For the Heart of the Second Floor by Bill Berkson
Bill Berkson's Portrait And Dream: New & Selected Poems was published this year by Coffee House Press; other recent books include Goods and Services (Blue Press), BILL, with drawings by Colter Jacobsen (Gallery 16 Editions), Sudden Address: Selected Lectures and Ted Berrigan in collaboration with George Schneeman (both from Cuneiform Press). He received the 2008 GOLDIE in Literature from the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
For the Heart of the Second Floor*
Now you see it
now you don'tNot a problem put
this next to thatTime and materials
that's the workTake-out pattern
recognition delivers
Apropos
an apropos
You recognize like the back of
nobody's businessSmall pleasures across fields
of dark matter splurgeThe problem lies
elsewhereAlongside the solution
downBy the ponderous lake
raw stupor rulesFake governance
arrogance yammersThe no-singing elephant
in the sunny situation roomOutsourced consciousness
cheat sheetsBestow
on encrusted skullsNo news is good from
sadsack Baggy DadOr the cornfields
eitherSo it goes
absent authenticityUnder twinkly blurs
deft circularity
Story threads legible
in every bright night sky
Doused with travel plans
and grievanceCompressor smudge an index
of indelibleOpacification epithet
dire surmise default"What color is that?"
"Marimba"Now that light has
come back to usIts bath of water fragments
celestial respiratory function thrivesSome mornings I can tip my cap
air antique manners in the PhilosophersWalk back reading up
on metamorphosis and pragmatism"There are many things more interesting
about me than my name" sings one attunedIn bold magnanimity
colors squared with
Shape advancing smilingly
print to fit
*Originally written for a broadside issued by Margaret Tedesco's Second Floor Projects, San Francisco, accompanying an exhibition of work by Ishan Clemenco, Susan Martin and Nina Zurier.