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As if measuring time and measuring thought,
the night tells the night to breathe in.
Alas to emote triangles is to keep lancing
at the square. The sequence defers
its contingency upon me and a few other bloggers
by the rails. In a small city by a river, we
tour the edges of a mountain with a little glass hat.
We handle and pack away capsules
of cylindrical black air.
So the investigation in its throes,
in description, a circular impediment
hollowed out by an arcade of stoic resignation
and ornamental chimes. Not too much, buddy.
Too much stirring infers.
___________________
Pile the ups, scatter the downs.
The cumulative city has waved goodbye. In principal,
lavender culminates in the context of forever.
Forever implies the wake of this nostalgic throb.
Some galvanize Tripoli, some admire the ducks.
Still it hurts to be loved & understood.
In Tuesday, I sense disbanded truth,
cause, the hair on my neck
expanding like a spider inside a parade float.
My sixteen green legs circle the tree of proof.
A crusade of ancient brooks backs fragrantly off.
This part of my brain is bruised, it deletes
the sound of your voice coming from the closet.
Remove or deflect; two legs come together and cling.
___________________
Her shade is voluntary, with each pause
I leak ebullience in a brazen river.
Incumbent zones announce English conduct.
From ‘the brush of statement’ I got
‘understatement as underbrush,’ from tomorrow
gilded springs. From religion
I got time for a hot red beer.
Now show me a language other than landscape.
Because what’s ethereal in practice
should be practical in the field of ether.
Should night precipitate in rooting-out my pulpit.
Should tender shuttles remain theoretical.
What’s common to barrels is common
to spines. And if he wants, so he thumbs.
___________________
I have a few more questions beginning
in winter and ending in fall.
A black scarf rotates around the neck.
A green ball lands in my arms.
I’ve heard Heidegger thought best in other people’s houses.
I’ve heard potentially being was not
what the world had in mind.
Pivot and ricochet, pivot and glance.
I need tissues brothers and fingers
to avoid death. I need intend nothing
to stay alive. Here is my chance
to launder in the frame of taking place.
I’m going to take it with me
to Hawaii, to the movies, to my backyard grave.
___________________
The lit-up rift of phenomenology
cools off (in) the locomotive hedges.
Suspended similitudes
constitute religious episodes
in the vestigial haze of our diorama.
Squirrels rescue Appalachian towns,
they never let go. They rest on the ice.
I hold my nose close to one’s neck.
I have some sort of natural right to the camera
to accumulate visible tread.
Like a plangent riptide,
Idaho flings out all its seasons at once.
Like Idaho, I need one more line.
If you cut laughter in half, it shines.
___________________
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Jacob Kahn was born and raised in Salt Lake City. Since 2008, he has lived Missoula, Montana, which is a good place to write and unwrite sonnets, a place that knots in the heat and blossoms in the cold. Other sonnets can be found forthcoming in 580 Split and other writing forthcoming in Dreginald.