we slept:

i was awakened
& found myself

thrown
into a world
where the light burned white

the air burned cold

smiling folk taught me
to breathe in gutterals
& out long sentences -

my body breathed,
stretched, raced -

i drank cool water:
ate mightily

commingled
& drank wine

wrote books
made love

contemplated
these surroundings


memories of sleep
are fainter, now

today i perceive
to be wide awake:

staring at the city,
as if it's the first
to be sprung from the earth

staring at the
sound, as
if the glacier melted
only last summer

staring at the sun,
to see the
newest blemish -

i realize
i am proceeding
through
life with eyes
wide open

as if my eyes are
swiss ocular instruments
set in zoom mode
& stop frame

building
images, afterimages
& agglomerations
of thought
into smolderding
memory pyre

i am the
experiential collagist:
accumulating what
the sun wants to lend

versifying
flame

with
mere words
& paper


i step back
from this poem

& am stunned:

my lover,
daughter,
neighbors,
co-workers:

they are their own
collagists
spinning like tops
on a concrete stage

displaying
their mind's brilliance
in a litany of brilliances

in some monstrously sublime
composition

phenomenally
complex

infinitely
tender

& vulnerable
under
a burning
sky.



epilouge:

what is
the world like
with eyes
closed?