HEART THREAD 147 & 148

147.
Ariel pretends Prospero’s his master
but no one rules that bright air eye
God’s Lion strange name for a little
bird
master of the island, human books
flutter useless
no magic and no science stilts his
liberty
to go and come and speak and ply his
appetite
humans rough or gentle are his toys
he teases them by seeming to comply
catch wind in a handkerchief palace
in your pocket
o I tried to rule those wizard wings
one time
all I got was flutter and flap all my
words dispersed
yet he brought me back my drownèd
book again.
148.
Eden syndrome the better the place
the more fear you’ll be cast out
fundamental neurosis of the
ecological moment
paranoid planet ruled by demons still
still we have to do something else
about it
something abstract something works
footsteps down some distant wooden
stairs
who comes to thrust us out we’re not
yet in
selves run out of self a damp fog
rolls in
bird feathers and no rain a song
instead
meteoric solitude hurrying through
emptiness
to be with you before you get to be
inconceivable meaningless such
energies so-called stars.

HEART THREAD 145 & 146

145.
One cloud in no sky
dying later sooner never
constant supervision of the real
humid means the air was breathed
before
mean room in empty touristy hotel
only believe what wind tells in that
other language
in brightest sunshine heard the child
forgets
Ghost Trio playing to the sunset
phrase
cart full of dead trees Atu XV
everything changes
oxygen found on Mars iron on earth
Blake in heaven
slowly adding and adding up to zero
the old couple next door suddenly
look like kids.
146.
And ate this flower Old Man Is Young
Again
I found it where the new snake left
it
on cool cement by the house door
agathodaimon
all the ceaseless gifts of living
things
to those of us who soil the air with
speaking
all our religions and dollar signs
and sighs
and these sweet people gave us bass
and fluke
to wind again the clock stopped when
the old man died
the song they sadded me with when I
was young
overwhelm me and be better each of us
one step
use me all the way up
the strangest things can break the
heart an empty room.

HEART THREAD 143 & 144

143.
Every work must be cosmology before biography
but the dinky little bits of life
come in too
I tell you you are you and what can
you contest
the lawn needs a shave it’s Sunday
and no bells
the mathematics of the wind mathom
is treasure
rises when the sea heats up long
after dawn
everything tends backwards witchcraft
was no religion
we knew the things before we knew the
knowers
now float rudderless paradise a lake
not a garden
a well ensouled by circumstance
the ash we find after a stranger’s
bonfire on the beach
the old lost word that once meant
god.
144.
Of course still worry about these
things
the wind wants in
wind carries in its lap the seeds of
sleep
mind in sleep renews its contract
with the earth
the dance we call dream, that
forgetting thing
there is no natural end to nature
hence all the busy carry up the hill
higher as if wiser so the sea forgets
us
brass doorknob warm from the sun
going in
how many times does a house get born
the sea’s ceaseless baptism of the
shore
and still we live in sin elves
without a hill.

HEART THREAD 141 & 142

141.
Mix the grains again for Psyche’s
pleasure
mess is comfort and the law-book torn
restore all the seeds to our original
chaos
don’t wander trying to set things
straight
things are right to begin with,
confusion is organic
this mess reminds me Psyche yields to
pleasure
always here and always now and always
elegant
maiden gypsies tend their stallions’
fetlocks
heel white runs right heel dark can’t
walk
o fall over lightly Kentucky dreamer
round heels
drink to soothe the seething a lie to
cure the truth
so much sun today I can almost see.
142.
A word is as wide as the will and
it’s all for you
the hedger at his trim the blackbird mum
no sound but peopleness menskr
all we bring
to the world is religion it does fine
without
trying to find the way there he found
a white lode
soft as clamshells of no use but
to  witches
his satin armband her linen garter bind
the meaty parts of going or of
handling things
throb of artery renews appetite aloft
everything was right there the
chemistry the harpsichord
some Chinese whispers from Ernst Toch
she played me
the virgin queen with all my Tarot
cards.

HEART THREAD 137

137.
Open door frog croak man lifting
lumber
longer than I am this matter I uplift
subtended by substance the soul
unveils
the Middle Ages never ended the
pilgrims saunter
all the kings of earth still fail
their pentecosts
only the beauty is missing the
flowing spontaneity of stone
Autun, we have our weathers too our
smooth
flaming sunsets in suburban  prose
will the sun on the sea be enough for
me
sit on the ground and let the world
tell
all your talk is reference book and
parliament
what your body knows only body can
pronounce.

HEART THREAD 135 & 136

135.
No waiting it went and was now
 all those old words that meant me stopped
as if the chalice never touched my
lips or never left them
the weather is inside us too
knowing litters small birds along the
sky
you are the architect of the obvious
things bow down at your feet you know
me cold
morning was never meant for this to
be obedient at last
hide your confession deep in your tract
on ethics
explore the dream life of Immanuel
Kant
exalt the triviality of poetry
where three roads meet the god is
always present.
136.
Slow down a stoker in a locomotive
old
Zola by Renoir Kafka’s steamship balancing
nowheres
can’t help but make luminous mistakes
bathroom down the hall barefoot dawn
a room is just a footnote to its
window
sun gleams on steel a pen seems muse
enough
over the harbor slipping her sail so
quiet beauty come
Azure as ever he teased the war over at last                L.Z.
now we can go home home is always
somewhere  else
I watched my father shovel coal into
the furnace
hand on the throttle of the door I
made the house go
talked about coke but it was
anthracite and Ellington.

HEART THREAD 133 & 134

133.
Heal like an open window an opus
number a lost quartet
the sheen of shadow as if a word once
spoken
the leaf speaks louder than the tree
the thing you need to know you never
trust
Nietzsche in the rose garden Bolzano
smell of asphalt
suicide because birds can walk but
men can’t fly
beautiful vow I vaunt that vaults to
heaven
shield me from the hailstorm broken
scraps of human will
because the will can live without its
man
bring me unconsenting to my deed
a vow is medicine finally a use for
pain
hawthorn berries to help my love’s
heart. 
134.
We’re still in opera that city where
the music counts
intervals between the notes men do
things to each other
a ring of rising thirds a single leap
a ninth
girls turn into goddesses gods sweat
to keep up with them
a handful of sunlight a head full of
wheat
sleepy grain sleepy sunshine morning
comes in vain
in sleep the words are hard to read
even a woman on the sofa what does
she mean by sitting there
or the one on the floor reading the
paper she is the news
touch the over-energy, energumen
each one has
flows into other making both strong
it is the breath of the daemon who
lives in our lives.

HEART THREAD 131 & 132

131.
Feelings are not to be reported
feelings are to be felt
so it’s always winter again the
mosaic of discourse starts up
where all the pieces fall asunder
there is no answer
water table what the land will hold
turned away from the messaging sun
the drenched moon
la Dranse flows north from glaciers
fed
rain ratcheted can’t tell who really
means
all poems say the same thing don’t
you know that yet?
no time to mention a melon split open
in the sun
what goes on in that dim town across
the dream
roses on her thighs are blessed with
thorns
I want to know who rings that bell
and why.
132.
When is a wound like a wonder
miracle macula the kindly leper
healed
by light alone inserted in the
vascular
fleshlight cures all so little left
fish swimming at the arteries salmon
men by contradiction
reverse time’s mindless flow
the opera is always just beginning
apotheosis of Ariadne creates heaven
to be in
a place peopled only by who had been
humans
now lift their syntax through the
stars
radio blaring on the empty fishing boat
what music do they hear who empty out
the sea?

HEART THREAD 129 & 130

129.
To see anything at all is just
remembering it
but the word you hear in silence is
actually now
or five minutes of the future pulling
you forward
a friend tugging you into the park
children sailing boats in the
fountain woman eating corn
myriads mix the chessboard rises to
the sky a rook topples
the tower falls towards you from an
empty sky
it lands slowly and builds up around
you
you have been spoken now
vague animals roam around the base in
the dark
but at the top you still can see the
sun
setting behind mountains that weren’t
there when you first looked.
130.
If the son knew the father as the
mother knows the son
the gate would open and the world
would enter in
Blake didn’t say this but he meant it
children had no place in his world or
mine except for me
eternal selfish child of self all
brooding wanting
a child cancels the father and
abandons the mother
that is how generations erase their
past and are erased in turn
I am not prepared to say more than
the words in your mouth
warm sun on chill morning no further
than that
purple vestments today’s mass
mourning for last night
nothing special about her just that
she was
washed by the wind instructed by her
hair.  

HEART THREAD 127 & 128

127.
Light runs the machine
before sunrise no cloud no wind
and now the sky is full of tossing
no method only mind
consciousness is a habit of matter
it thinks where it can
that’s where we come in
a freight train right through
Callicoon
a little boy anxious about the sky
pine trees taller than anywhere
I came to life where Oedipus left it
every grove is sacred every girl a
god. 
128.
Not so limber when the light decides
you know all this is signs
a word on a truck goes by
you know I’m in love with you don’t
you
the hedge said it topiary of words
lost in the maze of a single straight
line
does this street go to heaven
the word has no meaning in a world of
streets
streetcorner the statues of Venus
till the emperor wakes
between bed and bathroom the shadow
of a dream
you don’t know her name but that’s
all you don’t know
old locomotive movie about lovers a
lifeboat.