Noah Eli Gordon

If we consider any molecular process, the result seems always to be that after a certain amount of energy characteristic for the systems in question is radiated out, the systems will again settle down in a stable state of equilibrium, in which the distances apart of the particles are of the same order of magnitude as before the process.
—Niels Bohr, 1913

it’s the third auditorium on

your right continued ethical engagement

of the narrative tradition will

begin momentarily to burst from

her concise articulation wasn’t what

we’d wanted exactly I’m not

so sure the line matters

I’m not so sure the

line matters you don’t just

get on a motorcycle and

become a kind of historical

category feeling what has been

said has been your solution

to its problems were interesting

I’d ride it out or

jump off I’m not so

sure the line matters unified

artistic school with a coherent

program or extension of power

by an expansionist idea about

the world being purely internalized

through reentry to that which

held one so ardently in

a compulsively intellectual grip might

be more or less perfunctory

as sun again disappears over

hilltops as hilltops again disappear

with its loss as again

I in vain attempt inscribing

as meaningful the evening in

which we as participants sense

a particular fascination clouding our

own abilities to see beyond

what mathematically speaking one line

can do to its neighbor

artistic innovation in the early

twentieth century was right leaning

he thinks in questions himself

each given a brief spotlight

enough plausible answers to render

as far as vacation spots

arbitrary constraint’s affectionless roundabout way

of what can only be

in our monument to the

crux of a crucial moment

a contorting and cyclical inversion

a kind of evidence of

fingers aimed at an auditorium

ethics aside I don’t have

a way out of this

I’d just like to relax

let’s assume that we are

circled around and then discarded

design and individual flourish but

not really such good painters

these scissors are doing fine

thus assumption leaves a thread

I love all my children

equally but I have no

children therefore I. A. Richards

excuse me I just something

finished breakfast and am now

back concerned about the supposed

recollection of tranquility in events

I’m trying something with narrative

I think you can see

how one flattens the conceptual

external consciousness entering the poem

pleasure as we know is

one metaphysical position among others

now I have proven that

anything rolls over the horizon

and gigantic posters of musicians

acquiescence to wallpaper wallpaper wallpaper

a thinner varnish might work

a particular fascination clouding our

handful of petals as they

posture what huh good morning

I think you can see

how one flattens the consciousness

of lazy thinking rearrange into

mean fireworks the yellow hue

is firm and fully delineated

if in paying close attention

for no reason at all

get on a motorcycle and

disappear look imaginatively at a

problem only to end up

sharpening your syncopated nesting instincts

signaling to the lone observer

that you’ve got a particular

way to inadvertently excise whatever

propositional marvels we’re able to

propose as the latest craze

otherwise we could talk implications

luxury at least is what you

haul a scheduling nightmare from

I’m not so sure the

one manifestation of his perseverance

would explain away what was

authentic about the image of

a leisurely stroll in unwavering

optimism considering a museum guard

onlookers mucking up everyone’s belief

here so roll with it

hope it likes us back

push it prematurely toward antiquation

put something down on it

the heart I mean it

to do its frolicking without

a boat a dockworker a book

compulsively intellectual grip device

for indicating this a few

stones one might crush form

suburban a good dose the

jumping point a lighthouse illuminating

a line to fill up

a lineated present where luxury

in which one poem’s success

inevitably necessitates a problem when

it comes to an inch

of space a red streamer

the first return to integrity

a sabbatical subtle swerving that

table lying across a thought

the needle a veil telling

any realization about its business

counselors constructing actors drowns honeysuckle

statuary in this afternoon light

some flower decorative afterward drifts