Coming at an end, the lovers
Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where
Did it end? There is no telling. No love is
Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves’ boundaries
From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye
Like death.
Coming at an end. Rather, I would say, like a length
Of coiled rope
Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths
Its endings.
But, you will say, we loved
And some parts of us loved
And the rest of us will remain
Two persons. Yes,
Poetry ends like a rope.

The words are a beautiful music.
The words bounce like in water.

Water music,
loud in the clearing

off the boats,
birds, leaves.

They look for a place
to sit and eat—

no meaning,
no point.

A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.

That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of daybreak I hear,
A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and violins, all these I fill myself with,
I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I begin to know them.

Jupiter Hesser, Piano and Violin, ca. 1852

A painted shingle on the door. Within,
the larger of his ecstasy-machines
grins in its sleep, cradling the violin.
On the table: papers, his goose quill pen.

The slattern still abed. An open book
next to his side. The heirloom cuckoo clock
counts sieben. In the garden, long awake,
Jupiter stops weeding, and rests his back.

Da di di DUM! The tune which only he can hear
organizes the surf between his ears
in a sensible torrent. Notes cohere
like little dancing round black dots and spheres.

Kohlrabi, gooseberries, red cabbage, leeks …
The Chermany he left behind can lick
his hinter. Better to live among blacks
than to sell your soul to Schweinhund Catholics.

But he cannot understand the bigoted:
Some blacks are musicalisch talented.
Great music may grow in a woolly head.
If only they’d learn how to make black bread!

A citizen now, self-named Jupiter Zeuss
Thor Hesser, he calls all gods to serve his muse.
Who knows what symphonies we may produce,
which student take from us somethink of use?

German immigrant Jupiter Zeuss Thor Hesser, a gardener and composer, owned seven lots, which he called “Jupiterville,” in Seneca Village. He composed and published several popular songs.

A song in honour of St. Cecilia’s day, 1697.

‘Twas at the royal feast for Persia won   
        By Philip’s warlike son—   
    Aloft in awful state   
    The godlike hero sate   
        On his imperial throne; 
  His valiant peers were placed around,   
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound   
  (So should desert in arms be crown’d);   
The lovely Thais by his side   
Sate like a blooming Eastern bride 
In flower of youth and beauty’s pride:—   
   Happy, happy, happy pair!   
        None but the brave   
        None but the brave   
  None but the brave deserves the fair! 
   
    Timotheus placed on high   
        Amid the tuneful quire   
With flying fingers touch’d the lyre:   
    The trembling notes ascend the sky   
        And heavenly joys inspire. 
The song began from Jove   
Who left his blissful seats above   
Such is the power of mighty love!   
    A dragon’s fiery form belied the god;   
    Sublime on radiant spires he rode 
    When he to fair Olympia prest,   
    And while he sought her snowy breast,   
  Then round her slender waist he curl’d,   
And stamp’d an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.   
  The listening crowd admire the lofty sound; 
  A present deity! they shout around:   
  A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound:   
        With ravish’d ears   
        The monarch hears,   
        Assumes the god; 
        Affects to nod,  
    And seems to shake the spheres.   
   
The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,   
    Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:   
        The jolly god in triumph comes; 
        Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!   
            Flush’d with a purple grace   
            He shows his honest face:   
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes!   
    Bacchus, ever fair and young, 
        Drinking joys did first ordain;   
    Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure,   
    Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:   
        Rich the treasure,   
        Sweet the pleasure, 
    Sweet is pleasure after pain.   
   
    Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;   
        Fought all his battles o’er again,   
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain!   
    The master saw the madness rise, 
    His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;   
    And while he Heaven and Earth defied   
    Changed his hand and check’d his pride.   
        He chose a mournful Muse   
        Soft pity to infuse: 
    He sung Darius great and good,   
        By too severe a fate   
    Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,   
        Fallen from his high estate.   
    And weltering in his blood; 
    Deserted at his utmost need   
    By those his former bounty fed;   
    On the bare earth exposed he lies   
    With not a friend to close his eyes.   
With downcast looks the joyless victor sate, 
        Revolving in his alter’d soul   
            The various turns of chance below;   
        And now and then a sigh he stole,   
            And tears began to flow.   
   
    The mighty master smiled to see  
    That love was in the next degree;   
    ‘Twas but a kindred sound to move,   
    For pity melts the mind to love.   
        Softly sweet, in Lydian measures   
        Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures. 
    War, he sung, is toil and trouble,   
    Honour but an empty bubble;   
        Never ending, still beginning,   
    Fighting still, and still destroying;   
        If the world be worth thy winning, 
    Think, O think, it worth enjoying:   
        Lovely Thais sits beside thee,   
    Take the good the gods provide thee!   
The many rend the skies with loud applause;   
So Love was crown’d, but Music won the cause.  
    The prince, unable to conceal his pain,   
            Gazed on the fair   
            Who caused his care,   
    And sigh’d and look’d, sigh'd and look’d,   
    Sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d again:   
  At length with love and wine at once opprest   
  The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.   
   
Now strike the golden lyre again:   
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain!   
Break his bands of sleep asunder 
And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.   
        Hark, hark! the horrid sound   
            Has raised up his head:   
            As awaked from the dead   
        And amazed he stares around. 
    Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,   
        See the Furies arise!   
        See the snakes that they rear   
        How they hiss in their hair,   
    And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! 
        Behold a ghastly band,   
        Each a torch in his hand!   
  Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain   
            And unburied remain   
            Inglorious on the plain: 
            Give the vengeance due   
            To the valiant crew!   
  Behold how they toss their torches on high,   
      How they point to the Persian abodes   
  And glittering temples of their hostile gods. 
  The princes applaud with a furious joy:   
  And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;   
        Thais led the way   
        To light him to his prey,   
  And like another Helen, fired another Troy! 
   
            Thus, long ago,   
    Ere heaving bellows learn’d to blow,   
        While organs yet were mute,   
        Timotheus, to his breathing flute   
            And sounding lyre 
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.   
    At last divine Cecilia came.   
    Inventress of the vocal frame;   
The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store   
    Enlarged the former narrow bounds, 
    And added length to solemn sounds,   
With Nature’s mother-wit, and arts unknown before.   
    Let old Timotheus yield the prize,   
        Or both divide the crown;   
    He raised a mortal to the skies, 
        She drew an angel down!

Dear, did we meet in some dim yesterday?
    I half remember how the birds were mute
    Among green leaves and tulip-tinted fruit,
And on the grass, beside a stream, we lay
In early twilight; faintly, far away,
    Came lovely sounds adrift from silver lute,
    With answered echoes of an airy flute,
While Twilight waited tiptoe, fain to stay.

Her violet eyes were sweet with mystery.
    You looked in mine, the music rose and fell
Like little, lisping laughter of the sea;
        Our souls were barks, wind-wafted from the shore—
     Gold cup, a rose, a ruby, who can tell?
         Soft—music ceases—I recall no more.
 

If I wasn't such a deadbeat, I'd learn Greek.
    I wouldn't write sonnets; I'd write epics
and odes. I'd love a man who was
    acceptable and conformed to every code.
I'd put together my desk and write my epic or ode
    at sunset over my suburb. How I would love my shrubs!
But all I do is listen to country (and the occasional Joni)
    and smoke. Judge me judge me
judge me. Oh I've been through the shallows.
    I shallow. I hope. I hole. I know
I wrote you the most brutal love poem that knows.

Gloomy and bare the organ-loft,
Bent-backed and blind the organist.
From rafters looming shadowy,
From the pipes’ tuneful company,
Drifted together drowsily,
Innumerable, formless, dim,
The ghosts of long-dead melodies,
Of anthems, stately, thunderous,
Of Kyries shrill and tremulous:
In melancholy drowsy-sweet
They huddled there in harmony.
Like bats at noontide rafter-hung.

You grow up hearing two languages. Neither fits your fits
Your mother informs you “moon” means “window to another world.”

You begin to hear words mourn the sounds buried inside their mouths
A row of yellow windows and a painting of them

Your mother informs you “moon” means “window to another world.”
You decide it is better to step back and sit in the shadows

A row of yellow windows and a painting of them
Someone said you can see a blue pagoda or a red rocket ship

You decide it is better to step back and sit in the shadows
Is it because you saw a black asteroid fly past your window

Someone said you can see a blue pagoda or a red rocket ship
I tried to follow in your footsteps, but they turned to water

Is it because I saw a black asteroid fly past my window
The air hums—a circus performer riding a bicycle towards the ceiling

I tried to follow in your footsteps, but they turned to water
The town has started sinking back into its commercial

The air hums—a circus performer riding a bicycle towards the ceiling
You grow up hearing two languages. Neither fits your fits

The town has started sinking back into its commercial
You begin to hear words mourn the sounds buried inside their mouths
 

Sharp as an arrow Orpheus
Points his music downward.
Hell is there
At the bottom of the seacliff.
Heal
Nothing by this music.
Eurydice
Is a frigate bird or a rock or some seaweed.
Hail nothing
The infernal
Is a slippering wetness out at the horizon.
Hell is this:
The lack of anything but the eternal to look at
The expansiveness of salt
The lack of any bed but one’s
Music to sleep in.