TELEVISION

TELEVISION

I have nothing more to work at 

than to make silvery images.
Flickering horizons. Imagined vertigo.
I have nothing more to do than sift icons.
I make sense of random patterns and snow.
They occupy the space in front of me 

in perfect obeisance. My body is a temple.
A life without complications, Alberto said.
They worry about all the stories inside me 

they wish were theirs. I play out 

visions over and over 

as if there were no future, no history.
Though I cannot offer them anything real, 

my seeds are broadcast beyond the living rooms 

of their minds and out into the universe 

where only the stars can decode the signals.

2/27/1989 

Mark West School

And with this poem, I decoded the lost identities of Fan, Stepladder, and Strawberry Pot.

Alberto Blanco was my guest poet at Mark West School, where I had a CAC grant. Alberto's model poem, Plant, had these lines: I have nothing more to do, and, A life without complications...I will scan the broadside he made for me.

Even more lost poems, 1989 seems to have been a bad year for files. They're all from the dot matrix days. No laser printers yet.