On day one —
but there is no day
_____one, for what
_____might seem a
_____beginning is only
_____yet one more day
__________day of days
__________years decades
__________centuries of what
__________the poem might wish
_______________to confront —
On day twenty-nine
a poem searching for
_____some starting point
__________in the general ruin —
On day thirty-two
a poem that can
only point
_____to the rubble
_____can only say “look
__________at the rubble” —
On day forty-six a poem
that like any other
_____cannot speak the un-
__________speakable and yet —
On day 134 a poem
the conditions
of which might
_____someday be made
__________irrelevant by history —
On day 106
a poem lodged
_____in the intestines,
__________twisting —
On day 193
a poem excised and
biopsied, then tossed
_____in the medical
__________waste bin —
On day thirty-seven
a poem not yet
_____having arrived
_____at the will
__________have been —
On day 242
a poem that’s given
_____over, but to what which —
On day three
a poem with no
_____words but trying to
__________find them —
On day 540
a poem listing
_____the numbers even as
__________they keep climbing —
On day 278
a poem in which
_____the acts do not
__________condemn themselves —
On day 155
a poem redacted
__________and erased —
On day 201 a poem
against the reification
__________of this
__________when-time —
On day 365 a poem
that cannot mourn,
_____there yet being
__________no after —
On day 88
a poem that drones
_____on or is yet but one more
_____drone, hovering above
__________the carnage —
On day 245
a poem that refuses
_____to become a poem,
__________given that —
On day 399
a poem arriving
_____at the limits of
__________its intelligibility —
On day 103 a poem
that dsfigrs itslf as its
_____being’g wrottnd —
On day 366
a poem in a time
_____of armed bulldozers
_____a time of metadata
_____portfolios, a time of
_____infested liabilities,
_____of artificial counter-
_____intelligence, a time of
__________strafing assets and
__________surgical ankylosis,
__________a time of imprecations
_______________and laments —
On day 212
a poem rendered mute
_____in the face of —
On day 299
a poem in the future
_____anterior, looking back at
_____what will have been
_____from some as yet un-
__________imaginable future —
On day 398
a poem that chokes
_____on its own power-
__________lessness —
On day eighty-four, a poem
in plein air on hillock
_____overlooking the slaughter
_____or the endless fields of
_____produce rotting in ash-
__________occluded sun —
On day 198,
a poem reliant on
its conceptual apparatus
_____to scaffold some vague
__________idea of —
On day 153,
a poem that wishes to say
_____here’s an idea here’s how
_____to here’s what not
_____to and now a word
_____from the streets and now
_____a word from the bar-
_____ricades and now some
_____words from the sponsors
__________in other news —
On day forty-three
a poem that resigns
_____from the executive
__________council —
On day sixty-seven, a poem
that cannot kill because
__________only a poem —
On day fifteen, a poem
that cannot destroy because
__________only a poem —
On day 277, a poem
that cannot can because
__________only a poem —
On day 428, a poem
that will have been,
__________but what
__________for-towards —
On day 389
a poem afraid
_____to list the names
__________lest they
__________never end —
And on day 385
and on day forty-nine
and on day 218 and
on day 593 and on
day 1,534 and on day
fourteen and 104 and
3,528 and on day twelve
and on day 294 and on —
the poem trying,
still, unstilled,
to track the ever-
_____rising numbers —
_____of children under the age of one, since the beginning of the
_____of medics, doctors, nurses, and other hospital workers since the start of
_____of journalists, news photographers, video bloggers, since the start of
_____of displaced persons, since the beginning of
_____of schools and universities, completely or partially destroyed by the
_____of students killed or maimed since the start of
_____of teachers and education staff during the
_____of scholars, academics, university professors, and researchers executed by the
_____of mosques and churches destroyed by the
_____of cemeteries completely or partially destroyed by the
_____of hospitals rendered out of service by the
_____of archeological and heritage sites destroyed by the
_____of kilometers of electrical networks destroyed by the
_____of meters of roads and streets destroyed since the start of
_____of meters of water and sewage networks destroyed by the
_____of tons of explosives dropped by the
__________or the number
__________of images
__________required to make
__________the numbers mean
__________the number
__________of words wasted
__________trying to make
__________the images mean
__________against numb
__________meaning, figures,
__________images, words,
_______________disfigured
