Noah Eli
Gordon
Serrated
as minimalism’s edge
hacking
through an image
inside of which
the eye relaxes
a cello
plays itself to death
while clouds
installed above
the shadow
of needlessness
continue to do
nothing we need
The Human Face Projected Anywhere But On Another Human Face
A dandelion smeared across concrete
takes the shape of a crawfish
taking its assimilation in
stride
of vagueness painting a
bird
Something in its orange beak
Orange something
The world
that falls
is a world
& the world
that’s there
is a world
a fringe world
behind it
beyond it
the world
like a model
of its model
A perfect model
without its world
imperfection’s model
a broken model
that falls
from the model
becoming a model
of what’s there
& what’s there
but a model
perfecting it
performing it
Perhaps it
was a model
Perhaps it
thought it
a world
an itinerant it
thinking it
perpetually falls
or seemingly falls
though it
is not there
becomes there
You there
construct it
gravity’s there
water’s there
what model
for there
is there
in a world
mirroring a world
where there
are waterfalls
where water falls
Everything falls
back there
where falls
are not falls
enduring it
but actual falls
the falls
which model
the model
from which falls
a world
an actual world
A world
& its model
is it
what’s there
feels, falls
Warbler afloat
above the road.
It goes forward.
Every building disappears
into the late wisdom of
capital.
If I turn around,
it also goes forward.
You cannot play a flute upside down,
and certainly cannot sing
while playing it.
The obvious, needing no explication, nor an
antonym for gift,
continues, regardless, or, perhaps,
because of regard, to give
of itself explanation: the
pulse of attention’s measure,
meandering, though purposeful as a
boat, or a watercolor
in which, by two light
strokes, the boat is only suggestion,
tentative, off-color, backed into
reeds, while the reeds
themselves move back in soft wind,
and the sound they make.