March

Spring is trying to get here. She sneaks into the city between the cold dawn and the windy subway exits--where winter still gathers his shadows. I find her leaning against the warm walls of buildings and sitting on the sun-window sides of train cars and wherever homeless men are removing their shoes and socks. You can hear her whispering to the cherry blossom buds, breathing her promises into their petals.


by jerry gordon

The Instant that Isn't

The crowd, too, is a trio--
three strangers here becoming
nothing less than unknown
as ourselves. Why else sit
with this look of
jazz in our eyes? I see you
and before the glance decays
there is time to forget
the 64 words for now.
There is the instant that isn't
before or after.

Beyond the end of your boot
begins the logical curve
of your calf.

The flawless flow
from limit to limit;
how many worlds are lost
in a language?

Thus, this is
how we unknow them,
much as ourselves. The invisible
within invisibility. And, so I love
to say, "Your face," and
"Let's behave like the dance of smoke
that shows our grave is smouldering."



by jerry gordon
3.10.06
Bebop International at Savannah

Beyond the Edges

I've come to where the house of mind
is abandoned. My job is to stir the bath.
With one arm bare to the shoulder,
I keep the grime
and dregs of our bodies churning--
the language of liquid
floating us all in flux.

Dead skin drifts with curls of hair
and lint from infinite belly buttons.
Stirring, I play
some part in its softlogic patterning.

This is the only crime I claim no guilt from.

spiral galaxy
hydrogen electron density
pedestrians through a concourse

Some students of history have asked,
"Don't you get cold kneeling beside the tub?"
But, temperature is of no concern.

I've learned about "good" and "bad,"
but this isn't about
the edges of a dictionary.



by jerry gordon