A new poem by Caleb Klaces

As a request for permission 

In exile, he wrote
that he would spit in the faces
of those with permission to write.
So I wrote in the margin in pencil but what is permission?
in the hope that I have got whatever it is
only from him.
But what is permission?
The light is sunk into white horses let out
to run free in the rodeo ring.
The first becomes the last
becomes the first, the whole
thing caught in its going forward
and nowhere, water
circling a sink.
Hooves fall in and out of step
as will our applause.
To make a pattern and then
to embarrass it. Nobody
has ever not permitted
me. The opposite must be
here somewhere:

Loved horses running after themselves.

The water going somewhere.

The water is always somewhere.

If you accept these terms & conditions, click “I Accept”

and start here:

If there was once
I thought I saw clearly
how things go on on their own
it was sitting with a man in his,
the only shop not golden
with the village’s famous saffron,
but greyish with broken machinery,
while he placed watch after watch
around my arm, each keeping
to its own frozen time
like a child still hiding from friends
who long ago gave up looking.
Could we meet?
I mean, I didn’t buy anything.