As I walked out one evening,
   Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
   Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
   I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
   ‘Love has no ending.

‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
   Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
   And the salmon sing in the street,

‘I’ll love you till the ocean
   Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
   Like geese about the sky.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,
   For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
   And the first love of the world.’

But all the clocks in the city
   Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
   You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
   Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
   And coughs when you would kiss.

‘In headaches and in worry
   Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
   To-morrow or to-day.

‘Into many a green valley
   Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
   And the diver’s brilliant bow.

‘O plunge your hands in water,
   Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
   And wonder what you’ve missed.

‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
   The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
   A lane to the land of the dead.

‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
   And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
   And Jill goes down on her back.

‘O look, look in the mirror,
   O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
   Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window
   As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
   With your crooked heart.’

It was late, late in the evening,
   The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
   And the deep river ran on.

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Desire is never one way. Black

          snakes crawl through your throat. The divine longs

for human proximity to divinity. The divine longs

            for touch. You have not wanted

a body. And you have

            wanted. A careless

tongue can make chatter

but unrequited love

          can make an avalanche.

Your teeth chatter and you know

            somewhere a funeral parade is moving, one ant

after another marching. Your snake shed its skins as the curve of a               pilgrimage

          awaiting dawn. Heaven is too much a metaphor

to be of use to a lover weeping for

a false love. Every shaman needs a healer

and every God a devotee they can admire.

When God comes back from the pilgrimage, you are more

          plump. Everyone can see your wisdoms

sprouting. This time — dangerous. Even women

          will cast stones. Watch the people’s hands: they carry

shards of their half-spoken dreams. But you have

                          invented an embrace. In the first worship,

you make the one devoted to devotion devoted to you.

You bring the mountain

into your lips. Without

prayer, your mouth blooms.

The dining hall for instance: open roof beams,

open screens, and yard upon yard 

of clean swept hardwood flooring, it

might almost be a family camp.

And likewise in the sleeping room: expanse

of window, paneled wall, and the 

warmth implied by sunwash, only softened

here by half-drawn shades. You know 

the kind?—dark canvas on a roller, in my 

memory the canvas is always green. What I 

couldn’t have guessed, except for the caption:

the logic behind the double row of  well-

made beds. I’d like just once to have seen

his face, the keeper of order who

thought of it first: a prostitute on either side

of each of those women demanding

the vote. And “Negro,” to make the point perfectly

clear: You thought 

your manners and your decent shoes would

keep you safe? He couldn’t have known

how much we’d take the lesson to heart. 

At the workhouse in Virginia they’d started

the feedings with rubber tubes. Not here.

Or not that we’ve been told. The men

all dying in trenches in France. A

single system, just as we’ve been

learning for these hundred years. Empty

of people, the space looks almost benign.

My   Father’s   Frontal    Lobe—died

unpeacefully of a stroke on June 24,

2009 at Scripps  Memorial Hospital in

San Diego, California.  Born January 20,

1940, the frontal lobe enjoyed a good

life.  The frontal  lobe  loved being  the

boss.  It tried to talk again but someone

put a bag over it.  When the frontal

lobe died, it sucked in its lips like a

window pulled shut.  At the funeral for

his words, my father wouldn’t stop

talking and his love passed through me,

fell onto the ground that wasn’t there. 

I could hear someone stomping their

feet.  The body is as confusing as

language—was his frontal lobe having a

tantrum or dancing?  When I took my

father’s phone away, his words died in

the plastic coffin.  At the funeral for his

words, we argued about my

miscarriage. It’s not really a baby, he

said.  I ran out of words, stomped out

to shake the dead baby awake.  I

thought of the tech who put the wand

down, quietly left the room when she

couldn’t find the heartbeat.  I

understood then that darkness is falling

without an end.  That darkness is not

the absorption of color but the

absorption of language.

              to the memory of Denis Johnson

The stranger bites into an orange

and places the rind between us

on the park bench.

It becomes a small raft of fire.

I came here to admire

the iron-lit indifference

of the geese on the pond.

The summers here

are a circuit in parallel

with everything I cannot say,

wrote the inventor

before he was hanged

from the bridge

this park is named after.

His entire life devoted

to capturing inextinguishable light

in a teardrop of enamel.

He was hanged for touching

the forehead of another man

in the wrong century.

The only thing invented

by the man I lost yesterday

was his last step into a final

set of parenthesis.

I came here to watch the geese

and think of him.

The stranger and I

share the orange rind

as an ashtray.

He lights my cigarette

and the shadows of our hands

touch on the ground.

His left leg is amputated

below the knee

and the bell tower rings

above the town.

I tell him my name

and he says nothing.

With the charred end of a stick

something shaped like a child

on the other side of the pond

draws a door on a concrete wall

and I wonder where the dead

wait in line to be born.

I awake to you.  A burning building.  

The alarm is my own.  Internal alarm, clock alarm, 

then coming through your very walls.  The alarm 

is of you.  I call first with my mouth.  Then with my phone.

No one.  Then maybe someone.  Then yes, a fire fighter, or two, is coming.  

Outside, the children gather and gawk.  Cover their ears from the blare.

They are clothed in their footed pajamas.  We are all awake now. Even you,

the burning building.  

I’m leaving, I say.  I look them each in the eyes, the mouths, the chests.  

I look at their footed feet.

I’m leaving you burning.   The children can walk.  The children can follow.

The building burns now behind me.  You burn, 

behind me.  The alarm

Screams.  No. No.

Not screaming. 

There is a field between us.  

Now you are calling. 

And now beseeching.

Behind me the children are a trail of children.  Some following.  Some clinging.

And now you, my home, my building, burn and burn.

There is a mountain between us.

And now you are ringing.  

And now you are singing.

I look back.  Back to you, burning building.

You are a glowing dancer, you are a façade on sparkling display.

Now a child.  Or two.  Or three.  Pilgrim children. Between me 

And you.