HEART THREAD 189 & 190

189.
He will be safer as a ferly-man if
men they have or are
he will be a leper-man in ordinary
land
his voice the bell to warn away the
fearful
because language is a holy terror
believe me
hide yourself in the silence of story
there’s always something left to
believe
dust for sparrows said the old
aesthete                    R. de G.
be bathed clean in what defiles us
Arbeit, heilende Welle in what defines us                    F.B.
how far inland we’ve been carried by
the wave
left where no other wave can come
lost among friends in a house of
one’s own. 
190.
Poet heers a worke
beseeming you                    C.M.
not war but warbling kiss the girls
and make them cry
all the holy raptures of the local
mind
when I wanted clarion Gabriel renew
the world
now blow your horn and if you can
shock the morbid loves into new play
lila
mother of the mind the play of light
all over
the light was like a woman in the
trees man on a rock
and in our little ears the mountain
spoke
a fleet of do’s and don’t’s assails
the lucid now
I am the hole in your pocket
your hand can’t leave me alone.

HEART THREAD 186 & 187

186.
Now there was a man the ferly folk
took away                  R. Kirk
they brought him to a time between
times and loved him there
left a lookalike back home to do his
job
while he did theirs and the work they
had to do
is all praising and delighting in
them
for they were born before the world
and wonder still
what manner people we are who hardly
know them
let alone praise their sacred
everlasting beauty
so he lived with them in some blessed
island
till he understood at last what
pleasure is
and shared it with the little brooks
and the trees
and the ferly folk marveled at his
industry. 
187.
Lie here because there is nowhere
else ever
the word gave birth to me and I may
have failed the word
friend’s face among the flowers
smiling up
the image does not please me you
never can
tell what a smile is smiling at
animal wisdom I need you near
only a beast knows when to turn away
a man by the nature of time will walk
to the abyss
Empedocles Master of Consequences to
vanish in thin air
hum hum hymn of the volcano
a story broken in half we hold the
stub
the other part of it or anything
blows away.

HEART THREAD 184 & 185

184.
All the lands of never waiting for me
wonder why the ink itself won’t sing
all words belong to someone else
o borrow borrow this gypsy cock
praise is vital though it turns to
ash before the shrine
spice of incense burning down
solve all my problems easy as say no
signpost at the crossroads between
Neaux and Hiesse
strong sun in cucumber slice open
midnight
that’s how the stars began mind
started counting
I need a maid to pick up all these
stones
a world swept clean of what I
mean. 
185.
All these animals waiting for me
a tiler waiting for a wall a mosaic
Christian floor
I once knew how to walk that street
I see a word I never touched before
raindrops impersonate pale flowers
all these headlines try to hold your
mind
hint at what each sentence means to show
verbs confuse sentences as sudden
movements startle birds
the nouns you almost trust as if the
Middle Ages
came round to you again and all your shirts
smelled of lavender and any maiden
with a lute
could drive you crazy with likely
continuities.

HEART THREAD 181-183

181.
Infant voices shrill to cry for help
soaked by Niagara to understand
Canadian
the doctor complained I failed to
signal pain
fall deepest in love with whatever
you don’t know
release the sky from labor let the
light alone
something to steer by only one horse
on the island
this glass of water that I proved
ran through all the rivers of the
world to get to you
every word is an exaggeration
I saw a trickle of wine on the
Savior’s chin
I waited and everything revealed just
keep talking
those who saw her knew enough to look
away.
182.
There is another story I’m not
allowed to know
I’m reading one book the story’s in
another all the time
the Empty Story I need above all
deeds
the ordinary mind knows the story
best
the skeleton who sings the ribcage
knows how to think
o neurons mother of my little world
Hölderlin’s roses bloomed last month
some still linger
these gulls seem to be asleep as they
fly
like the swallows of Lacoste who
sleep all night in midair
where Mary of Magdala saw them first
and cried
so that her Husband looked up too and
spoke
everyone will rise again and none
fall back.
183.
In the garden of the undecided
raptors quick in surf to dive a
cormorant
quarrying the sea
the end of matter is an ardent
remember
words change their clothes for winter
a fugue is never far
it is an honest man who says such
things
refuted by the first green tide
merciful fog hiding colors in plain
sight
once a lost battalion stumbled on a
black lake
thousands of cranes in a pearly mist
and knew they had come home.

HEART THREAD 179 & 180

179.
Penny rolling down an inclined plane
or planet on its roll around a
flaming doubt
I knew you when you were my mind
before
no one took but everybody takes
cleared a forest to liberate the moon
beautiful astronomy before numbers
were invented
one day there was nothing left to
count
could you catch it from the bite of
an idea
there are no comparisons or only one
paper doesn’t drink up the way it
used to
one mind shadows another
wake up some morning and think with
me.
180.
Trace the themes that wind the fugue
deep undergrowth this year in aspen
grove
all lines lead back onto your hand
line of fate line of wheat
how many kids all the disasters of
love
scribbled on the palm grey clouds
coming
woodland cabin of the arbiter of
dreams
where the bishop of permissions was conceived
it’s all a merry-go-round some horses
go up and down their poles
some horses just as beautiful
understand to stand
harnessed in pretty glass rubies of
samsara
all the love you give comes back to
you.

HEART THREAD 177 & 178

177.
Tongue the flute lower there is a
deeper music
indefatigably mental a fiddle golf
cart in Judæa
all I have are Promised Lands
spent this life writing down the  wind
spread on the lawn to welcome godly
showers
hear the copter see only cloud how
white clouds roar
indecisive moment the taste of glass
the great gate of Kiyiv never opens
never closes
a gate is a man standing in the
desert
Stonehenge is a ring of girls around
a message
they said a storm is coming love gets
lost in theory
revolutions are ninety-nine percent
revenge.
178.
Swimming in rain the lightning swims
with you
we still don’t know what it is this electric
thing
hydrangeas struck by lightning
reading Montaigne in the park
one fugue for a thousand voices
ghosts at midday the darkest time of
soul
wait for the re-entrance of the theme
the bay of Naples
dark as I am don’t confuse me with
the dark
look at the sea through a man with an
old straw hat
the sea you say is not the same sea
or we were tortured by our
differences
I’ve been seeing ghosts all day
a ghost is a man without a man.

HEART THREAD 175 & 176

175.
Everything over the sheen belongs to
me
schön shiny things are fair to be
privilege of silver your own moon in
the sky
a body lingers telling time away from
me
the belt of storms marks out the
parallax of lust
is it you  or is it me stand witness for the light
hydrogen and helium burn to make us
see
or is there a light that comes before
the sun
come and come again disorder ferries
me to you
through the window a warrior dying on
the beach
once we were Vikings now we are
stones
the oldest dream you ever had becomes
your life.
176.
Some texts only dare to read by day
David’s harp strings cut for the sake
of the song
how should an old man dance before
the Ark
to what old music Biber Schubert
Karamanov
body’s an embarrassment in church
folly to the Greeks dance with your
tongue
till the song goes to sleep along the
spine
why does sun on the sea smell like
toast
the word remember is like roasted
meat
when there is nothing left but to
recall
call again and hope they hear you but
who
when you meant me what name did you
actually say?

HEART THREAD 173 & 174

173.
The rule is so simple make people
happy
the method is harder live for the
other
the gods come only when they’re
needed
as that girl he thought he knew once
came along and guided Dante to the
rose
but was she the same as the one who
knew
or never knew, you can’t tell by
looking
but the telling does no good till you
tell it
the breath you breathe out different
from what you breathe in
measure the difference in a world
full of commas
listen long enough and learn to tell
lies
don’t stand by your words walk behind
them all the way home. 
174.
He’s getting smart it must be near
the end
he has no clue to what the house is
called
why does a castle need a name it has
a moat
all we need is difference did he say
all belief is make-believe
deus adest alteri drink from the well
the healing breath of other people no
help in same
stay far enough away so that they
still are other
the mess of mingling knows no edge
boundary is all, we’re bound to mark
mark we honor by transgressing
travel far by staying home.  

HEART THREAD 171 & 172

171.
Rescuing forever from never I put the
writing in your hand
come back from the place that never
was
when the city deserts its gods flee
to the fields
in the woods gods won’t leave you
alone, you pray by breathing
and even so you have to write it down
this is your sole commandment listen
and repeat
because the word you hear changes in
you to the word you say
and only you can say it world without
end amen
but the Mass your body is is always
beginning
your body is praying all the time
knows more about the gods than
Socrates
if you don’t know the answer no one
does.
172.
Be careful of numbers that come into
your head
light-filled windows of an empty
house
listening is filling a terra cotta
jug with water from a slow fountain
listening is walking down a street
you never saw
walk the grass between the sidewalk
and the curb
to be in the between is to be born
again
any tween space is the primal cave
the folk you see around you are
bisons on the wall
every salesman a highpriest grammar a
wizard’s spell
the witches love you and the birds
are all machines
you wind up the engine with your
first breath
keep breathing or all the lights go
out. 

HEART THREAD 169 & 170

169.
I think I counted wrong I’m not the
only one
there is a wolf beside me and a
kingbird in the tree
beast and bird and me together can’t
know as much as one woman can
call us all to bed and see what
happens then
the Irish poets worked for pay the
pay was praise
fat salmon in the cooking pot poetry
is war without an enemy
when ‘faith’ replaces cult the polis
is dead
the Greeks never had to believe
anything, they knew, they did
as Jung at the end said “I don’t have
to believe, I know”  
faith cuts us apart from one another
believe nothing and do everything,
and conversely
both ways make wise, help the wind
blow, paideia
170.
I’m never shy of naming elements
the things that were here for us
before we knew
so those are the colors of my
spectrum
those are the blocks I fiddle with
rousing to you impatient to stroll
road in shadow past a donkey in a
field
a hill up ahead but everyone speaks
French
and none of this was here before the
hill
so I will go to my mothers below the
hill
and live among the ferly folk as
though I were a man
and listen to their practice of sun
and moon
and learn enough to come back in a
hundred years and all for you.