by

Larry Eigner

the disappearance of matter

where is the
end of the poem

tired eyes

the sun travels
and allows dream

orange cap
the hydrant
is silvered

single-purposed

it may never be used
but is flushed

alarms have passed

the availability of water
at some points, all
considered, so fine

doing

often the sky reflects

the trees as well vary
much color, and substance
more or less flame
comes and goes

birds fly
and raise shout

Huge hill, so much
to lie under
life burying you

or overlooks you
field

the view diminishes
you come down
a hole in the wall
brings quiet the
water flows
through pipes there as
the sun might burn leaves through

clouds slope
around the earth
monsters are quiet
the tree shapes
singed spots
black through the centuries
twisting towards the light
they grow familiar cross
each other

a skyway lanes

channel dug out
from a river of sap

or a log
never floated

what time
is day

and night changes
in the weather

the asphalt road
calcine a way off

moon
out by
afternoon
then spreading its light

in the wind the cold fountain

hang on the tree there's
the opening

however gone there's
blue

outward, around,

birds settle, think

they're always hungry, eyes
brood

or sleep is the dark sky , rain
sinks in

seaweed smells
in the breeze sewer-gas
blowed up the drugstore
injuring several that's what
the hospitals are for, with
quiet wards

50
unscathed
but shaken

to bear miracles

" the contents
first taken for blood

so horror, so easily

arrived
from the day

so here come random eyeteeth
crashing out through the window like
bony fish

(yet the glass hurt

a faustian
flame by the soda fountain

and above the arena
where the circus's
3 rings go in

still banked with its
accessory porous world

tiers checked to the nooks of its sky

over the railroad station

massing goods and swarming people

The apples we take in

and

a few leaves left

well, a tree
is obvious

thank god for it

they

continue

down

the road

what

leaves

Sun there

cloud stacked

make hay

a further place
is

colors

a ground of winter
in the head

gulls flying
close lately

shadows and other birds too
grow small cross the snow

soon you may think
in the windows

a wheel you get
continuities

My mind a cloud
a wet sponge

there are mountains nearby

construction men going to the job
in white helmets below

)or yellow like
their crane timber immobile swung
air
the heights distances

all in mind

direction

green cars pass

blue red white

nails build slow as the clock

now fog burns
the sun up
and down through

bird sounds
make the sunned room pass
the opened window

f o r t h e m e n in the y a r d

city some round thing, a clock
peace with all its parts

there is
none
the door close to the ground
a road he stepped out of

to talk
a tree is divided
food ten minutes
chain
but no exhaust visible
birds we imagine singing
or any tail-pipe

a truck comes that kind of a job

time of day its
lights off

white and red

it's blue, reflective

peace is clean

we think

bow
politely
or maybe it's nod

the wall has occasion

the far spread height

as you come closer

memory has made

The difference
of a small room
they've thought enough kinds of windows
and the paintings there made
to be close similar scenes
from the floor above

walking around down there
zigzag circles aimless
puzzles my head

or the odd moment, tired
in their wings
more or less

across the stone
drive
stuck to the paving

in gait
the pigeon might be anyone

while the machine, the way
equipment bears on the road

up-ended, some
stretches in hills

family cars
of workers
transparent

the wooden however torn down at
building one other time
like

more than two mirrors to
each room
you step to the path
a dividing line

the particular streets fade in my mind

steam heat birds
January damp

a huge gull visits here

trees still

sound of the clock looking
up to find white

move horizontals the air

then clouds pass level

snow fills the
neighborhood

the trees take
birds the
light air

shhh goes the lawnmower
should I stop
the razor

quiet
as a bird

the sky fades

the stars out
all this time

air through
the houses

a dog is barking
should there be memory

the moon wanes too
to some appearance

Ozone? peal the
day slide the
lectric car
Hurry the
Wind
picks up
busses
Drops em

They should make
wing if
the weather's mild

the sky become
endless
the clouds islands
at this level we
pass

then leaves spread
the hills' breasts

Small, flightless birds
the voice far tinkling bells

museum

of sorts, the rats destroyed

moving ashore, M i d w a y

slow is flat wall of the sea
the
poem and sky

each island
rose

farther than any whale

fins

breathing above the waves
the mirrors

heat

past sunshine

vibrations of air
spiders, then birds, settle

reflexive
man
menageries bringing what he can
from the bottom
interest
rock crumbles to earth
under rain in
the seas
the quickening run-though
clouds mulct the moon
flats one thing at a time

the whale is still hunted tides, a large motion
in certain parts
small waves give boats
prodigal
the deep light

the tree like a
monster
the green day time

the sun dies
blue

or stretches, eventually

out

a place come to moved

m y l o v e i s a l l
a s h u n g r y a s
t h e s e a

As much as you want
The little you can take
through the store window

glass splatters the
hole's empty

a fire braze open the roofs
quieter than planes
jammed shadows

you slow turning up high

out of the
comfortless air
the corpses drop you come

to some grave all

motion is the same

you've taken away
the time for ballistics

a man from the Pentagon
in your falling apart chair

bullets no
felt wings

the absence

they stop what

lightning replacements

the girls stabbing each other

your hat not
right on yo'r head

quiet lawns

nice air

smells voices
crowd on words you

think there's no crime

just because

the world is a cloud

men dim
shot cross
fire

capacities for excitement the
automatic

force acceleration

the heart beats

sounds a distant bird

gas
burns

F o r y o u r q u i e t l i m b s

Imogen, was he stupid ?

It's a
foolish situation

all these houses around here are stages
launching
drama

you want that, don't you?

a mean garment
once

children's sizes are indeterminate

then there's those ones across the road
they live from a lawn split by a driveway

-- well, let's go in, the kitchen someplace in the middle
the tv in the corner down the aisle ,
the basement window shows the circled grass

the kids have a dog that's ownership
Where he keeps his hat, they sometimes put on
they push the sidewalk for four lots
and
take a diaper car for a milktruck

so a year is a long time
the snow more reflective than the glass
they see coming at moments in their minds
and far away, the trees stay bare

in the fall the cats will spawn, usually
and birds come out in the sky, the nests dry
like crusts, and plants in the earth, fires at the gutter
the hens smelling the chickencoop
or garages hot, ragged water and oils
they rake up the beds with their toys

n u m b e r 1 . k i l l e r . t h e h e a r t

he was shot 3 times

mouth, nose, and bladder

rushing blood to the scene

of the arrest of

a busy morning on the
side

cloth rest
and the coke in summer

down with the sea

death
shepherd
united nation beyond
the desert, against

a trial cost
of argument

row on row, and the shields
lattice

for the mind health

picture frame of the
tin cans

tomato

the river slugs

and the playground
saw
waves ride as the weather
ice cream
ultimate pasturing

gulls
and sparrows around in the sky

a very serious, threatening expression

Beethoven's fist
in the end at the thunder he imagined
a chord to go on something else
as may have been different

fell back words
silent no more remembered
in those walls
that succession a round

Frederick Douglass
took his chances like
when we fly?

I don't know the landing gear
far from my mind I
was trying to see
where there was anything but

a large ship only
that appeared small

Do you love Maryland that
state there how
would you like to go back
where you didn't come from Most

have something they can
take shame from withdraw it fish

life lurks in the sea
we eat it,what
is germane

the St. Louis slave mart

something to remember is
still there days
after the War -
of the Rugged Individual when

man was man the
head of the family and so on we
couldn't have gotten along

why risk your shirt no
hands to pick the cotton no
gin

in a man's thoughts

Faneuil
Hall after what happened

the slave likes
what's in the air

the free wonders
as well what
there might have been

don't often lose sight of the ground

a cruise is expensive

no tall dark face in the air
no porter what

have I to do with
what I don't see

at least the chair makes
some noise it's
mysterious

As soon as you lay down

to snatch up again
a crime not
history

the guns
silent mouth to the bays
slagged in the sky

no
stinking breach

there are improvisations when
government burns

the purposes
played out like a fiction

at night hanging around

silence the cannon for
slaves are free
and we have joined
to turn home

stars the candles
remembered echoes
bring quiet for

the whiffing against the cold

sawmills afloat

barns impregnable to

iron

the bricks windows anchor

wounded

rifles emptied air
improved aim

in place of propositions
drifted off

the swaying car
is swift

on the streets

picturesque also

the pines are
a straight
backing

mules wires

rakishly light

the stacks take off

it's we uns captured them
today

it aint fair to a mule
to begin learning im
polite

confusions

with army experience

The Confederacy, you have to
repeat,
was real

suddenly
to be denied

lines there down the map

if you recognize yourself

still
roads

colors of your state

to make a noise in

the sheer slavery
of abstruse thought

full of the sky rough river
dirt the captured ordnance
made game (to puff
in imagination (useless with the real
shot crater powder-kegs
strewing the ground
now then
behind grass the
slope of cloud house
bed and emptiness besides
returning the sun
shown everywhere

the full-decked

t h e c a t c h

the slogans
gone

smiling

below the quick rain

windshields

bound into the sun

again in descent

shines , cave back the cloud

people who
hump the boards

this moment, going
forth, a time

for birds, those

where the leaves themselves are

quieted, after the fall

dancing the table
the whole gutter
of the street

and listen more

again, the birds

ride
within leaves

the openings change

above crickets

come with the moon

a texture
of abutment

a man climbing
his steps while the clouds go
by he comes to the corner
apt. above
the store

what string
I hear the wind
banging, flights
13 up
next door
the bell not visible
either set
more cry of the air

a fitful thing outside
anywhere it seems
closer to the mart
where we get food

fish, say, blank
with indelible eyes

the still distance to
travel unconsumed
a plane increases
above the sea I depict
a curve nearly in sight

more solid

two in black down the arched hill

immediately the apartment
smells empty like
some cellar
in the rain

a warmth again

the weather
we have

a leaf floats still
in the gutter no
particular speed

vague in time you've
heard the sea

the twilight
of rain
felt

the window
vibrates

candle
flames

no more light

a passing
truck

dark
fallen

peacefully
keeps on

over
the center

smoke extent of chimney
getting less visible as
we drive by

horizontal from London
burning exhaust

a road in mis-
sissipp i through
trees the
number to the
eye
around the world
the time is the same

where he walked and
he walked how
could you do much
in the century a
line orbit

some place 75 pieces of
shot

Carriers In winter the dogs "chase"
car fumes, the treads
bang out Summertime

in great bodies, come
to supper, come

the spreader road bed

shortly following birds

trying the thick
pepper
only in ignorance of sand
that's all
it is the druggist
pestle on wheels shaking come

sweeping the sea

paper
rugs
even today

"news" the ads
present confiding tomorrow
and the wind blazes

the soggy edge-on past downtown
to be
rung up
the sea splashes

the window

what milkman
through what crossings

what bus
will you take next

what flashed sunlight is still

what day-long grass is healthy

deeper, deeper history in
what might have
Colonus

the future in him out of
voice ground

and there's your registered dog

tramping the cemetery

you wouldn't take the occasion
of eating

one thing
Waterloo was
one of the men

bladder trouble

smoothness infinite portion

sleep was in his mouth he woke the
birds called a strain of words swung falling
as the apple tree

back on itself
the slow life
is fast

waters or wings growth
a solemn pole some gate
grass, not very high
to bare patches

any of the trucks
bread a half dozen chairs
movies

by the window the lost
man years
in mind he
knew the way
how he story came out
the bower
he left the arrowhead
beads
later the cellar

flowers looking in

under the moon the
chairs tilted back a view above the screen
flies were in the way
the trunks bark hollow

now the black man brings the
clean pants and he has to pay

S e n e g a l

The dead walk

noon

there are such

trees

women loaded

hair

the road-side

keep
after a film on
Leopold Senghor, the tall
country the
life onward smilling

or bring a seat

for a man waiting

don't go
see
it backwards

time or space

the crickets match
the morning

silence

birds dreamed there
hungry

the trees in wait
for food

stars shone
on deadly fish

happiness from the year
(1820 or so)

end of life what
would you like to know
the nature
of wants
a cloud
all one over
a few big trees
the whole sky

whatever put
time in your mind

water or light
at various temperatures it
rained down

a substance or
gradations

your body stretched

now there's a long tail
balanced along the wire

you take a dinosaur
pink thing

ants
spread all over the lot
extensive number

for the first time in my life
i see a bird
sit on a phonpole nail

trees weed clouds
their due

light walls the
shape of a window

or more blurred
the street
outdoors
grazed a long

hot cold with
smoke in mouth
ice

where the sun shines
varies

heavier air

or light
minute song

may imply leaves

a few clouds
milling this day

houses
are more shadow

the cut blaze
turn back such heat

darkness to ripple
the line of spring

immediate

the sea's dance

I in the foreground
mirror of time huge as
I may be small
face puffed short
music comes

we have a forest

trees the leaves mass

summer autumn too

wind, sun and
stars move

it's the air here
periods separate

the day the held light
how it gets through we've

a puzzle box

of wood house
hard glass doors
there street signs opened

rain streaks
cloud

distance the birds

still

HAIKU

motor around
the sky and
caterpilar

bumps of (f the road

the woman a tree
standing

leaves of
a basket

dying or green

he clips backwards
with
electricity

enough so you're confident
to be aware
packed like the gutters
splice pilings level through the air

the great
world at the window
stirs with the breeze
smell onwards seasons

to the old storms
baffering air
tides of spring

the flowers
and stars
have opposite names

Come out of your eyes the
soul is a corner
universe

back two steps
now you-re shadowing walls

broken into houses
carry the ground

eternal spaces

weeds

the sun turns west

you are what I am the empty flat
has clean sills still
been taken

that dog
is younger than you
memory is less, not so crowded
as the trees are

slightly, the earth is changing
as much

you remember the papers
the dim place
the branch held by the attic

it's a lengthy view

night coming
tomorrow

the sun to divide

and suppose the thin
shadow going down

in one window and
out of another

Copyright © 1968 by Larry Eigner. Copyright © 1997 by Ricard Eigner, Conservator. Originally published by Black Sparrow Press. Long out of print, the text is presented here complete. The original edition contained a suite of drawings by Bobbie Creeley.