A Poem By Zachary Pace
by Mark Bibbins, Editor
The Fool
I
Preceding memory traipsing this single
track, — each step a flat greenish note
released in payment to relentless rent —
green path bisecting greener landscape.
II
Everywhere millimeters wound & wound
through those greenest degrees, beckoned
with promise of home. Autonomy cleft me
— by mind, a man & by heart, a hound.
III
Pathetic obedience to searching, searching
the indeterminate sentence (here follow
there pace) (bright pedestrian, red left hand)
(rootless) (impatient) (exact) (adamant).
IV
I dreamt the voyage I (waking) dreaded,
& waking, waited — wanted — & waited without
rest for some counterpart, he who’d match
my cadence — , loyal to a fault, I entered
V
the city of electricity, narrowed the field
where a stranger emerged (unreachable
magnetic tempter) — his hands free his mind
free his movement precisely the shape
VI
of his freedom, his heartbeat insisting I am I am
— the fool in me carried on in false calm
in false hope & — enamored — led him to this ledge
beyond which he can’t be coaxed to leap.
Zachary Pace lives in Brooklyn.
There’s a bunch more poems to read in the archives of The Poetry Section. You may contact the editor at [email protected].