps in the trees
I thought were deer
but it was them.

The horses
as they see me now
revealed
to be with them

collapses. Riviera, for the wind
shrunk
like knots, at the intersections of

more endings, like an exhausted
combination for a settled
over the float commanding

together with, a peace
and more shorelines
emptied, gone, recoiled…

a motion selves
an attack of tunnels
forgives, installs, and violations

oil skin makes
each fur
seas collect, cavity

increases their together, snow
factory
like a crow

floods the fly on, the prison impression
makes for the count
unknown to it, salivation dissolves

the neck. wind sea
another side of you, wind sea
promises words planted off, a cracking window

selling shoes. no wait
for the chain
remembers. sealed

flattened road, there are no
signs to give faces
a scorched season, an impala for

virtual slopes, an earthquake
connected to the roof
wheels go flat for, gone

ocean. never is it, a highway
gives off
to mark dogs. nameless smoke,

separates the pier
for song, from the blue
coal, to go

inside a torso — forests in
a hand cut
on either, in either

flooded, fooled and wet
to revolve in the gun song
and dissipate, for faces

locked outside
the magnet locker, attached
to a collectible kind of rain blot

more in tune, in the street
stretched, and you
relative, cavity of…

the field extinguished and
cape for the head
another does, toward

the engine, is
in effort — sidewinder, skin off
rumors, accumulated skin sheets

the gravity services
to color, the red
accretion

increases for the rain
operations
each inside a THEN hut, bullets

cashed. throttle this double headed
connection effort
the hand, done with a corner

another kind of its recharge
meant, to a word
ameliorations for the plastic

forests, members off it on, together, an open
cloud wire, solvent says
her face grows, retrial

in the function. same accent
revealed, to the West
received, for — to receive

in this the hand, cut circle
door for, in the darkness
matter, toward its next

separate ash, together
searing wire on the unwanted
collection, micro moves a THEN BEFORE

an unknown crisis, in it, the seeping
floor calibrated in the corner barn —
is it a none it? spherical

seven these for the room
everyone is it is, rain attired
to the Western sun

he replays, replies to it
in coffin segmentation, keeping it
solved, the dream ends, unanswered

on it then, the underwater plates, more
to go on turning
these rides to it

in THEN, a team
doesn’t crease its page
for the daylight core

tatters in the bridle for
these in their rooms, the door
not moving

to the time it sells, in its command
inside, to it that a dream comes
to it old in then a her has

cavity seas, to seas on the flat iron light
to its weapon kind of sun
to its alone for the person for one is

in accretion, gone for hands
alone, twice, gotten without
the offending dawn around its mouth, its mouth is

coming for the picture it is for a face still in it
its face is still in it twice to reflect
along the seams they split in their scrape as is it, on it

the please has to remain its double none is to it
and for the collected twice has to it gone over
around the ash has her with its green soak, is this for it on

and walking backward, a sun cut
forests stitch for this, for the two in the fallen down
coats. on this a hearing eggs, on the net

feet for wood, walking through the stalls
for keys, on the eclipsed
welcome for the weak, on its jag it separates

for the key at home — a motor kind of
lake, fish for the body
might make this into it, horizon scorches

song, then this, this body cut
together with it, in the sea, the rope in then
flown for a tongue made for it then that has one

on the plain head ash the solid lake in a flood
to keep the ship inside identical skies
in eating, a vacuum

for this in, for this it, in the it together, gone
and then this has it to the other one, the place that sells
in the aftermath two gives to it, in its tone a face

in their only one to the only one who has it, in the time
the face wore in its only time the body has less than two
to make a handshake for the place that easily falls, to this fallen

road in this they were, they were settled to go down
in the air, in the aftermath a fish in this it is cut to then
to then the time has to its selling light, the light cuts

to its only time the standing has to it, in the standing shells
the time with its together kind of stalling, no weather then
each has to the other one

to the place with tables that has his to the horse it combines
in the two sides for the bridge it divides nowhere, the installation
sells for it. for the two times the moon has nothing

the moon has nothing to cut in the only time away from light, from the star
each approaches, in the winter, in the northern tentacle that equates
for the fish to go over each head that has it, in the one together with hands

each place, forgiven, for the only time away, the time has
for nothing that sells its only time alone, in the time alone outside
with its light to fill in the separate inches, in the inches time alone sees

each forgives, for then, for then only their approach has it
to the other, the other has it gone, for the time the two begins
then its one time to the only time two begins

then this talks, over the alone together with its moon, in the plains
the alone together with its moon, in the sun burning that has it
the only time dissolves, with selling, in the arrival

each has. each has it to the other, to the other time alone
each has with a horse, the plain horse that has nowhere, now this
settled in it the home to the other, in its forgotten sun

the serial came, to the place it marks its approach, the dawn ends
in its mouth. the dawn begins then, in the ending of its mouth
with horses, the dawn ends for beginning with it

in the other time alone, each has, for the only time mountains end
to the other one gone with it, in the time given each has for the tree
for the pressure lakes give for fish

in the symbol time that has it. in the symbol time over the alone time nothing has
for the ocean, one done to it, for the ocean one done again
in this… markets end with, to the time fences begin without it

in this no one has to the start of it in the morning, it believes outside
nothing. for the time an end says, it has for the forest
each begins for it. in the ash nothing has it for, together, to the place

a light begins. in the beginning time outside the beginning time horses
have in their place to the other place beginning outside of it
for horses —

four horses in the hour of the four gone for seven, each has to its given
in the alone hour, the sun has for each that counts
and this the sun has to count, outside of it

to the other place that ends. with stars that the single death in it begins,
to the equation the road has for the horse
seven makes outside of it

and then given each removes itself, outside the self a sun makes together
with it in the only place outside itself the pressure for it
together with the time that ends with a snake that begins

for the forgotten outside of it. in the end outside of it, to the other place
that has an end outside of it to the other place
nowhere has to it to give inside of it to end, to end it all outside a settle

given each has nothing for it
in the horse that has nothing for it in the time alone, the time alone
without horses

in the end the time alone without horses has with it nothing makes
the mother. the mother together with it the seas divide
to it given the mother to it is gone to give it outside itself

to give the outside itself to give it out, to the only then which has the mother
of horses. to this then the plain has outside itself to it only then
the meaning of horses has to give it, on the wall

in the place outside itself that is there, to the place together
that doesn’t know this, this to give another place together with it
giving it together with it to this nothing to the other

in the other place outside then that has it to the only place that has nothing
to the only place that has nothing to give the horses in the plain
that has nothing

in the snow that has nothing, to the horse and the mother of the horse
that has it to the only place gone with it, together
outside itself in the air that has nothing, that has the snow

then the given the mother has it. given the mother, given the mother
kind of knife, the mother gives, to the knife
given the knife itself, you here, in nothing, and nothing plus the knife

it gives you nothing plus the knife it gives its anchor to the sea. in the season
gone, then has it to return, this has it to return
to allow oneself to return. dead with it, with the knife that has it

to return with the knife to give it the knife together. outside itself
in the only place together with the knife and the mother, given together
outside itself the only place that says it is to give

with a mother who doesn’t know. to give itself outside. knowing
the mother then, a knife for the mother who ends
itself with the knife, standing there with it, in the ocean, to the place

another has it then, to a mother then who has it, in the given knife
one has it then for the two
in the other place, for this in the poles that have it, the knife there

in each a place was to it, in this then another has, for the only place
outside the only place outside the mother, with the knife, with it that ends
here. outside the only place together with the mother

with the knife that begins. given it the knife that begins outside itself
outside itself in the knife together with it
in the knife outside itself, the given, outside itself

in this measurement, of the shell, of the time worn room
of the knife that begins with the end of it
to reveal itself the knife begins the ocean, like a wood