And the petulant owl: who who?
our wondering what to heed,
who who to live and who to die?
to love to lust to languish to bleed?
Who who he persists and lisps the night
light's leaving a dying orb's eye
the world this orb of green and ice and
joy and strife, of webs and weavings
and endless believings, a rest
like snow like snow but dark,
a langorous dark to which we cling

as to a lover who unveils a virgin dale
-- we reap the rapture we know,
the world a contusion of bliss,
of hiss, a kiss of forgetfulness,
of trial and travail -- we follow follow
the fallow field beneath the owl
the querulous owl, we sigh our whos
and ahs and ohs until the timorous hand-
maid slippers in slow, atom by atom
prodding awake the lazarus land --

we careen again the asylum earth
malaise of home, needles in veins
concoctions coursing tremulous limbs
wending mad from mad to mad
broken broken, and who who –
remains unspoken? All are infirm,
and is it is it, the cricket, is it,
in lust in lonely love the owl the cricket:
who who, is it is it? why all who
are blind in love with night the who
the we who purchase our days
our nights who barter our healings
from slights and voids in which we peer,

we fear we fear, yes I yes I, -- yes you, you --
it is it is, queer solace that calms
the timeworn tongue -- together apart
we loll in the dimming, the owl
demanding who among and the
the cricket is it -- we know and fear,
and lace the loops in burdened brains,
fear the who and who it is, who limps
dim corridors down dumb halls

we cork the ear and lid the eye,
pawn the palm, the fleshy shell --
and quell and quell the very breath
with who and who just who it is it is,
and know as stammering cricket and owl
it is I it is you, it is all in cobbled queue --
in indigent howl, in impotent howl,
discarnate howl, oh we, oh I, oh you.

Julianza Shavin 2 2010