epistemology
merged
swell
'd with a
four hands
sub
merged three
sea
sag
speckle
'd tumbling four
hands feel it
three
net
feet in the
and pull
net sub
with a speckled
tumbling
sea
submerged three
feet in
the sea and
swelled
with a speckled
tumbling
four
hands feel it
tug and
pull
—Joel Chace
____
Previously published in Veer
no matter
is this right then we put
all our ducks in a row all
our ducks of the under-word all made
of quarks which are or are
not matter but certainly are not
meaning though the ducks
mean as we line
the ducks up they make
a surface a surface of
water surface and water that
are not do not matter but
do mean the matter then
cannot mean the meaning is
nothing but we keep
on lining up the ducks beneath
the surface of water
is depth the more ducks the more
depth and dark and
murk all of which is no
matter no matter not matter but is
dark murk and deep story
layered upon story stories without
matter but with meaning how
is it possible to live like
this to make stories that
mean but are no matter
—Joel Chace
____
Previously published in Ducky
wedding
the word to the cave
no part of the space that is not
the word the cave after
all is the space the word after all
others is all the space that
is the cave
—Joel Chace
____
Previously published in Ducky
matter
s t o n e s
when the letters are stones
dragged placed abandoned
s n o w
when the letters are snow
packed curved left
y e l l o w c h a l k
when the letters are yellow chalk
up on the blackboard
g r e e n g r a s s
when the letters are green grass
woven placed in shade
b a t
when it brushes arm-hair
in the cave's deepest black
g a s h
when the glass-slivers
bubble up from the trench of blood
—Joel Chace
____
Previously published in Joey & The Black Boots