High tide at last in this world

and you can hear the iron eaters:

it’s a little tapping sound in the wires

but it keeps you awake.
 


High tide at last in this world:

the speechless brutes come out of hiding

and go bellowing at noon on the hardpan

like a warning system test.


 The moment I perceived that I was living in record,

 I saw the entire world as living in record.
 


There’s a great clock hidden in these hills

somewhere north of Ely where the air is still.


It’s a funny sort of love

 through which we stream to touch

 with our mystery tools,

 itching for memory.


So, a black bear ambled down from the highlands

at the end of another trading day,

cornered me on the Embarcadero

and edged me slowly back into the bay,

and from the corner of my eye I glimpsed a figure

on a promontory high above the bustle.

I called out to him and saw that he was watching

but he didn’t move a goddamn muscle.
 


God loves you if you leave him out of it

and exercise the faculties he gave you,

and wield them like a broom

to sweep him from the room:

Order soothes, but it’s the paradox will save you.
 


I felt a chilly draft come down the attic stairs

and I called that movement breath:

our Golem, if you need to name it,

our brawn, if we only claim it.

Add one letter, and it’s Truth in place of Death.
 


World, world, world, world, world, world,

born full-grown into a velvet zero, 1968,

It’s growing late.