Apr 1, 2015 | Uncategorized
287.
When it caught me I was the meadow
but we all have a right to that green
place
where every flower is a telephone to
hell
because the colors we see so
variously are the mind of somewhen else
far away right beneath our feet
or did you Lady beneath our skin
where the shining trumpets blaze drums
dare to touch
is it there or is it there
of course the land I mean is someone
else
right here if only I’d stop talking
if only you would speak
saddest of all songs white-throated
sparrows’.
288.
Coming to feeling
no one knows what a word means in the
mouth of the other
this is axiomatic not even the skin
knows
who touched me? for I felt the power
reaching out from me
touch heals but who or whom
what does the skin know of touch
intention or accident love or scorn
the earth is blue
that’s all we knew
enough to be a pirate in a sea of
talk
stand by your word until it falls
bury it not on the fertile prairie
bury it in language that café
full cup the church most godly.
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.
Mar 25, 2015 | Uncategorized
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.
Mar 24, 2015 | Uncategorized
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.
Mar 23, 2015 | Uncategorized
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.
Mar 22, 2015 | Uncategorized
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.
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