In This Blind Heaven

in this blind heaven


the arrow points north
facing east he walks three
roads past the dead end on Route 2

* * * *

what does it mean the old man asks
he forgets that Zimmerman says
what matters is how it feels

i feel lost he replies—
plant a tree bend
in green grass

(not all clichés
yield archetypes—
name one that doesn’t)

* * * *

a question of isolation
how there are holes where
Alice drops & cannot get back

her arrows spin & the nothing that is not
the nothing the no thing that things
all that is & is not—not that

but (empty watch
where the happy
hunters break)

side step
with no
side &

* * * *

he knows what it means to be lost
the locked door that is no door
the dead end that abjects

how he said if you
find anything
at the end

it is false
the labyrinth
has no end—no end

* * * *

all leaves let go
their road & in this blind
heaven angels still recognize the lost;

& she counts noses drawn to the buffalo stew:
the red lining of the wide boulevards


Richard Lance Williams

Posted over on More Poetry