Research: Journals
The Journal
Issue 32.2
Circles in the Shell of the Ear
Christopher Howell
Everything I say I say everything
twice
everything twice,
though I'm a liar. Most matters
mean so little to me, nothing
like the apples in my yard
though I have no yard. Quiet plunder
goes on in the great malls.
Chickens are forgotten are forgotten.
There I go again. I wish I had fingers
inside me to stroke and rinse the past.
The apple past. And streetcars. And holding
someone dear as a meadow, fog breathing above
in sunlight. In sunlight breaking
again the door
open again to say
again be calm, this oblivion
starts in you. In you this oblivion starts
and comes around like
apples I wouldn't lie.
All of this I say will be again
forgotten and reborn and forgotten.
As every mercy is the soul
of mercy, one star
winks and listens and the rivers
listen in the great
great night out-of-into
which we ourselves sail
ourselves, boats at last we can't
explain love in the face of love
in the face of God's oblivious meadow, the soul
of mercy.
I think I'll lie down I think I'll lie by
the lake of candles small
in the vast black of light inhaling
light, breathing it out, out and we become
again
and again I say everything
twice and feel again mercy's exquisite
touch
circling oblivion and my ear
hearing my voice and another hearing that
hearing this mercy this boat
setting out
with an apple an apple
an oar.
