2009 :: Issue 4/Spring :: Poem Fragments
One Million Footnotes
Geof Huth
Footnotes to a nonexistent book, a series of observations, a novel without the plot, the autobiography of an imagination, linked poetry of the everyday world, an impossible goal.
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The rain on the alleyway collected all the evening’s light.
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The shushing of the dishwasher rocked him to sleep.
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As the car passed him on the right, he could see the driver texting on her phone, her car heading into the sun.
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He closed his eyes, and the power went out in the house.
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He could not distinguish his sleepiness from the wind.
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When he didn’t have an idea, he wrote about that.
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The car and the hawk moved in tandem, the car with a busted light, the bloody tail of the hawk.
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The flames of the fire were liquid, pouring up, and rumbling.
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What kept him awake was a hunger for midnight.
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The orange tabby was a huge cat, though it didn’t leave a footprint in the snow.
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The night was as black, he thought, as the coming snow would be white, yet they could occupy the same space.
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Ultimately, he wanted to find the beauty of invisibility.
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He fell asleep while he was reading; he awoke while he was sleeping.
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When his cat jumped up on the chair behind him it felt so much like the tiniest gust of air that there was no cat there at all.
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He could not decide if the white snow was colder than the dark night.
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Every today was always becoming tomorrow.
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The power out in most of the neighborhood, the entire world smelled of woodsmoke.
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He hurried towards sleep as she slept.
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The struggle between the urge to write and the urge to urinate.
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Objectively, she understood that she could only understand things subjectively.
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With a floor-to-ceiling window in his room, he could walk on the city.
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Some nights, he believed he could see the way.
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He wondered if he should stay up late enough to miss his dreaming.
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The dogs slept like quotation marks.
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The phone, ringing so quietly he was not sure he was hearing it, was a distant train whistle.
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The night always had his attention.
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The ticking clock was a dripping faucet.
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The darkness came at their car like a storm.
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He opened the door of his hotel room to an alarm already going off.
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There was something missing from the room, but nothing was missing.
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He went to bed wearing nothing but hair and scars.
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Water left in his ear after a shower, like the residue of hearing.
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An empty yellow canary cage resting on the sidewalk in the morning.
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From the plane, they could see into the two open bowls of the stadium, one being built and one being torn down.
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The spiderweb caught nothing but sunlight.
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With a jump, the earth pulled away from the plane.
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The lake accepted the sunset.
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He picked a large hailstone off the ground and added it to his glass of water.
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The night’s cricketsong was loudest along the railroad tracks.
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A dead centipede resembling a discarded hairbrush.
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Rain followed by sunshine followed by night.
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The spider from the night before visited him again as he wrote.
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As the woman read her in-flight magazine, the wide sparkling bracelet on her left wrist turned the cabin into a frenetic planetarium of the tiniest stars.
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A brown oak leaf the size of his foot, and he stepped on it.
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The golden brandy held the moonlight.
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The snow came down as rain.
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The shadow of the earth slowly ate into the moon.
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He realized only whatever he imagined.
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He could feel himself not being watched.
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He imagined the night a giant pupil pulling him in.
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He awoke from a nap during his flight after suddenly remembering that everything is impossible: existence itself, the plane he was sitting in, the ginger ale gently sloshing in his belly.
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Without the river, there would be no reason for the sky.
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His right ear listened to her heartbeat, while his left ear listened to her speak.
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The windows barricaded him from the sounds of traffic, allowing him to listen carefully to a photograph.
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They sat together on either side of the fireplace, reading words the other couldn’t see.
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The moon raced through the treetops to keep up with them.
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He entered the house a hero, bearing armloads of fragrant basil.
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In that hotel room, he threw away the hotel room key from the hotel the night before.
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She lay in bed awake waiting for him to stop being awake.
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Never always came too soon.
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When did mannequins stop having heads?
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It could be any time, it could be any place, it could be any person.
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The nectarine, a fist of scent.
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The son slept with his arm around his sleepless laptop.
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Fireworks and fireflies all at once.
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Sleep is the thief of dreams.
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The darkness not cold enough to be night.
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It is impossible to smile and whistle at the same time.
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A tangle of nots.
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Spring was a struggle between winter and summer.
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Darkness appears to be visible, but it is only the absence of light; darkness is simply the best view of invisibility.
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As they fell asleep, their warmth passed between them like a secret.
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He imagined collecting all his fingernail clippings into a jar so that he could rattle them as he sang through the house.
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Creation deceived; creating conceived.
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He was overcome by the white smell of snow.
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The haiku of night.
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He couldn’t tell how loud the cold truly was.
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Snow snowed.
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He dropped his glasses on his sleeping cat.
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Capturing candlelight in a goblet of water.
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Her kiss was the sweetest of teas.
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After a week away, he noticed how much she smelled like herself.
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Everything in the room eventually ended up in the mirror.
Selected from Geof Huth’s blog, “One Million Footnotes.”