Mar 31, 2015 | Uncategorized
285.
Life stops at any moment but the
story goes on
that’s what’s wrong with it, this
imaginary present tense
weirder than any future hold me in
your hands
because I was war and got over it or
praised the seen
read the original clay of Gilgamesh
with your fingers
there is no scholarship but the
waking heart
for saying is all and thinking is few
those dim magistrates dismiss all
evidence
if you believe your eyes you’d
believe anything
I’m an agnostic when it comes to me
I speak to the simplest things
because they answer me
the question I really meant for
you.
286.
Smash the tablets at the gate
to speak in the tongues of all of you
I need to answer what you do not ask
isn’t that what polis is for
the heads to hang crowns on and
laurel wreaths
rhapsodic recitation of the obvious
smooth as religion
but it’s hard in summer when the gods
are far
we linger in our bodies no more sense
than the day’s news
now I put on my father’s green coat
and speak another language taught by
the mirror
seen through tears as he went away.
Mar 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
283.
But what if it’s all wrong
every few minutes a boy comes by and
takes an apple
you
never know when he’s coming
you’ll never know how many apples you
have
it turns out the sea really is made
of ink
and we are the scripture that it
wrote
are you ready for me yet to read and
leap
the bull calf sprinkled with wine and
daisies
offered living to the Place he stands
in
grazes and lifts to gore the
trembling light
live forever is what he says it says
a sutra that has soared up then
fallen from our whys.
284.
Get your work done before the sun
comes up
how the day curls up at your feet
time changes and you stay the same
for once your skin fits you
suddenly there are flowers in the
rose of Sharon
you start remembering all manner of
pink things
the day wakes up again and bites your
ankle
memory is the thief of time
rub your lantern bright and go down
the cave
lick the pretty pictures off the wall
that’s what eyes are for you think
those bottomless wells where the
light gets lost.
Mar 29, 2015 | Uncategorized
280.
Flute in the nineteenth century the
phone is ringing
yes I am guilty of everything
all I did all I do was this
birds walking on the roof just like
the French poem
but the sea is very far
one arm of it though strikes through
the land
the River North into a different skin
as far as a ship can sail against the
grain
for this is a wooden world and I am
wooden too
no one hears the suffering of trees
so caught up with using them leaf shade
and timber
and these are my leaves I leave for
you.
281.
Under the tunic the wound begins to
bleed
losing the city was worth it we get
to find it again
we had to set the image free
with blood I mark crisscross on this
stone
nearby an altar chiseled by no iron
defiled only by a word it speaks
through my palms the rock talks up my
arms
this was the first stone in the world
jihad against the unbelieving
emptiness
fight for the vibrant hollow of the
spacious mind
blood was meant to be the secret ink
writing the sutra of reality deep
inside your frame.
Mar 28, 2015 | Uncategorized
278.
So that everything fits into one
thing
the voice of that one thing is heard
the grace you give me let me tell you
everything
the slow highway to Toronto roadhouse
on the lake
the crowded yellow bed in Montreal
the waterfall in Assam
all of these could be my name
but comedy is finished the epic
begins
my cousin’s will in probate lyric as
a lotus
my grandfather looked like Wallace
Stevens but he could smile
haven’t I followed Dante step by step
if your ears are clean you will hear
my Tuscan lisp.
279.
It scares me when I get personal
like those dreams you’re half naked
we are never fully undone though
even death is only half the dance
so I can tell you everything
till I have nothing left
and your skin will still be cool on
the coverlet
and sleep will tell me some more lies
the kind I can live with
there is no socialist remedy for this
situation
except do everything for the other
guy
if you can ever find anybody really
different.
Mar 26, 2015 | Uncategorized
276.
There is a cello at the bottom of the
spine
that is how Europe got here so deep
why Tiepolo painted the actual sky
above an ordinary me
we are embedded in what we thought we
knew
people greeking language under my
hands
I’m not talking culture I’m talking
neurology
the complex music of our simple meat
lift up the manhole covers see who we
are
cables and sewers information overflow
I am the conduit of the impersonal
can’t forget Nora splashing in the
surf at Rockaway
so much the worse for me.
277.
On the glass face of the device the
window birds reflected
pass over the house so short is music
music is an accident happened to the
air
ergo bird bassoon the bells of Judson
Church
but mostly this little mirror in my
hand
shows the arcane image of each sound
what we look like when we hear the
cardinal chirp
what the crow means in soaring
without sound
over my poor house! personal again
the complicated negotiations in a
dream
a wise old Jewish man without a word
pointed to fried chicken that’s the
piece for you.
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