A New Hymn to the Old Night
Fernab liegt die Welt
—Novalis, Hymnen an die Nacht
afar lies the world
or down over there, far, lies the world
or the world lies to us Novalis
dead as waking day in joyous light
or just covered in glitter
part cliché, part cage
part musky smell of dust burning off the radiator
another November, another animal moving across the earth
another breeze & someone to call it gentle
any stranger, any shapely mouth, any sound dissolving to noise
noise & its fringe theater sustaining an open call
gull against those clouds, pebble lodged in a sneaker’s tread
who isn’t a boy in party dress in presence’s wide drama
another mark on paper & someone to learn the names
another character gone to the season’s closer
snow in the garden on the television facing the window near the taxi stand
snow on the staircase in the house on the ruined street where the novel ends
blue black night, blue-black distant constellations
& someone to call the camp fires happiness
to cull vapid contingencies from vapid rainfall
annulling a vapid image in place of itself
replacing vacancy in one’s unwokeness
you try explaining a computer to the long dead
forget almond trees, grapes & poppies
what he wouldn’t believe is the inescapable music here
the night filling with beloved firetrucks
cover your ears to cover the passing sirens
praise the passing sirens
afar lies the world
or down over there, far, lies the world
or the world lies against the empirical
against two notes escaping the drama of a dented harmonic
& the music that begins when they find a third
when the balance of an egret
pasted above day’s unadorned particulars
stirs a folk song in this thimbleful of serum
begin with a boy on a park bench practicing adult exuberance
& end as the ear disallows before & after to enter an heirloom of song
an invention of the world wearing an allusion suspect
the earth a synonym for self, for you are here & otherwise
afar lies the world
or down over there, far, lies the world
or the world and its lies, too ashamed
to repeat the word endure to a doctrine
ending halfway across the Bay Bridge in a pair of old Reeboks
Liberty’s detached head dying a beacon to virtue
leaving the taint and flaw of a story
the worth of a stone, canned sardines, and kerosene
can you conjugate autonomy without donning a coarse cloak
a widow’s headdress, other ways to walk a life
hailing all ancillary images, how proudly they falter
why is every digression an illustrated history
why is every example a commonwealth in alternate translation
how can you separate bird from flock
the dock where a muddy tugboat’s dislodged
from the evening the captain doesn’t come home
the night from the sound of passing sirens
praise the passing sirens
praise clouds in the shape of a nightlight
praise meticulousness
praise the trail of the centipede
& the impulsive curve of a halo in impasto on paper
& pursue the legibility of all signs
endless morning’s eroded surface & the surface of ordinary sense
praise the redundancy of self-ascribed visionaries pursuing burning dictionaries
is it better to be careful or to care only for fullness
the dog’s head drops in shame, cocks in question
praise human complication’s damaged form
receding from fight or flight to leaky cathedral
perfect as a linoleum print of lifelike grass
& the wind ribboning an afternoon straight out of Seurat
yield to passing traffic then praise the passing traffic
they look so small down there
soaked in linseed oil, semi-translucent
through the smeared window of a newspaper box
across headlines large as water towers
painted in tandem with a clear day
the quiet house & calm world, too, are deserving of praise
praise the roof against which breaks urbanity & pursue the joyous leak
praise the house, the keeper of the house & those for whom the house is kept
praise Mexico, go to Mexico, be continuously afraid of nothing
find Pancho Villa’s Dodge, plastered with bullet holes
proud as supreme realism condensed in the face of a blue flower
what’s luminous about a clock, what’s a spiky detail
which is worse, the balance beam or the laser beam
dreams don’t bring back the dead
they affix microphones to iconography
praising the tissue of sleep, pleated as Sophie’s rotting hair
praise wickedness in clocks, sun & all variants on rooftops
the most beautiful insects can only sting once
praise the beautiful insects
the most beautiful insects can only sting once
praise the exhaustion of the most beautiful insects
Noah Eli Gordon teaching in CU-Boulder’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. This poem is from A Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow (New Issues, 2007). Visit his PennSound page here: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Gordon-Noah-Eli.php
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