all I crave is light & yet
                                winter
sky is busy imitating milk
frozen in an upturned bowl

to be a person is a sounding
through,
            host of breath
rehoused & rib scribbled inside

you there above
                   the page
casting your gaze over us
wanting us to be your mouth

& what would you say
                     with my body
bowed to bear the weight
of a line so taut it sings

          Poem for Aretha Franklin
 
 
when she opens her mouth
our world swells like dawn on the pond
when the sun licks the water & the jay garbles,
the whole quiet thing coming into tune,
the gnats, frogs, the dandelion pollen, the
pebbles & leaves & the whole world of us
sitting at the throat of the jay
dancing in the throat of the jay
all of us on the lip of the jay
singing doowop, doowop, do.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
    Had rolled along
    The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
    A voice, a chime,
    A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
    And with the sound
    The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
    And made forlorn
    The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
    "For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

A silver Lucifer
serves
cocaine in cornucopia

To some somnambulists
of adolescent thighs
draped
in satirical draperies

Peris in livery
prepare
Lethe
for posthumous parvenues

Delirious Avenues
lit
with the chandelier souls
of infusoria
from Pharoah's tombstones

lead
to mercurial doomsdays
Odious oasis
in furrowed phosphorous---

the eye-white sky-light
white-light district
of lunar lusts

---Stellectric signs
"Wing shows on Starway"
"Zodiac carrousel"

Cyclones
of ecstatic dust
and ashes whirl
crusaders
from hallucinatory citadels
of shattered glass
into evacuate craters

A flock of dreams 
browse on Necropolis

From the shores
of oval oceans
in the oxidized Orient

Onyx-eyed Odalisques
and ornithologists
observe
the flight
of Eros obsolete

And "Immortality"
mildews...
in the museums of the moon

"Nocturnal cyclops"
"Crystal concubine"
-------
Pocked with personification
the fossil virgin of the skies
waxes and wanes----

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Google says God
then says holes
long words
heights

being alone
fear as fear of dark figures
dark spaces
dark forests
dark hallways
dark deep water

nightmares
fear of night time
night sky
night fear of not night

and dark is
weak against
dark is not evil
dark iron sword
dark inner thighs
dark is not black
dark is useless
fear of darkness

dark isn’t a word
dark isn’t the same
does not exist

         *

Tonight I sat alone on a wooden bench,
thinking small facts. I had been there since
the sun first stressed to pink strips across the
sky. I believe we suffer between the void and
compulsion. I believe we tribal extraordinary
lives. The sun turned to vibrations and faster
ancestors. The mind was clearing.

         *

This summer I alongside I
saw desire for its lessening face. I could give over to it,
let that vision be large as creation.

You’ve just died in my arms,

But suddenly it seems we’re eternal



Cali boys, Afro-haired cohorts in crime,

Racing through intricate lattices



Of quince and lemon tree shadows,

Corridors of Queen Anne’s lace—



On the skip-church Sunday you dubbed me

“Sir Serious” instead of Cyrus—



Then, swift as a deer’s leap, we’re devotees

Of goatees and showy Guatemalan shirts,



Intoxicated lovers for a month

On the northwest coast of Spain—



Praising the irrepressible sounds

Of a crusty Galician bagpiper



On La Coruña’s gripping finisterre,

Then gossiping and climbing



(Like the giddy Argonauts we were)

The lofty, ancient Roman lighthouse,



All the way—Keep on truckin’, we sang—

To the top of the Tower of Hercules—  

                               for Lucie Brock-Broido

 

            I was there at the edge of Never,

of Once Been, bearing the night’s hide

 

            stretched across the night sky,

awake with myself disappointing myself,

 

            armed, legged & torsoed in the bed,

my head occupied by enemy forces,

 

            mind not lost entire, but wandering

off the marked path ill-advisedly. This March

 

            Lucie upped and died, and the funny show

of her smoky-throated world began to fade. 

 

            I didn’t know how much of me was made

by her, but now I know that this spooky art

 

            in which we staple a thing

to our best sketch of a thing was done

 

            under her direction, and here I am

at 4 AM, scratching a green pen over a notebook

 

             bound in red leather in October.

It’s too warm for a fire. She’d hate that.

 

             And the cats appear here only as apparitions

I glimpse sleeping in a chair, then

 

             Wohin bist du entschwunden? I wise up,

know their likenesses are only inked

 

             on my shoulder’s skin, their chipped ash poured

in twin cinerary jars downstairs. Gone

 

             is gone, said the goose to the shrunken boy

in the mean-spirited Swedish children’s book

 

             I love. I shouldn’t be writing this

at this age or any other. She mothered

 

             a part of me that needed that, lit

a spirit-lantern to spin shapes inside

 

             my obituary head, even though—

I’m nearly certain now—she’s dead.

I will start again tomorrow, after waking under
the fingernails of Scheherazade. Small things
will become large, and large things will become
themselves. It is an old story and familiar, despite
how much I hate being divided. Here I am, despite
how much I should not be. At this moment, I am
reaching far into a page that is oozing like honey-

comb. If you will pardon my hyperbole, there are
leaves of something that matters, I do not know
what, blowing in every direction. At the foretold
moment, our other earth opens a secret hand. If
there is a purpose, we will know it soon enough,
although not knowing feels satisfactory and good:
better than good, I am tempted to say to the bees.

I pull my heart out with teeth and claws, 
           leave it glimmering on the glass table: 

Begone! Palo santo, sagebrush, sweetgrass 
           ash in the shadows. Taste cornpollen, 

bitter medicine—the stomach-swirling 
           of forgetting. Cast it out! Memories skein 

beneath the silver surface—butterfly fish 
           that bite. Dash the mirror. The table, 

let a form fall through it. Eat 
           the shards. Fill up the walnut-sized gap 

in your chest where your heart once was. Yes, 
           you—staring into aquamarine and amethyst 

and praying for a miracle. Most terrible and hated 
           and beloved part of you: sever 

the gold chain like a string 
           of spit. Plant a new orchid, 

untouched by everything except the god 
           who is the sun, his body 

rolling in eternity. A newer moon will mesh 
           the blood inside of you.