Dec 25, 2014 | Uncategorized
111.
If the loves you dream of dream you
back
shadows haunt the stuccoed ceiling
like small birds
and there are real birds too on
plaster leaves
baroque resemblances of passing time
your whole body safe in my arms
vertebral rosary that haunts the
hands
don’t say prayers be them
you be the god that answers them
everything is for being and willing
to be
and be for the sake of another, the
other
not much more left of the story than
that
so now at last the story can
begin.
112.
Pieces of fear in the room the child
sleeps
wanderlust of nighttime things
can you swear that chest of drawers
is where it was
sleep is the great healer of the
Irish
a physician who makes no guarantees
sleep lets the world around you
change
thing by thing like children on their
way to school
aftermath their heads are full of
fish
your uncle cleaning flounder in the
kitchen sink
what color blood did you think fish
had
red is always a surprise a wound of
tenderness
where the nice bear lumbers out of
the trees and hugs you tight.
Dec 23, 2014 | Uncategorized
109.
There’s a taboo against learning
history
tabu, to know yestreen spoils your
afternoon
everything forgets, pleasure is always
now
back then is all the pain and dark
and work and wolf
sunbathers wait for their Renoir, the
wind
drives them indoors, Lincoln dies in
fever
Romulus Augustulus leaves Rome to die
in peace
this is the empire — the sea’s been
telling us that forever
forever, no god and no czar, no
meaning,
no bible, nobody home, sleep in sun
on grass
I forget more than you’ll ever
remember
that’s why in sleep I am the same as
you.
110.
Ask the sea put on a coat and tie
wear a battered panama
we come close to the pylon where
chariots turn
fling into the home stretch at last
fat chance to be Rome without the
Romans
live in marble grandly with a purple
mind
the Jews taught us angels and never
forget
the root of ‘angel’ is the root of
‘king’
an angel is a message on its way
somewhere
no angel turns away unheard
but no one knows what language they
hear in
or if all our jabber is their arcane
philosophy.
Dec 22, 2014 | Uncategorized
107.
From the arrow that flyeth by day on
the south wind
protect the cradle of the infant
thought the blue trees
reach down to us to stifle unbelief
throw your fishing rods away your
lariats
because everything but what you see
is real
deep in the truth of the unthought
Lila the uncontrived with whom we
play
night more than day and the wind
knows it all
broken clouds your mother on the
phone in every wind
islands change their flags like
underwear
we belong to nothing but the sea from
which we come
religion is an ailment of the
mainland only.
108.
Hydrangea Himalayan flower favorite
blue
has blossomed early in Tara’s gentle
hand
I saw her tossing them on the
hillside south of Sonada
and here by the sea in Betty’s other
garden
a few blue already the many on their
way
always like that, profit and
followers, udambara path
assigning meanings to each thing I go
ahead
listening to what I stumble through
leave the self out
have no favorite flower no mountains
no name at all
the names are all asleep in you
that’s why you love us best
the colors you chose to smash over
the world.
Dec 20, 2014 | Uncategorized
105.
Hammer heavy but I can judge the
sound of competence
and he’s not it, a father trying to
fly kite for kid
but there’s no sky, Chinese dragons
slice
one another’s guide lines up La Salle
above the river
yea Lady the same river the two-faced
blue-eyed water
writing is a way of doing nothing but
keeping time from passing
or lets time pass but makes it leave
behind it
shadows on the little world people
hold in their hands
stare gently out the window thirty
years
Pound’s kulchur stares back in we
live paideuma
the wolf has turned himself into the
door
he lit the fragrant peony in the
Western mind.
106.
How can I be at peace who knew no war
the Brothers Grimm are my grandees
their angry soldier only in exile
find the blue light
I follow the bright lumen to the cave
mouth of my sin
there is a first place to
wander from
in Adriatic mist and summer storm
pale Rilke fiercest thinker of his
day
adding the one force Nietzsche
missed, the sentiment of love
and to do no more than tell the truth
invented poetry along the way
this new organ in our flesh of meaning
things
a word like children screaming in the
rain.
Dec 19, 2014 | Uncategorized
102.
If it said anything it said blue
I walk with you around the ancient
hill to water
am all air and leave it to you to be
fire
there are people such that being with
them all elements complete
that’s why I run out of breath
ascending
the air I needed left behind with
earth
I make noises as I arise they are
words
you hear these sounds as touch
for every singular is plural I am the
frantic chorus
heavy hoofed uphill clamber reach the
top
your house in the sky I trumpet my
residence
you knew right then we’ve always been
together.
103.
I am no meaner than the mind next
door
the swan on the hood of a Packard
tells the time
long kinship with owls for crying out
loud
a ghost train rushes past the slaves
are freed
from one master into the clutches of
many
the salary of circumstance please
tell me what to do
I want to talk about the moist
details
the lug nuts down below the arm-break
crank
slowly unpack all the details blue
glass seltzer bottle
call it vichy in Dubrow’s early
edition of the Times
I don’t think the subway ends here
but I’ve never gone beyond
it’s hard to stop being credulous
about the real.
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