1.
A door opening
surrounded by the random
nothing ideal assumes its place
we are fronting miniscule labors
the old ladies are dead
you will turn to the magnificat
the serried on high sparkling stones
I waver with the annealed hands
retract my talons and take my seat
at the foot of the mountain
2.
I did not give labors
have not toiled to the pinnacle
or caught visions on granite faces
my eyes often tormented by nature
up to my elbows searching around
the journey of my birth that begins
when I made casual steps
got far afield retraced my way
conjuring abstract Deities
as a form of solace
3.
To be observant
imbibe from all the senses
is as much upon practice
and kept promises to
sunder from the common
the daily the routine
summoning the water of
overflow cisterns
in a cool murk divine
pattern and rhythm
4.
A day like slate
wiped of all traces
my sincerest effort will be
foregoing the divine
a flat line a horizon
sun pealing through blue heaven
my body compact and fetal
the solitude of prairies
ripped open and teeming
insistent, slipping away
5.
There but for the center
everywhere at once and
nowhere light burns white
to dissipate to fluctuate
encoiled by ropes
in mind comes freedom
avoid the critical path
clear cut and burn
the fructifying salts
engulfing a river
6.
Like sawgrass appealing
to the sky I too
enfold a heat and
contain infinity
that knows one thing
the photosynthesis the
kernel of regenerating
unhindered by monastic
compromise turning only
outward
7.
Buried in folds of brain like
blankets where waft the sloughed
cells of dozens of encounters
in seven years time only a
dog could unpack that scent
that drives and divides along
party lines transmitted into
radio frequencies to be
collected divined puzzled
over as an alternative form of life
8.
Are we not the same though
I cannot recall when I took
orders from the master
when I fell afoul to be
banished into purgatory
only that he has been
idly forgotten consumed
by material and contingency
spurned like this I
refashion my attack
Robert Detman