ROBERT
KELLY

HEART THREAD Parts Twenty-Nine and Thirty

Nov 3, 2014 | Uncategorized

29.
                                                                              J.W.v.G.
Queen of hell before whom only
shadows bow                                 down there is the secret name of here
a daughter crying for her unborn son
what shall I do with all my friends
fit all those women in one little car
all their Prada purses and
portmanteaux
and drive here over the waves to
underhill
where once I thought I stood alone
the boy in the cellar with his head
on fire
eyes lost in a book
sun setting over Brownsville
and the Sukkos booth humming with
laughter. 
 
30.
La Juive by Halévy because every Jewess is lost
lost in manworld lost in Goyistan
give me the truth in your soft lips
give me the wisdom of your cunning
wit
none of this religion matters
it is the will to be and be believed
a god is random a faith is definite
hold me to what’s important
cleavage between the dream and the
dock
oh God the sheep will never come back
the land itself is lost at sea
all that’s left is sing the temple
up. 

HEART THREAD Parts Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight

Nov 2, 2014 | Uncategorized

27.
Born in a beast’s cratch dead uplift
in agony
and in between gave meaning to the
world
why does the ocean always feel like
Christmas
why can’t I forget the things I never
knew
for this is personal this is Welsh
all DNA
this is a matter of sunlight on one
side of each wave
curls of light advancing to the land
because everybody else got born before
but there’s a messenger in each one
too
guiding the absorptions of the flesh
meaning the mind
dragging the stupid consciousness
along. 
 
28.
Oh God the you in me goes out to you
your way in space
you is a verb at least
in every me a you is cached
time is the solution
the me dissolves and leaves the you
active in the interior of earth
the boundless inwards of each living agent
what they used to call the self
before they knew
time is acid space is alkaline we
live between
salt flats of Utah high plains of
Tibet
understand the balance and fall free
god is a neuter in every sex.  

HEART THREAD Parts Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six

Oct 31, 2014 | Uncategorized

25.
Open the carpenter take out the door
electric circuits switch in cut-open
thorax
the whole world an autopsy of God you
say
but mind is the only kind
girls are prettiest when they stand
on bridges
men so empty on the way to work
soon forget how I began
her green Celt eyes do work for everything
that lives
motherhood is made of gift
no man has a father a father passes
I was getting ready to revise the
planet
carried some old books up the stairs
to bed.
 
26.
Now to come at last to answer me
a bookcase on the moon he found
deer browsing in the surf
what is there for a Christian in all
these trees
civilized by language the Irish slept
is there no question ever for all my
answers
I have tried so hard to say them
clear
clouds white as nuns pass without remark
every percept demands memorial
an alternate universe made of simple
sentences
suppose there were a gender to each thing
rufous towhee in the bayberries loud.

 

HEART THREAD Parts Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four

Oct 31, 2014 | Uncategorized

23.
                                                                         in mem. M.R.K.
Who did you want to be mother
I saw the queenly countenance old
photo
those eyes knew me from another place
before I was
I knew I never understood and do not
know
how a star person consents to earth
beast life
all the doors of fairyland open
outward
to open my life a mouth among stars
to give a voice to what is never
silent
to answer the tower when it falls
to kiss the acrobat in mid-flight
touch each tessera in the dome of
light
this machine will be my faithful
son. 
 
24.
For we are various and beautiful and
dumb
as an outfielder the clouds abaft the
east
a language of dwarves a language of
giants
I want to know what this very light
is called
this Sunday light island light land
light
broken china on the kitchen floor a
song
at savage theaters bareback
tragedians
give them words and leave the deeds
to them
there is no action like a heartbeat
wet tea leaves in a sieve the
resinous mind
be wishful what you care for the sea
endures what we say of it all talk no
listening.

 

HEART THREAD Parts Twenty-One and Twenty-Two

Oct 30, 2014 | Uncategorized

21.
Don’t live forever they don’t count
the stars
it’s a kind of broken pavement
music gushes out of crevices each gap
a sore
earth is the ventriloquist who tunes
our lips
the cries of children turn out to be
grownups turn into conversation
Whitman wrote nothing but the cries
of children
our only real poet avoided writing
poems
I call it semaphore because he  bears a sign
I can’t read it can you? A sign of
itself
a revelation of revelation a storm in
the mirror
no air left to write the answer
down. 
 
22.
A raft is remembrance
should you wake beside direction
and where we went an apple gate
dark with understanding and a touch
so later off  the esplanade one Danish ship
seen in a sluice of fog a word
misused
loved for the juice of it the slip of
mouth
the president waved from his open car
I stood on the corner with John
Kennedy
one rainy afternoon when Carthage
fell
forgive the immigrants the land cried
out for
the white man failed the lesson of
the earth. 

 

HEART THREAD Parts Nineteen and Twenty

Oct 29, 2014 | Uncategorized

19.
Of course it went the other way,
Chartres,
a carriage down Warren Street, rich
people everywhere
and in a chophouse decent grub — he
said
but that was Thames where Andrewes
walked along
thinking out loud, how beautiful the
churches are
despite what they say, the genetic
imperfections of belief,
rosemary flowers for the Queen of
Hungary
sad liquid gold pours from the carnal
machinery
they never understand the ecstasy of
rain
the purest gift is from the
unimagined
Montaigne explained his dislike of
the continuous
walk down the street with me holding
the mean-eyed cat. 
 
20.
Leave that rainbow gouged into the
sky
let the clouds come down and talk
like Christian men
have your nephelometer ready your
cheesecloth your checkbook
earwax to polish close-grained briar
blond pilasters at the gate of ivory
between armoire and fish tank why the
long hall
but  other mother came out of the hill again
reaching towards the moon she turned
the trains off
businessmen wandered through the
prairie
we passed a wolf on our sidewalk
creature of gold-eyed dignity
but she was sleeping with the mirror’s
mother. 

HEART THREAD Parts Seventeen and Eighteen

Oct 28, 2014 | Uncategorized

17.
Amaze me then you paladins
toaster oven of the alchemists
a microwave is just a little moon
rising and falling in the Brookline
kitchens
where anxious matrons test their
kids’ IQ
just write down what they tell you
and all will be well
Mercutio falls the stage fills up
with eels
close the book and answer the phone
false no friend would ever call so
early
I have no phone I have just my voice
aged animal growling at the moon
start howling or the door will close.
 
18. 
Because a stone on the road is a fish
that stopped swimming
pick it up and pocket it you’ll bring
the ocean home
children are waiting for Christmas
every day
double-boiler full of eggs the
Virgin’s Bath
have you ever heard the cry of milk
the sob of bread baking in the oven
machinery is your friend machines are
gods
because the world is little you are
big
there are no strangers on this kind
of island
the wind reads the papers for you
the hawk dries his feathers in your
special tree
for lo the storm is ended the
boy-girl wind went north.