HEART THREAD 274 & 275

274.
I want to tell you all the ones I
need doctor
because in your glass-wall cabinet
you display
one of each essence that pursues my
day
dreams are worse when you know who
they are
give them to me or make them go away
homeopathic relationships a kiss
heals all desire
this is me flouncing out of your
office crying on the daybed
this is the cabin boy on a steamer
that sank
this is the girl with the paper
flower in her hair
resemblances are terrible isn’t it
enough to have one of a thing
must her shadow pass through every
door
can’t I make you stop looking at me
that way. 
275.
I lost the word at dawn I knew in
sleep
poor me a hundred thousand other
words around but that one gone
agrestic agnostic arthritic aesthetic
but still the mercy monument went up
trapezoidal in outline a frustrated
pyramid
built of all the shadows I have ever
tried to reify
a junk heap halfway to the moon yet
shapely withal
experiences change from other eyes
long after only by its cover can you
tell a book
I will take a net and go down to the
little stream
and let the shadow of its meshwork
float on quick water
and no one will be wounded then by my
music.  

HEART THREAD 271 & 272

271 .
If you carry the dream through the
day
a smoky donkey will start to bray
you follow the road to La Borne
those cliffs up to the left we walked
it only once
at every house a peaceful dog
signboards modest boast on every
villa
we lived in Les Mouflons ten years
apart
I didn’t understand bird talk in
those days
you hadn’t taught me the language of
bells
and all I knew was bread I clutched
it tight
the way a dying man clutches his
nurse’s thigh
this I know this won’t let me
go. 
272.
I never saw you as you are
you know ‘you’ means everybody ‘I’
means nobody
language has a bigger heart than any
man
no house but now
a woman at the washing machine
she is the secret ruler of the world
unclad into the changes
fish too plentiful aquarium
always another waiting
the sun came sluggish to this table
a game out there someone else is playing
me too though I sit close-eyed
inside.

HEART THREAD 269 & 270

269.
So much I’d say to you if you were
here
but far away I just keep talking
who knows how much the wind will
carry
just don’t get married the dark words
need you for their own
sweet child of so many mothers
know me as your elder sister
sistrums in our hands and coronets
above
we are the only licensed worshippers
adoring shadows of the gods we are
size is a true story and pace is
beauty
density of thought a thick saliva
sweetish
wets your lips so you can speak the
secret word.
270.
Roads reeds spines dawn wind lives
inside us
I speak for all of us since I speak
alone
you laughed at me across the laundry
room
what more does a story need to be
green patterned dress folded on the
floor
everything we do together is therapy
use me use me we’ll both be clean
how real does it have to be before it
is
the pattern was small white flowers
as if spring could take off its
clothes still not be naked
it was all about sorting the wash by hand
it was all about waking up at last.

HEART THREAD 267 & 268

267.
Where things grow by themselves
that’s the scripture for our pilpul
con each leaf and comprehend
this is the Heavenly Academy of what
happens
gardens are colonial agribusiness
obliterating the mind’s first Text
the uncontrived happenstance of
suchness
big words for the tiny weeds between
the tiles
I too hurry to obliterate
as if it were a message from the mind
before the mind
leave it till you remember what it’s
saying
a language even the rain speaks just
be wet.
268.
Hark to your habit leman
pain is sham as a country is
when countryside is real
so many did to you I mean
as many as sparrows strouthoi of her sly chariot
birds are molecules of something very
big
isn’t that what Empedocles did
you talk all the time about
Pythagoras
looking in the mirror is close shave
enough
girls taught men poetry by skipping
rope
giving hope leaving forever with a
lingering smile
naked on tigerback biting the
moon.  

HYLONOETIC MANIFESTO

                                        against timid cosmologists

It doesn’t matter how matter
got here, we’ve got to hear
what it has to say.
Loathsome binary: alive or lifeless—
all is animate
objects are subjects.
This world so intricately
tenderly personed,
statues strolling through the park.
……………………..

 Poetry is the science of hearing things speak.