024O3U

wandered the streets of downtown Berkeley
all morning
the pain in my leg
so intense at certain moments i could not stand
the pain
"is sent to try us"
the bullshit
a certain uselessness in suffering
this form of things
details
the the body disintegrates
the language
sure connectives gone
this city or that
a measure
you no longer count on
reference
poetry's
its own form of obscurity
not the poem then
social rather
an attitude to reading
"i don't want to go thru that pain again"
collapsed on the chair to rest my leg
"of this journey"
particular
or only
a particle
line from someplace
i meant none of that
i didn't mean this pain
but lately it enters my life again & again
the problem is
how to read it
or any other gesture at knowing
my concern then was nonsense or
that the whole purpose began to shift
assumptions of the work
i had simply assumed
some point less than i had imagined
no shadow cast thru history
but the shade only (perhaps) of desire