R M H a i n e s —

PLANETARY MUSIK

Another reel, then cold.
Then he shortens it, gives in
to common price. Says, “You bite off
your Earth then die on Mars?”
Pronounced it “foal,” pronounced “flux.”
After that he signed the contract
with a voice like nothing known.
Signed “ash.”

Winds. Soft incisor
modeling. Music in scraps of payment.
We find ourselves midsentence in pure
malevolence formed by labs, days on loan.
Chipped remnants of his mother’s generation,
an otherworldly romance exposed on film.

Then nothing for six billion years.

It brings suspicion like it reads.
Still listening for the buried couple,
the fieldmouse you squeak up to me.
Filtered wishes, voices I address to you.
Always shadow, habit of news, stockpiles,
genesis of the true. Arrived here only yesterday.
Strayed, in cuts, then listened for you.

RETURN TO EXIT FROM

i.

afternoons of forming surfaces and the love

nervous and through—torn fantasy into sun,

no string of image, dislocate face, distort—

said to pronounce this old, as a mine sold in starstruck—

torn oak thread spills through vacant chipped wires—

a bare spine, flown alive—night’s indictment forward

until century runs on through batteries, until gone—

“I asked him but he would not say it”—

asked but afternoons spill nervous and through—

faces chipped, dislocate — into sun, into

ii.

a light that has no sign, fishhooks in a nest,

piece of thread I cut results in 5 million—

sidewalk retrace itself, tape in an old psyche—

“have not called back, just got here”—

no one, no trees anywhere, sidewalk torn out—

each night the old shoebox underground—

existed on through walls, annihilated bank—

existed on through estimate of underground—

sun accounted for, across the decades—

retrace the tape across the decades

painted in an old bank—“left it by the door”—

a car runs on—(cut results in no sign,

light that retraces)—a piece runs on until

iii.

note on the faded stop, each image stands out said—

his is a bare yard into the wooden telephone

where the late one spoke, for numbers say nothing also—

sole exception of twentieth century upon these surfaces—

upon these surfaces the lot of my spine of war—

out of a boy’s transformer, dream plays variations—

“there was nobody there when I arrived”—

and somewhere I walk yellow, shreds gather

letting faces in, he described exile as in me—

through stairwells of vanished office, vacant library,

a brain spilling windows, if not by any other war

which is a fantasy of earth— wrought by displacement —

these months of nervous leaning eyes as he walks

wrought by displacement — lost doctor through snow

carrying Yemen, Iraq— carrying shreds, arrive yellow—

the porch is gone, let foam show through—

“there was nobody leaning for wooden exile,

who spoke for exceptions upon lost windows” —

who radiated faces, upon world eyes of snow

.