The Process / The Barriers / The Air

3 poems

The Process

The process of art is the process of a struggle
between material and thought, and to create art of
real value is to arrive at some meaningful relation 
between the two – one that is harmonious, or not.

But where does that leave the man who has never 
heard a great truth spoken, except by chance? 
The man who has sat on a hill, and let the moon 
grow accustomed to his eyes? I worry for him.

The Barriers

down by the sea
across the road from the empty cafés
there was a gap 
in the white concrete barriers 
that ran along the top of the sea wall
where you would walk by

and so when the surf broke down below
on the sharp black rocks
it would spray up across 
the sidewalk and the gray asphalt
in a shimmering plume
and fall over you, as well

The Air

He said the storm
didn’t scare him, and
he said you wouldn’t believe
how cold the air 
inside a balloon is
in the instant before it bursts.
There was an execution
happening in the parking lot
and the cameras caught it all.
We watched the sheet
get pulled up over the body
from a distance
sitting with the wipers on
and we watched the fat sheriff 
pull up and tell the night
watchman to go ahead
and erase the tapes.
The words got lost in the rain

and the folds of the shirt 
on the fat sheriff’s back
looked like a man’s head 
wrapped in a hood
from a distance.

He said if you could feel
how cold the air is in that instant
it would turn your flesh to stone
and you would never work again.