J A C K E T  # 4

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C h a r l e s   A l e x a n d e r &   S h e i l a   M u r p h y   from Prayer, Rupture, Dwelling             . . . a collaboration     Oh, that bitterness. Taste of wheat in the field, cakes at breakfast. No middle, middling, or mildness, only inside. The attraction of the distant, sun hats in a pool, unframed. All sizes fit something. These are not things unless tuned, unless less than turned. Shifting light on water.

wearing a head two sizes too small instead of socks to lightly tread the foreign well fed early risen back to bed can't get clear of blue or red today so far

Measures brand distant colors and geometries. Homeopathic remedies challenge substance: stronger when more faint, when shaken. A string a thing to crawl on. How we come near reasons for questions. In vast dark you could take a piece of and touch nothing.

venture toward away points hand drawn upon maps sans urge to claim even caress trust motion simply relaxation

You (yes, directly here, you with whom) never touch nothing, though you may try (or not, there, hand on, flesh). One has reasons. Home remains shaken, coast to line. Caress may claim pieces of clay, syllables are maps.

hand upon the urge to foreign, mapping sun hats and water glare   fanfare for washing and domestic color not collapsing   to move one hundred miles in one day with no steps asking me (who)   wants arc to reach point never or twice but remain not remain

Samplification buys this (remains) -- There is a reach to follow. Are patterns twice. Prediction is the final laziness. Objective as edible flowers, begonias, say. These miles full of I- can- prove- this- piece- of- clay- has- tried- (existing). But to approach (

a little silence first   the arms around an observation of a process not my own   piece of the article on pillars, missing due to a highlighter pen that ruined in the fax   the text

Even if your first desire is to make the line without break, think about its elements as pillars. Nothing is built on nothing. Text can be in Texas. A poem maps its own language, susceptible to inquiry. I can not prove this. I can drive for miles. I can approach. How will you step?

class matters as desks metal rules   afterthought of economics not your own process   taxation form and contest repeats   flux until water stops for air

Hesitation props itself up. Measures in-flow. Infrared sheds light on quicksand-slanted dampness. More emerging lines. With sidebar's single element. A parent. Outcome. Dearth of matter.

air repeats thought matters after form   dry creekbed rules until free poured   african daisies plentiful redeem the median

From wings and words to this, by the side of the road. The number of a's equals the number of i's in "african daisies. " This may be where mathematics enters, counting letters, syllables. "Redeem" is more monochromatic, and changes entirely as it becomes "redemption." Dry is as air in June, here.

No free draft as in locution   rules of grammar pour foreclosed   plenty of room for breathing   flowers in bed with no hesitation

Counting asks for differences, two-color, more. Rules, sensed or known, guide flow along the breathing with/in hesitation. Scenery becomes the probability of being held. For gravity the paradox relaxes mind to free locution. Parabola, lui-meme. Fractions of salt where fragrances . . .

if touch mid- point not radish but a rash of median (already known) temperate darlings perhaps lately foregone in favor of advent- ure

Invention is the right to know. Senses divide into two colors, which is the road taken? Something descrying the nation, finding middles of roads, neglecting to position self in the scenery. Louis blew his horn like no one. Sound along a curve.

if not   but of   in of   points on a plane   tangents in a soup   late and unstirred   with various geographies

All center all not center. Margins are the pretty ones. Where in a grateful peace, a celibate prolonged intention. Riding rich stalled beam of tangent to. And whim so doppler as to be a thirst complete in this vibration. Stirred from geometry that someone sculpted. I would give anything to touch (various), not to have touched.

amend talk   map each   point ripened   through invention

Fetching memories as fish jumping. I would not whim to beam, tangents to not touching. One center holding, the other thousands filling with fish. We repeat the jumping things.

Charles Alexander's books of poetry are Hopeful Buildings and arc of light/dark matter. Among several chapbooks are the recent Pushing Water, parts 1-6 and Pushing Water, part 7 (published in the same volume as Tom Raworth's 3 Poems). A new book, Four Ninety Eight to Seven, is forthcoming from Meow Press. Alexander is the founder and director of Chax Press. He lives in Tucson, Arizona, with visual artist Cynthia Miller and their two children.

Sheila E. Murphy's LETTERS TO UNFINISHED J. was selected in for publication in the New Poetry Series Competition by Sun & Moon Press (Judge: Dennis Phillips) and will appear from Sun & Moon. Her FALLING IN LOVE FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU SYNTAX: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS appeared from Potes & Poets Press in 1997. A SOUND THE MOBILE MAKES IN WIND: 50 AMERICAN HAIBUN appears on the Mudlark Website located at www.unf.edu/mudlark. Her home is in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.