Dust, objects of use

As you drag your feet or simply being
Tired, the ground is suddenly interesting;
Not as metaphysic but the grave maybe
That area which claims its place like
A shoe. The idea of the end is a neat
But mostly dull falsity, since the
Biologic collapse is violence reversed
Like untying a knot
And so slowness is
Interesting and the dust, in cracks between
Boards. The old ones have their senses
In the elegant droop they sometimes con-
Trive, the knowing falter that makes it
All like some trick. Fluff, grit, various
Discarded bits & pieces: these are the
Genetic patrons of our so-called condition

No resolve about places, the latch-key to
Our drifting lives, seems relevant without
This smallest notion of dust. How to
Purge the dismal objection to this, remains
A question. Not to be answered, but used
As a metabolic regulator: pulse rate, place
Rate, dust. If you lie on your back the
Literalness of that position is a complete
Transfer. Thus I
Dream about courage
But love chiefly
Several friends
And one woman
Who is the Lady
Of wherever we
May go

The evident shift of pronoun (what I
Now mean by "we") is a clear question
About place. We eat to live. We afford
This; the genetic links are everywhere claimed
And you could say speech was the domin-
Ating discretion. All discretion is a private
Matter, all changes of pace and childhood
And as I emerge from feeling some lingering
Sense of beginning, that privacy (having
All the time some start in view), this is another
And perhaps my greatest transfer. The public
Is no more than a sign on the outside of the
Shopping bag; we are what it entails and
We remain its precondition. Even the most
Modern shops, if you work at them, will
Resolve into streets or thoroughfares; their
Potential for transfer has simply been absorbed
By trade
The confinement of that is no option:
The public assertion of "value" does not over-run the
Channels, seeping into our discretion. Whom
We love is a tangled issue, much shared; but
At least we are neither of us worth it
Though we transfer
It into all other
Matters; that
Discretion is
Our one place

So that the dead are a necessity to us
Keeping our interest from being too much
About birth. The end is a carpet on
Which we walk: they are our most formal
Pursuit and we have our private matters
By this allowance
I don't refuse the sign
In whom I know, because that's not a re-
Striction. Who that is concerns
The question of who there is, i.e., being
In place to the hopes they are met by. The
English condition is now so abstract that
It sounds like an old record; the hiss and
Crackle suborns the music, so that the
True literal has very few names. And we
Too are remote within this, like the noble
Gases since it's not our discretion that
Is affected. Sedately torpid, we inquire
Into our questions, the "burning issues"
That "face us on all sides"
The private
Recourse that might also reclaim the transfer
Is our hesitancy. Whenever we
Find our unwillingness a form on which to pause
The white pills have no mark on them &
The box extols three times daily, before meals
But the meals are discretion. We can eat
Slowly. We know all about the dead ones
Choosing to consider only the approach. Have
You had enough? Do have a little more?
It's very good but, no, perhaps I won't

What dignity we avoid as we
Commit ourselves thankfully to these needs
How definitely glad am I that greed is
An alternative to hunger. The few friends
Are the genetic patrons, the Lady is
Thankfully no
Lady, I don't
Owe anyone
That assurance

And as the age or condition of this
Fact we call place grows daily more remote
The literalness thrives unchecked. The
Imbalance is frightening; the splintered
Naming of wares creates targets for want
Like a glandular riot, and thus want
Is the most urgent condition (e.g. not
Enough credit)
I am interested instead in
Discretion: what I love and also the spread
Of indifferent qualities. Dust, objects of use
Broken by wear, by simply slowing too much
To be retrieved as agents. Scrap; the old ones
The dead who sit daily at the feast. Each
Time I hesitate I think of them, loving what
I know. The ground on which we pass
Moving our feet, less excited by travel

J.H. Prynne, "A Gold Ring Called Reluctance"