by Lyn Hejinian

Drum 1

On my wrist is a watch dog but it’s only here
that it’s an image. There it wore four shoes, two
neon green and two bright pink. It’s another
labyrinthine day in the life, etc. Witness
the fence fibers half buried in rain. Argument
is always underwritten. All one needs is a drum
to beat. Sense (truant tumult troglodyte bushing)
will follow with a “lovely laugh” at the world
of choice. Bring on the hurdy–gurdy improvising
player from outside Bordeaux. Meaning
will always turn up now and then in civil society
putting things in strange unnecessary places.

Drum 2

Every similitude spawns an inchoate metaphor, a fireplace
like a hole in the heel. Everybody, take your place
in foreign parts. Time is designed to frustrate. Deprived
by old age of the right to be heard, a woman puts her X
on freedom at midnight, which is like sipping at mint tea
in a cold café near a French zoological park. Not everyone
can keep a secret from wandering nor find constructive principles
in irrational thought. Workers instead stage a slow–down, work
becomes musical comedy, and style is a hive of purring honeybees
on the road and available for hire. The imperative has had its say,
now is the time for questions. Put your glasses to boot. The
postmark
on every missive that arrives is illegible. Time is our pilot.

by Paul Nelson

FLEXIBLE MIND

is @ heart
an EAR

as the
GREAT MIND

talks to us
(in silence)

a syllable
@
a
time.

((Time
sin fondo))

for at the bottom
no bottom
but sky

& the mind
discerns
by EAR.

(I HEARD THAT
has an ear in it
too.)

The coot rush
is DANGER

& seagull call
OPPORTUNITY

in the chaos of
falling empires

failed transition

& the BARE

TREE

MOON.

10:51 am PST
N.12.202

by Paul Nelson

FLEXIBLE MIND
(for Rob Lewis)

is rooted
in a place.

Most any
place.

THE SECRETARY
of
TRANSPIRATION

knows:

“Water begets water,
soil is the womb,
and vegetation
the midwife”

before he plants
a future cloud
in the ground
of his bioregion.

Flexible
as water.

Savvy as the crows
ruin lawns
with beaks
hunting
European chafer

beetle grubs.

Crow sushi.

Wily mind
flexible
as}
a
CROW.

3:36 pm PST
N.9.2020

by Paul Nelson

Poems for Bradner Gardens, 12 . August . 2023
FLEXIBLE MIND
flows over itself
admiring the details
and pliantly
forgetting.
The straight back
holds
everything
higher
than an anemone
growing above
redwood roots.

GREED

HATRED

and

IGNORANCE

rise
up

AT MIDNIGHT
like the morning.

Wisdom is calm readiness
buried under mildewed briefcases
and archives
of knowledge

B
E
C
A
U
S
E

the brain
will not
orchestrate
understanding,
a black branch
in front of the moon
is better.

Michael McClure from Touching
the Edge: Dharma Devotions from
the Hummingbird Sangha