Nov 17, 2014 | Uncategorized
53.
I can do nothing to help you but go
to sleep
in my dream your destiny propose
city after city with huge parks in
them
a green so broad it holds an ocean
snug
the other side of color is a man
basalt rough carved to look like you
a tree is meditation
crosslegged contemplative of Roquepertuse
graphic reference like a crowded train
filled with drowsy reveries
enough imagework in there to build a
Parthenon
but there are no virgins left no ratios.
54.
You don’t know where you’re going
till you’ve left the place behind
raptacious the old word is a hawk in
your head
close to the parapet the first time all
Paris known
for I was there in person for a
change
not one of Atget’s pigeons the shadow
on the wall my own
we live lives parallel with ourselves
from far out at sea you can see the
way we move
deed making deed the wind blows it
all away
read the wakes of light we leave
behind us
parallels meet at the infinity called
mind
where you slip your shoes and
backpack off
and children chase their gaudy mother
down the street.
Nov 16, 2014 | Uncategorized
51.
So the sun keeps rising I keep gloom
to myself
mockingbird on the rail in love with
half an apple
sing to me Caruso sing to me all your
arias
you like me can be anybody else
to hide my own song in another’s
they say Pavarotti could not read
music
so he had to become Nemorino Edgardo
Cavaradossi
flesh became song oh the fat ones we
were
to impersonate myself unlock the
truth
read the horoscope of strangers
to see the way we stand and move
the Talking Cure without one word
being said.
52.
Selvanus must have been one of our gods
Lord Esus in the woodlot with a
hatchet
or we had no gods we had persons
to study the habits of and to revere
because reverence is all
and these holy images of women and of
men
make us revere the ones who walk with
us
ourselves as much as anybody
if gods are anywhere they must be in
you
and you, there are no places we are
not
when people are asleep the world goes
home
I woke the sun up this morning go to
bed with her tonight.
Nov 15, 2014 | Uncategorized
49.
Once it begins it knows how to go on
true translation treats the syllable
as gold intact
apple-mother guide me through your
hedges
you know where the house is you left
it there for me
a spot of rain upon the lettuce leaf
trying to begin again without taking
life
take form instead and stand like
Ely’s lantern
eight brave oak trees bear it up
a thousand years the tallest men in
England
still stand the mist her little raft
comes through
carrying her sick friend home from
poetry
where she will hand-heal every inch
of him.
50.
My father’s cigars is how it begins
Dutch Masters or White Owl Connecticut
leaf
no non-tobacco ingredients no paper filler
but I am all paper the flesh become
word
no wonder stopped going to church
we never had Sunday school we weren’t
real Americans
no town meetings no whitewall tires
Catholics were just Jews with no
money
America is still over there across
the bay across the river
America’s where the sun goes down
makes me sad to see this dying glory
Amenti across the Nile commonwealth
of the dead.
Nov 14, 2014 | Uncategorized
47.
Keep your glasses on tonight you’ll
see me in your dreams
because I walk with feet of stone no
one can hear
you will hear a ship crying out to
the fog
you’ll see my breath condensing on
your mirror
don’t worry I’ll be everywhere
keep your white noise machine on all
you like
I too am a sound that makes no sense
relax I’m finally talking about
myself
you’re safe as long as I go on
talking
an apple or an orange is also a
machine
no moving parts but you and me
alone at midnight in a broken
world.
48.
Man with three hearts
shown on the stone altar by three
birds in flight
sky is always the same as your body
that’s how you know where anything is
how anything means
I pray to the weather to exalt the
day
god heart beast heart and one more
the heart I gave you was not my own
I offered the whole city to the holy
ones
anything you can conceive is yours to
give but not to take
what kind of birds are anything
a crow a jay a mockingbird none of these.
Nov 13, 2014 | Uncategorized
45.
Ogmios tongue me what to tell
halfway to hell I dare make
invocation
inspirez-moi the Temple must be built C.G. tenor solo bare rock in Judaea
teach me how to do this thing you
make me do
the hymns of Milarepa thrill from
strange obedience
teach me to tell what I don’t know
learn from the babble when you sting
my lips
strange means an unknown woman
coming through the door arms full of
flowers
I can’t understand a single thing she
says
I have no choice but to write it
down.
46.
Draw a picture of the Temple here
as you imagine it so it shall be
here is a photo of you building it
here is a rainbow to wear around your
neck
keeps you safe in battle with the sky
who taught me to work this damned
machine
all moving parts are still only the
electrons move
rich men keep getting richer as
drunkards just stay drunk
there is no doorway to their castle
a house goes on forever like the old
Winchester place
money has no natural frontier
the violin mourns the new-fallen
king.
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