American Ruins

American Poetry Review, The, Jul/Aug 2002 by Hoover, Paul

Dumbed down but

handsome, a storm

makes its way

through the spark

of power lines

and its own

roar. A car

filled with dogs

passes on your

right makes the

turn, hits the

ditch, but continues

on its journey.

The general sense

of things converging

has never been

less, yet meaning's

not undone by

the junction of

two roads. Other

newer things are

the world as

you found it--

pricked by the

heat, the dust

bin of theory

and a sudden

death of story.

You can hear

a map unfolding

like days of

rain, the gush

of metal in

a trailer park,

one thick tree

absent from its

station, and stands

of flowers touched

by nothing but

their own cheap

scent. The kitchen

creaks. Stillness is

complete. Traced in

its remains, rain

is also written

on the, lake

and shore, on

a contract drawn

briefly from its

sleeve, on mine

wide miles of

riven space. The

mind's green debris

and Turtle Creek

are packed with

silt and party

goers. As deer

nose south, the

dullest of facts

speaks to its

zenith with miraculous

gestures the swifts

pour from. Around

the burning house,

a normal grey

day is intense

with indifference.

You spend all

day tying what's

not this to

what's not that,

yet swallows still

turn, nearly transparent,

in the damp

summer's mouth;

flash back flat

to fill your

eye. The shadow

of a hand

stands for desire

in the nothing

sun. Love is

form, a life

so sweet decay

cannot conceive.

Rumors of rumors

and layers of

belief When the

gods are German

at their rival

fires, the language

fact in its

weaving and bending

is a self

northwest, if

not to say

central. At the

intersection of time

and vine, rock

rhymes sky in

shape and displacement,

but the words

won't come for

lack of science.

Because the field

is full and

the town quite

empty, you gape

at the leaves

in windows acting

just like leaves.