Feb 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
210.
So pleasure it is, pleasure and
praise
the rain has stopped the colors last
don’t look back it’s only a flower
gaining on you
only a womb anxious to reclaim me
the last night on the island I saw exact
in dark my mother’s face
let me learn to say this countenance
expressionless veridical completely
there
have I lived up to anything she
proposed
we don’t know what we ask of one
another
what we give we hope is what was
wanted
such gifts are absolute no giver no
receiver
have I ever given you anything at all?
211.
Solitude, light rain, kindness kiss the
sweat off his back
let him go the world’s big enough
to be big enough for the smallest
words
argent, a tower gules and then he
said
from this window she can see anyone
who comes and goes
but everyone is upside-down
man coughing in the morning breeze
how does she keep all that she sees
from floating away
to build a thing and then believe in
it
a tower or a testament
Dostoyevsky railed against mere chemistry
the bonds that love us into one
another’s lives.
Feb 16, 2015 | Uncategorized
208.
Forgive that little lude or play between the going on
I lost the knack of not answering
myself
I stand accused of lying down a folly
to the Greeks
of rising up again at cock-crow and
my people know me not
for I was married to a windmill and a
lake
in summer rain every green a
different color
I set it down meaning to revere it
later
but then came Cossack horsemen
through the aching shtetl of my brain
and who knows now where reverence
went
thirteen Jews at a table telling the
joke that is God
who when he was lifted up healed all
the world but not himself
sunrise from the earth he had no self
to heal.
209.
I’m still with Abbot Benedict still
with Malory
cannonshot was supposed to be the end
of us
the middle time we called it when we
were young in it
now it’s only now and Internet is our
Maimonides
everything lasts everything changes
no one remembers
pleasure is the only gift study how
to please
it lasts as long as Christmas does seventeen
years and come again
I want to know the cycle of each
thing
lifespan of the chickadee of Niagara
of me for that matter but nobody
knows
how well we’d live if we knew the
date of our demise
olé! I die today.
Feb 15, 2015 | Uncategorized
206.
If a thing can be itself and still go
on
that is the raw meat in the rhapsode’s
song
people all over pretending to be me
clear as Chesterton in the gloaming
of the evening
would I were my father’s favorite
word
not twitch so while I’m saying so
I can hardly read the word I write
why I need you
there are spirits here antagonists of
air
is it prayer that sifts all round us
and we breathe in
what one word be scents the garden of
Adonis
sacrifice means tabu only gods can
have it
what would the world be like if we
were in it.
207.
Each one a trick question do you
smoke
no I only quote
comparisons are bad for the
environment
don’t sit next to me while you’re
quoting
I never want to hear what wise men
said
do you think I want to walk out in
someone else’s clothes
don’t make such a fuss just forget
about it
forgetting is the hardest thing of
all
that’s why you fled your island isn’t
it
that’s why you sailed up the dark
river where not even the trees knew you
that’s why you write down what other
people say
you make them up to talk to you so
somebody remembers.
Feb 14, 2015 | Uncategorized
204.
Maddening stillness of the summer air
here as if nobody’s there, nobody
cares
I come from wind and you far more
crystal movement of the invisible
emphasis belongs to humankind
gods write the book we put the
italics in
the trouble is as with Hopkins’
beauty
it never seems not to be a poem
never a simple language thing that
happens by
still seizes the breath or chills the
heart
there has to be nobody listening when
I speak
so that the words break free to all
of you.
205.
Now of the cicadas from their long
sleep
awoke and bred and did and sang and
now to bed again
what are we to some glorious animal
eloquent in hyperspace our spit their
silver
because we make much of things
art is Latin for the way of making
the way of making is so our only way
childish wits suppose we too were
made
no god ever had the art of us
we came out of the sea and from the
ground
we mated in bold daylight and we did
and we do.
Feb 12, 2015 | Uncategorized
202.
Could I have heard another when I
thought was now
leave every I out and see what it
means
real presence split the log he is
there
drink salvation from an empty glass
too many voices for so few words
we suffer from the vice of versa
they marched into battle with The
World Turned Upside Down
revolution only benefits the
landlords old or new
would she kiss the icon of a
commissar?
at some point or no point it will get
tired of me
then what will you do
not even the wind in your ears?
203.
Starting and stopping is the same as
love
properties of archaic Tocharian
guide me grammar through the spiel of
trees
obscure selvedge of a vast weave
a carpet made of sand
flowers half faded dinky here and
there
your footsteps rearrange the floor
walking and talking like a blessed
Greek
they didn’t know how lucky they were
pagans are the only ones left
laughing
after the grimoire of the bank
accounts
the Grand Guignol of local government.
Feb 10, 2015 | Uncategorized
200.
Don’t put up more signs
I hear them hammer their stakes in
for sale signs by the frightened
houses
how poignant to move among the living
how her body leaps to welcome
circumstance
word the editor put in place of ‘God’
haunted by temple friezes a harlot in
heaven
noble souls entrusted to my care
catch a reflection of the rising sun
outline with pencil the shadows of
the leaves R.H.
till all the trees are written down
then sleep beside it till the rooster
crows.
201.
I hear him over the hill or is that
the sun in my eyes
a picture long enough to wrap around
your waist
and go romancing in an old book
slippery pavement on the road to
Neaux
in this cicada year the moon says
less
moon no bigger than a mosquito
moon buzzing in my eyes
till the cock crowed and here I am
cicadas fuguing with the buzz-buzz in
my ears
with one hypnotic pass I wake me up
look Robert there are days inside the
day
the birds are gone but the sky is
still there.
Feb 9, 2015 | Uncategorized
The only thing that can’t go on is
going on
every perceptual quantum begins it
all again
only the qualia sometimes linger
o Abelard o quanta qualia
the golden sabbaths of the wounded
heart
wanting to know how to make it go
don’t let the children come in
all birds belong to you and fish are
mine
pale wild-eyed ones swimming in my
cavern
we who walk along the ground the
strangest are
misshapen by desire bent over a bad
book
our whole lives pictured there in
code.
199.
Muybridge photos of a breaking heart
a daffodil in haste a monkey in a
window
a dreary paper they call The Daily
Olds
deer are watching from the new-ground
woods
how many years have they been here
looking, crashing into our cars,
waiting for something
waiting for us to do something about
ourselves
units of intelligent remorse
all the broken answers
war is never an option war is never
bring me your hand to hold at least
the old man’s sword used to cut
bread.
Feb 8, 2015 | Uncategorized
196.
How heavy the weight of blank paper
carried all my life in blunt
photography
spiritual effluent of Eusapia
Palladino
the crux of psychic plausibility
does all this light come out of one
woman’s body
is there any other source for
splendor in the world
om tare tutare ture soha
she is sixteen still green in the
ways of men
and she alone can save us from
calamity
or tell us who can
listen to the green girl at last
the ever-virgin the truth the wisdom
sleeps beside me.
197.
As if in mime an elegant body told
the whole story from grass to
cathédrale
innumerable declensions of her single
noun
the dancer absolute
so the mild persistent taste of
moving anywhere
from lawn to grass again the poor
smell of money too
we live in poverty we shadows of some
great wealth
the potentates whose kingdoms fit in
their wallets
they rule the world but we could too
as this lone dancer springs up from
the sounding floor
and with a single swerve of movement
changes space forever in the way we
see.
Feb 7, 2015 | Uncategorized
193.
The stones begin to speak now
tell me all I know
long ago but all too close the pines
whose house is that with one light
showing
I dug a well where no water was
I built a staircase down to solid
rock
no root cellar no smell of winter
apples
spread the table with no cloth
on each empty plate a spoon of dust
don’t waste the fuel of breath on
flames
sit quiet with the shivered memories
of your life
now you can do nothing but listen and
no one speaks.
195.
Posthuman is to be beyond desire
to want no more than wood does
standing in the sunlight in the snow
making more of us by being so
and those stones know us too
one day calcium will have a voice
garnet in the Adirondacks speak
red wisdom to the risen poor
be enough the other side to be!
this is politics the throb of music
Bartok Beethoven Bruckner Bach.
Feb 6, 2015 | Uncategorized
191.
So much denial kings before Eden
nothing was ever, all the rest was
obvious
Orpheus exiting from the underside of
words
can only tell the mind that comes to
speak
but o no o no the music always wins
flee back to ferly land and talk to
daisies
feast on clover and try to be
superbly be, as if a lion walked off
a coat of arms
and moved into one turret on my tower
and we lived together beside an
almond tree
the weather always told us what to do
look over the wheat field a ship
comes sailing.
192.
And there are the children at the
gate
the psalmists keening by the hilltop
shrines
the lean poesy of renunciation
when praise is all the air that feeds
go where every leaf has a word on it
our holy fire once for all
it spoke and said Do not be all male
for the masculine alone is weak
terribly weak and needy of conflict
to assert
what cannot be asserted
the unprovable axiom of manhood
building empires wrong again and
again wind blows away.
Recent Comments