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"There is only a black fence
and a wide field and a bar of Wyeth red.

The smell of anger chokes the air.
Ravens of September rain descend.

Some say a mad mad hermit man lived here
talking to himself and the woodchuck.

But he’s gone. No reason. No sense.
He just wandered off one day,
past the onions, past the fence.

Forget the letters. Forget love.

Troy is nothing more than
a black finger of charcoal
frozen in lake ice.

And near where the owl watches,
and the old bear dreams,

the parapet of memory burns to the ground
taking heaven with it."

Another Thing Illuminated

"She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum."

He's just so done.
Like a glass full of sand waiting for the parched man
to thicken his bile into a paste,
dry his arteries and blacken his veins
until withered roots sprawl across his face and
he exhales dust and
grows still on his chair,
petrified stiller than anything living yet still somehow alive.

Maybe it was the vacancy I had begun to taste, brought on by November—Novum ovum nine and all mine.

Here in November in this House of Leaves we'll play