Michael Palmer
go to the bio page
Michael Palmer
go to the bio page
Letter 3 to Zanzotto
Our errors at zero: milk for mist, grin
for limbs, mouths for namesor else hours
of barks, stammers and vanishings, nods
along a path of dissolving ice. The sign
we make for same as
before whatever steps and walls,
shutters flapping in the lighted body
called null or called vocative. Id wanted to ask
about dews, habits of poplar, carousel,
dreamless wealth, nets, embers
and folds, the sailing ship Desire
with its racks and bars
just now setting out. This
question to spell itself. And the waves of us
following what follows,
retelling ourselves
what we say we've said
in this tongue which will pass
An Anniversary
What was it
that code of cloud
a wave and then
a sudden expelling
rattle of final breath
across our path
What was it
we saw
were meant to see
scattered bones rusting cups
heaved up
in dark of sun
How was it formed
this sea of ash and lime
and intermittent light
How would we read
its instructions
How proceed
Doubtless by now I owe you some nickels
for this mildewed book
decades overdue
I hardly even began it
since it seemed built of a grammar
whose laws were secret
