Palatial is the Compass That Shall Usher Us In
Approximated in charcoal on paper
thin as drizzle on a marathon, you want description
to be molting, animalesque—a mandate
counting down to perplexity
Acquiesce to joy!
The blue jay I describe
simply moves away from itself
No anchors! No conscription!
No transactions disguised as traffic!
Ask if there’s a castle on the hill
Ask if there’s a hill on the hill
Is lettuce on the table still a description?
Ink’s ruined everything passes through our papery house
The sun of visual experience passes through our papery house
-Noah Eli Gordon
Noah Eli Gordon is the author of several collections of poetry, including Novel Pictorial Noise (Harper Perennial, 2007), which was selected by John Ashbery for the National Poetry Series and subsequently chosen for the San Francisco State University Poetry Center Book Award. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
