Stalks

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by Jay Paul


            "From hearts and brains
            sprout the stalks of night"

                                    --Paul Celan (tr. Joris)

 

there is no brain

exactly as mandated

there is only night

just as there is no heart

exactly as delimited

there is only night

because the brain inhabits a darkness

as the heart inhabits a darkness

 

because the night is darkness

the heart of darkness

which is no heart

because the heart itself

by itself is darkness too

 

the heart pumps darkly

the brain thinks darkly

the dark comes down across thoughts

that are born not

of the brain

but somewhere else entirely

like the darkly heart

or the darkly tree

reaching down into loam

communicating with fellows

among the fungus in soil

 

no tree is truly alone

all trees live in darkness

 

as the heart hearts darkly

and the brain crackles darkly

and night comes on darkly

everywhere

partly as stalks left

from the slice of the scythe

but also as a presence

that settles in everywhere

 

slowly revealing that all is darkness

as dark as the interior

of body

as dark as the clicking

synapses deep beneath skull

 

the sky too

is interior skull

and all we see beneath it

is the darkness of darkness

beating electric

in the hum of scattered time

and the lessening of protracted chances

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