Matthew Steele lives in Los Angeles where he gazes the living book for the hours of warm light. Then during the night he recites what he saw to himself and wonders a calm life.

October Morning

we tilt hours into a vicegrip of chapter,
of things chained as centipede but immediate
as Red. I forget almost everything about us.
and watch the sun through their barking dogs.

there are things to say and books to explain
them. a belligerent canvas of Smeared Laugh
and Colorless Insomnia. sometimes I’ve copied
out dreams into insect-cold calligraphy, but

it fuzzes, like an erosion is so many bunches
of confused bees I find on the ground everywhere.
we’ve talked about collectives and apartments.
cabbage violets and bedbug lentils. then again,

how early is Still. like the month has given
up and let day extend its reach though several
Autumns. mimetic the eyes, or the shrill air
inside the eyes, to cars forever on the 101s.

and here a green Fade lingers, clouds all spinach,
of some paradox of energy. Hydrogen rippled out
of landfills, or out of mute piles of Instagram.
faces selfied bobbing amidst the dense breath.

I think about my nerves like hotels, slightly
pollinated by this and that Frenetic. to vision
a stillness across dunes. To strain us into focus.
to stay a little while, these feelings of love.