the Wooden Life

1.
To go into the woods
willingly alone

and living with your
feeble mind

as if it were a glowing stone.

Or to bring your slinking cadre
of sweaty men with their cloned dogs.


2.
The spring, of Detroit
when you return:

still a leaden
diffuse blur,

like pewter pount
by none to few

sweaty, meaty
squarish hands,

drawn up tight
—by flesh and sinew—

to your self-same
sweaty men.


3.
They return.
Over the bridge from Canada

or else by the filmic tunnel
knowing this and only this:

"This age defies,
it's warp is subtlewar."

on Rough Appropriation

"If you're drowning, you better grab the life preserver as quick as you."

—from my good friend Terry Reimer, while discussing what I call Rough Appropriation, or the stealing of block of text wholesale, and inserting them into ones own work. Specifically regarding Afternoon