Poem-A-Day: Said to Have Been Heard to Say Hush by Nathaniel Mackey

October 2, 2013 Said to Have Been Heard to Say Hush by Nathaniel Mackey   --"mu" ninety-eighth part--     Remembered moment lamenting   its exit, the anaphylactic aria fell away. What beauty promised or   we projected faded, we moved                                         on,    not's province the place we  now camped in... The abandoned   ones we averred we'd someday                                        be fell away as well. The abandoned   girl and boy blended in... Thought's province it was we pitched our tents                                        in.  Wind wrinkled our foreheads, thought   not's not someday... Not made every eye water. In our heads more than ever,                                        syl-   labic beads we thumbed, not's dread have-without-hold we bowed down to,    cried Cry blood, fell back... There was a box inside my head, something                                        men-   acing shook it, Joe Henderson's tenor.  Not's woken-up-to now we backed away   from, Little Johnnie C, "Hobo Joe"...                                         In- sistent, imposed itself, beside the point.    All of it was orphan song we chimed in on, chided by it, charmed even so. I saw                                        no light but said otherwise, lit by the thought   of it, not-light lytic, tear between said and saw... Light stole away, some kind                                    of   spell I was under. At more removes  than there was ground for, I stole away    as well, said to have been heard to say hush. A tiptoe ghost octet fidgeted                                           be-   hind us. Not was another name for    death I was afraid and afraid my feet   would fail, Idiot Footless, feet I did                                         in-  deed speak with, did indeed say hush...   A little bit of nothing, anaphylactic  rush, seen-say gone so soon we were                                          not's   understudies. Whatever it was we did,  no matter what we did, whatever we did we   did away... No one heard footsteps, no                                      feet   struck the dirt. Earth beset by see-thru sleep, transparent footprint, sleepwalk's   his and hers an it club of late, the aban- doned his and hers run come... In back                                    of   us the ghost octet kept at it, thread on  the box and on the backs of our necks,    hair stood on the backs of our necks.                                          Bal- letic, they traipsed on tiptoe, shushed all   who stood and looked on. The sense we were being shadowed had hold of us, the                                       sense   of being had we had... They were plotting what it was to be footless, points on a graph   the ground had become. What it meant to                                    be a tiptoe ghost we could see now, shushed   as we were, shadowed as we were, warned we were better off away, beside the point,    not's null insistence, moot... All the same,                                           they    doused us all in fish powder, a rite we were                                         none   the wiser for         ____________________         (slogan)    I saw no way to be wise enough. Tonal motion made me weep. I saw no way to   stay where I was, be where I was, what- ever it was I was moved on, moved over,                                         what-    ever it was worried what I was... So it     was green loomed outside my window,   drawn light in Low Forest I was wise to,    saw thru, aroused by light's reluctance                                       but    not to be caught out, no way could I be                                       wise    enough I   knew         Copyright © 2013 by Nathaniel Mackey. Used with permission of the author.   About This Poem "The 'Mu' series of which this poem is a part rings changes on its title's various meanings and associations: muthos (mouth, myth), music, muse, the emotional interjection mu, the lost continent of Mu said to have existed in the Pacific, etc. Lately, as in this poem, a strong accent falls on its Japanese meanings, 'not,' 'non-,' 'nothing,' 'no,' and its place in the Zen tradition."  --Nathaniel Mackey Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day Archive.   Nathaniel Mackey's books of poetry include Nod House (New Directions, 2011), Splay Anthem (New Directions, 2006), and Whatsaid Serif (City Lights Publishers, 2001). Mackey served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.      Most Recent Book by Mackey Nod House (New Directions, 2011)             Related Poems please advise stop [I was dragging a ladder slowly over stones stop] by Rusty Morrison Reduction by Page Starzinger The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart by Jack Gilbert __________________________ Love reading Poem-A-Day? Help support it today.     Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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