Nov 11, 2014 | Uncategorized
43.
Various various a book in the wind
the birds are reading me as best they
can
slow down little language I’m only a
child
aftermaths are written long before
just find the right page and squeeze
it tight
don’t let anybody see you walk that
street
it goes to the hospital where they
park the mad
those who released themselves from
the ordinary
and wouldn’t you if you could get
away from it
the badgering of business the noise
of news
and you alone on your phantom ship.
44.
Through the skirl of the Elgar violin
concerto
I hear seagulls squawking over the
Isle of Wight
it is 1954 I’m going home at last
the island mentioned in the sea
and every nineteen years at summer
solstice
the god dances in the sky above his
ring of stones
a temple built from time alone
or I am the one who dances there
me can you imagine me prancing in a
cloud
yet he’s there and she is with him
and the two of them inhabit me
if you dare look inside yourself
you’ll find me there.
Nov 10, 2014 | Uncategorized
41.
Run far enough but do they listen
give them what they want and they’ll
come back
fierce dangers of getting what you
wish
these are my Moralia guide for
the oversexed
lost in the Middle Ages now
re-upholstered
in glamorous satin language America
America
I call you empty so I wade ashore
open the downturn invade the nucleus
Lincoln enthroned like an emperor
eagle talon’d held together disparate
republics
the cure almost worse than the
disease
almost and Miss Odessa’s black chess
pie.
42.
The one good thing about the Bible is
footnotes
commentaries hum like flies in the
butcher shop
every decent word breeds scores of
annotations
the simplest human sentence needs a
Mishnah of its own
and then they write that down and
before you know it
we need eight billion people on the
planet
to pronounce all the declensions of
that first verb
volo was it or nolo or gimme or I thirst
write it down as if the flowers might
forget
or Egypt turn wet again and Pharaohs shout
and mothers fret about their
adolescent sons
and Abel has a secret wife who cards
his wool.
Nov 9, 2014 | Uncategorized
for A.M., 1946—2014
In the stillness
of his embedded craft
something always left
between the glittering tiles
the shadows of Byzantium
before the terrible differences—
Meddeb is dead, the last
Mediterranean, the last who knew
white desert with kind hands,
the peace of God that only
men disturb, calm
Tiamat coiled behind heaven,
to mourn a decent man
is almost blasphemy,
his life a precept
to be followed not discussed.
And yet, many grains of sand
in the desert of the mind.
Grit in my teeth
women waving
white sheets from their balconies.
Nov 7, 2014 | Uncategorized
39.
Womb for the ferly folk my mind by
day
your old days come true again be born
in me
bread broke open to show a beating
heart
Saint Mila showed to show that all’s
alive
cistern broken but the water rested,
tree
fell but the leaves stayed in the sky
perfect in their dispositif origin of
stars
I was Melchizedek who priested in the
rocks
I sheeped along among my little goats
try to make hale and holy what you
can
for this is sparrowland the good
this is sky with stones in it and all
of us.
40.
Actinism life reacting to the sun
as if a schooner came in your
childhood
with a pretty nursemaid on it
taught you her language and took you
to sea
and you never came back, that would
be me
water is your only comfort aren’t I
slow drip of language from the rock
my father brought me to a mountain
spring
who knows where Castalia I think
and when you drink that water you too
are sea
and everything is river ever after
now you are everyone because you
watched her lips.
Nov 7, 2014 | Uncategorized
37.
Be self-indulgent while a self
persists
the birds are gone but men flee work
the tiler has a clipper the hedge is
thick
angry voices of the pilgrims bother
us
my roof needs re-thatching who are
you
are you Madeleine after all all
history in your hand
they showed me so many things I took
the oath
I felt the sword blade across my
Adam’s apple
hoodwinked gladly in the name of love
all our businessmen in masks and music
a secret society made entirely of you
chain the bike and ride the almond
tree away.
38.
Cast among minnows the maiden
floundered
out of the little brook baring a
message
all is revealed we’ve known all along
water drips along the shank her arch
is high
light shows through the least of our constructions
only a pyramid can hold all that dark
there’s still some ink left in the
world
inscribe yourself in the family Bible
use your Hebrew name
hemlock branches make good torches
renew my membership in France
for I was born before the poem ended
the children were still struggling in
the apple tree.
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