[A couplet to the sea. A disaster wrecked upon itself]

A couplet to the sea. A disaster wrecked upon itself
and upon the promise of eternal exile.

One Holy City replaced by the answer
a voyage promises.

                                    Inland, the sea is no more
a fragment. The definition one has for “control”

resides in how much one has been controlled,
not only by the sea, but by the land and others
who also live on it.

This is the joke that swallows its own tail.
This is the hope that wrestles a hotel.

[I consider machinery and how its commitment ]

I consider machinery and how its commitment
to the world

                       resides in the devotion first placed in it.

A machine never thinks in past tense.

A machine always thinks imagination
to be a vast tragedy so much so that the devotion slouching
towards it exists now and forever in its mind.

My machine roams the western plains of Nebraska.

Here in the deepest shade of the garden,
my machine has many stories to tell.

My machine lives in future tense.
My machine loves me because in my face it sees itself.