No Service / The Block in Any Direction

Two prose poems for 2025.

No Service

Static is back. Static is live. Static is nothing coming from somewhere. Static is half of the problem. Static is loose ground. Static is inside your head. Static is a scene that’s gone missing. Static is moth-eaten, acid-damaged, covered in pricking spines. An electric trail runs through static. Static is sometimes a celestial trick. Sound is static with leverage. A picture is static made thin. Static is speaking with rockfaces. Static is the news overhead. Static is frayed at the boundaries. Static is a bed you can lie in. Static is nowhere to start. Static is the flickering screen. The crackle of fire has static. The serrated edge. The crunch of stale bread. Static cascades behind drooping eyelids. A split tooth reveals static within. Static is a signal for no one. Static is the vacuum abhorred, the benign tumor, the wordless invective. Static is outside of things. The racehorse wears blinders. The dog sees its quarry escaping. Static is content. Static is physical. Static is there in the infrared. They have to control for static distortions. They have to account for the absence of something, for the steadystate physical din. Sometimes static is seeded. Sometimes static is publicly funded and dispensed with the wave of a hand. Static is sometimes mistaken for hatred. Static will burn you and tickle your skin. Static is mineral wisdom. Static is a self-driving engine. Static is an uneven wave, a coarse election.. Static is serialized. Static is permanent flare-out. Static is bright in the morning and dark at the end of the day. Static is senseless perception. Static is an indefinite pledge. Static disrupts a clean circuit. A stone skipped across static would move as fast as the wind. Static is a blurry decision. Static sleeps under the train tracks. Static is raw and unfiltered. Static has a lopsided grin. Static shouldn’t be held in both hands. Static undermines something. Static exhales and inhales again. The preacher will warn you about static because the preacher has static in him. Static killed a man yesterday. Static just gave birth to twins. Static belongs to the commons. Static has visited you. Static goes back generations. Static is usually gray, never maudlin. Problems emerge inside static. The sword hangs over our heads. Static is a kind of third rail. Static is a map that’s unreadable. No friendly faces in this village. Static is molten, like infernal lead. Static is not AC/DC. Static is potentially un-American. Static is a beast in the jungle. Static is out of commission. Sand can be made into static. There’s mud all over everything. The mud becomes wet from the rain and our guides are swept tragically away. Static is shameless. Static shimmers unclothed. Static is a voice without diction. The four cardinal directions. The pig butchered, the fat fried, fast sleep under mosquito netting. Static is pure dialectic. Static is half the solution. We carry our own static with us. Static dries out in the sun. Static clangs against tin. Static is tao. Static is what comes after. Static is not the opposite of anything. Static is singing its song. Static is over your head. Static has a message for you: “Nobody’s Home. You Can’t Come In.”

The Block in Any Direction

There is a small wooden block which is as large as the world and it is sitting on the floor in the room and the room is otherwise empty. The block is square and a cube on all sides and unfinished unpainted the edges have not been sanded and it is rough on some sides and there is a clear sawdust smell against the grain. The floor is stone and is dirty and is slightly uneven and there are dead leaves in curled brittle piles and cobwebs.

And it is true that the block could be kicked kicked with force and sent clattering against any one of the four walls and it is true that it could also be tapped or pushed or nudged over in any direction.

And it is true that the block has been pushed been nudged and has moved one half of one inch and has caught on an irregular seam in the stone and has flipped onto its formerly north-facing face.

And it is true that the block is now sitting in this way in this now place on the floor.

A large spider descends into leaves in one corner.

The block is unpainted. It is rough on some sides and is wood sitting on the stone floor. It is now being nudged being pushed from the place where it is onto its formerly west-facing face which is to say it is being moved west by one length. Now and now now it is being moved south by one length south in the same manner now and now east and now almost now almost is in the same place as it was before was. A complete circuit almost then but for the one for the one half of one inch. The difference. One half of one inch all the difference and in the air is pine sap. The pine sap outside coming slow through the one the one large broken window.

The block makes a sound that’s pushed over when soft and not hard not hard like a clatter would make would be made when being would being kicked. It’s instead soft swish scrape gentle dry scrape instead. And the block could be moved any direction. Direction in any direction.

The block is now two pushed lengths in the same and that direction is north and then it is pushed a third and that north is the third also pushing. So three lengths and it is here on the floor then and then a forth length. Fourth length which is north like the third like the second and first pushed length and going north and a fifth and here it is here at five. It is at has been tapped pushed over five north five lengths north. Five lengths north the block in the room on the stone of the floor empty. It is here and now here being pushed it is east and not north. And then south and then west happens quickly the circuit the one after the one and the other. Complete and four lengths now and one half of one inch from before. The before.

Now the block is wooden unpainted and pushed tipped over again west one length west. A second length west. Now south one length and then the block tipped again west. Then east. Then south then and then east. Then east. Then again east then and then west then east. Then again east. Then west then again and then west south then again south and then west. East then again east. Then north then south south back south and then again south then north. Back. Forecast. The forest trees and forest a uniform grid outside grid and inside inside right then. And then east and then again east. Then west. Then south then again twice south and then and then east and then east then again east. Then north then east. Then again north and again north and then back then south then further again south. Then east. Then south. Then right then again south and then west. Then again west. Then north. Then again north. The unpainted air then back south. Then east. Then south then again south. Then east. Then west back one length west. Then again west then south then again west then again then north and back south. Then south then again south. Then north. Then south. Then south then then and then again south. Then west. again west. Then north then back tipped one length back south. Then west then east east then back west then south then again south. East then west then east. Then again east. Then south. Then south. Then west. Then north. Then south. Then west. Then again west. Back east and then north. Slow slipping step soft static slide scuff shuffle. South. Then again south then west. Then again west and back east. Then again east and and then west and then south. North back north. Then north. Then south. Then north. Then south. Then north. Then south. Then north.

It is true a large cockroach is up the wall climbing dark skittering shape and it is stopped this is true above the block. The block it is true then is kicked hard fast kicked hard fast away and clatters now clatters against the wall crashes clatters and falls falls drops into the into drops into the leaves drops into the leaves with the spider. The leaves the block. The pine sap on everything. The leaves. The leaves the spider. The spider the block the pine sap the spider. The spider. The block the leaves dead brittle the spider. The spider. Pine sap the spider. The spider as large as the world.