What wilt thou do when faith is fled
                And hope is dead
            And love's wing broken?
Wilt thou lie in the grave of the past and sleep,
                While the mourners weep
            And sad rites are spoken?

Nay, nay—fare forth, though the night be black
                And the storm's red rack
            In the sky is burning;
For the sun shines somewhere, from gloom released,
                And the heart of the east
            For the day is yearning.

When I left, I left my childhood in the drawer
and on the kitchen table. I left my toy horse
in its plastic bag. 
I left without looking at the clock. 
I forget whether it was noon or evening. 

Our horse spent the night alone, 
no water, no grains for dinner. 
It must have thought we’d left to cook a meal 
for late guests or to make a cake
for my sister’s tenth birthday. 

I walked with my sister, down our road with no end. 
We sang a birthday song. 
The warplanes echoed across the heavens. 
My tired parents walked behind, 
my father clutching to his chest
the keys to our house and to the stable. 

We arrived at a rescue station. 
News of the airstrikes roared on the radio. 
I hated death, but I hated life, too, 
when we had to walk to our drawn-out death, 
reciting our never-ending ode. 

To all of you
      My little stone
      Sinks quickly
      Into the bosom of this deep, dark pool
      Of oblivion . . .
      I have troubled its breast but little
      Yet those far shores
      That knew me not
      Will feel the fleeting, furtive kiss
      Of my time concentric ripples . . .

To Lewellyn
      You have borne full well
      The burden of my friendship—
      I have drunk deep
      At your crystal pool,
      And in return
      I have polluted its waters
      With the bile of my hatred.
      I have flooded your soul
      With tortuous thoughts,
      I have played Iscariot
      To your Pythias . . .

To Mother
      I came
      In the blinding sweep
      Of ecstatic pain,
      I go
      In the throbbing pulse
      Of aching space—
      In the eons between
      I piled upon you
      Pain on pain
      Ache on ache
      And yet as I go
      I shall know
      That you will grieve
      And want me back . . .

To B——
      You have freed me—
      In opening wide the doors
      Of flesh
      You have freed me
      Of the binding leash.
      I have climbed the heights
      Of white disaster
      My body screaming
      In the silver crash of passion . . .
      Before you gave yourself
      To him
      I had chained myself
      For you.
      But when at last
      You lowered your proud flag
      In surrender complete
      You gave me too, as hostage—
      And I have wept my joy
      At the dawn-tipped shrine
      Of many breasts.

To Jean
      When you poured your love
      Like molten flame
      Into the throbbing mold
      Of her pulsing veins
      Leaving her blood a river of fire
      And her arteries channels of light,
      I hated you . . .
      Hated with the primal hate
      That has its wells
      In the flesh of me
      And the flesh of you
      And the flesh of her
      I hated you—
      Hated with envy
      Your mastery of her being . . .
      With one fleshy gesture
      You pricked the iridescent bubble
      Of my dreams
      And so to make
      Your conquest more sweet
      I tell you now
      That I hated you.

To Catalina
      Love thy piano, Oh girl,
      It will give you back
      Note for note
      The harmonies of your soul.
      It will sing back to you
      The high songs of your heart.
      It will give
      As well as take . . .

To Mariette
      I sought consolation
      In the sorrow of your eyes.
      You sought reguerdon
      In the crying of my heart . . .
      We found that shattered dreamers
      Can be bitter hosts . . .

To ——
      You call it
      Death of the Spirit
      And I call it Life . . .
      The vigor of vibration,
      The muffled knocks,
      the silver sheen of passion's flood,
      The ecstasy of pain . . .
      You call it
      Death of the Spirit
      And I call it Life.

To Telie
      You have made my voice
      A rippling laugh
      But my heart
      A crying thing . . .
      ’Tis better thus:
      A fleeting kiss
      And then,
      The dark . . .

To “Chick”
      Oh Achilles of the moleskins
      And the gridiron
      Do not wonder
      Nor doubt that this is I
      That lies so calmly here—
      This is the same exultant beast
      That so joyously
      Ran the ball with you
      In those far flung days of abandon.
      You remember how recklessly
      We revelled in the heat and the dust
      And the swirl of conflict?
      You remember they called us
      The Terrible Two?
      And you remember
      After we had battered our heads
      And our bodies
      Against the stonewall of their defense,—
      You remember the signal I would call
      And how you would look at me
      In faith and admiration
      And say “Let's go,” . . .
      How the lines would clash
      And strain,
      And how I would slip through
      Fighting and squirming
      Over the line
      To victory.
      You remember, Chick? . . .
      When you gaze at me here
      Let that same light
      Of faith and admiration
      Shine in your eyes
      For I have battered the stark stonewall
      Before me . . .
      I have kept faith with you
      And now
      I have called my signal,
      Found my opening
      And slipped through
      Fighting and squirming
      Over the line
      To victory . . .

To Wanda
      To you, so far away
      So cold and aloof,
      To you, who knew me so well,
      This is my last Grand Gesture
      This is my last Great Effect
      And as I go winging
      Through the black doors of eternity
      Is that thin sound I hear
      Your applause? . . .

The night was made for rest and sleep, 
For winds that softly sigh; 
It was not made for grief and tears; 
So then why do I cry? 

The wind that blows through leafy trees
Is soft and warm and sweet; 
For me the night is a gracious cloak 
To hide my soul’s defeat. 

Just one dark hour of shaken depths, 
Of bitter black despair—
Another day will find me brave,
And not afraid to dare. 

^{A Poem Of Faith}

I think that though the clouds be dark,
That though the waves dash o'er the bark.
Yet after while the light will come,
And in calm waters safe at home
The bark will anchor.
Weep not, my sad-eyed, gray-robed maid.
Because your fairest blossoms fade,
That sorrow still o'erruns your cup,
And even though you root them up,
            The weeds grow ranker.

For after while your tears shall cease,
And sorrow shall give way to peace;
The flowers shall bloom, the weeds shall die,
And in that faith seen, by and by
Thy woes shall perish.
Smile at old Fortune's adverse tide,
Smile when the scoffers sneer and chide.
Oh, not for you the gems that pale,
And not for you the flowers that fail;
            Let this thought cherish:

That after while the clouds will part,
And then with joy the waiting heart
Shall feel the light come stealing in,
That drives away the cloud of sin
And breaks its power.
And you shall burst your chrysalis,
And wing away to realms of bliss,
Untrammelled, pure, divinely free,
Above all earth's anxiety
            From that same hour.

^{J’ai rapporté du désespoir un panier si petit mon amour, qu’on a pu le tresser en osier.
I brought from despair a basket so small, my love, that it might have been woven of willow.
                                                                                       —Rene Char}

to speak is not yet to have spoken.

the not-yet of a white realm of nothing left

neither for itself nor another

a no-longer already there, along with the arrival of what has been 

light and the reverse of light

terror as walking blind along the breaking sea, body in whom I lived

the not-yet of death darkening what it briefly illuminates

an unknown place as between languages

back and forth, breath to breath as a calm

in the surround rises, fireflies in lindens, an ache of pine

you have yourself within you

yourself, you have her, and there is nothing

that cannot be seen

open then to the coming of what comes

Do you still believe in borders now?  

Birds soar over your maps and walls, and always have.     

You might have watched how the smoke from your own fires  

travelled on wind you couldn’t see    

                                            wafting over the valley

and up and over the hills and over the next valley and the next hill.

Did you not hear the animals howl and sing?   

Or hear the silence of the animals no longer singing?   

Now you know what it is to be afraid.  

You think this is a dream?  It is not

a dream.    You think this is a theoretical question?  

What do you love more than what you imagine is your singular life?   

The water grows clearer.  The swans settle and float there.    

Are you willing to take your place in the forest again?    to become loam and bark

to be a leaf falling. from a great height.  to be the worm who eats the leaf

and the bird who eats the worm?    Look at the sky: are you

willing to be the sky again?  

                                              You think this lesson is 

too hard for you    You want the time-out to end.  You want

to go to the movies as before, to sit and eat with your friends.

It can end now, but not in the way you imagine    You know

the mind that has been talking to you for so long—the mind that

can explain everything?    Don’t listen.

 

You were once a citizen of a country called I Don’t Know.

Remember the burning boat that brought you there?   Climb in.

Where else do mice scurry along the bones of a couch,

among coiled springs and dog food stash, where

a body is wrapped up in quilts because October

is a cold house, no hot water but a dog’s water dish

frozen in the dark living room where a body is wrapped

         up in quilts,

no food except a couple cans of commod beef stew,

a grocery store across the street, lingering

in the parking lot, two payphones and no one to call

because October is an empty house, a month

abandoned of light bills and mother

a quilt of frayed threads and father pulling at the threads

of another weeklong binge.

Where else can a body have a husk and still feel

                                                 like the rib cage of a mouse

brittle and starved

but stashing

buttons or dog food or threads from a quilt,

                                                 a skeleton

among skeletons

             of things we don’t miss.

Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless shore. 

   The cutting blast, the hurl of biting brine, 

May freeze, and still, and bind the waves at war, 

   Ere you will ever know, O! Heart of mine, 

That I have sought, reflected in the blue 

    Of these sea depths, some shadow of your eyes; 

Have hoped the laughing waves would sing of you, 

   But this is all my starving sight descries—

I.

Far out at sea a sail 

    Bends to the freshening breeze, 

Yields to the rising gale, 

    That sweeps the seas; 

II. 

Yields, as a bird wind-tossed, 

    To saltish waves that fling 

Their spray, whose rime and frost

    Like crystals cling

III. 

To canvas, mast and spar, 

   Till, gleaming like a gem, 

She sinks beyond the far

   Horizon’s hem. 

IV. 

Lost to my longing sight, 

    And nothing left to me

Save an oncoming night,—

    An empty sea.

Moonlight pours down
without mercy, no matter
how many have perished
beneath the trees.

The river rolls on.

There will always be
silence, no matter
how long someone
has wept against
the side of a house,
bare forearms pressed
to the shingles.

Everything ends.
Even pain, even sorrow.

The swans drift on.

Reeds bear the weight
of their feathery heads.
Pebbles grow smaller,
smoother beneath night’s
rough currents. We walk

long distances, carting
our bags, our packages.
Burdens or gifts.

We know the land
is disappearing beneath
the sea, islands swallowed
like prehistoric fish.

We know we are doomed,
done for, damned, and still
the light reaches us, falls
on our shoulders even now,

even here where the moon is
hidden from us, even though
the stars are so far away.

I told a million lies now it’s time to tell a single truth
Sometimes I cry
It’s hard dealing with my pride
Not knowing whether to fight or flee
Sometimes I cry
Hard to maintain this image of a tough guy
When deep down inside I am terrified
If I ever told you I wasn’t scared I lied
Struggling to make it back
To society and my family
I cry
I cry for my son who I barely see
Due to these mountains
And me and his mom’s beef
I cry for my siblings who never knew their older brother
Because he stayed in the streets
I cry for my grandma who is now deceased
I cry for my life, half of which they took for me
I cry for my anger and rage
The only emotions I can show in this place
I cry for how we treat each other inside these walls
I cry for the lack of unity we have most of all
When will it end I want to know
Till then all I can do is let these tears flow

You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,
And no man claimed the conquest of your land.
But gropers both through fields of thought confined
We stumble and we do not understand.
You only saw your future bigly planned,
And we, the tapering paths of our own mind,
And in each other’s dearest ways we stand,
And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind. 

When it is peace, then we may view again
With new-won eyes each other’s truer form
And wonder. Grown more loving-king and warm
We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
When it is peace. But until peace, the storm
The darkness and the thunder and the rain.

Let the sea beat its thin torn hands
In anguish against the shore,
Let it moan
Between headland and cliff;
Let the sea shriek out its agony
Across waste sands and marshes,
And clutch great ships,
Tearing them plate from steel plate
In reckless anger;
Let it break the white bulwarks
Of harbour and city;
Let it sob and scream and laugh
In a sharp fury,
With white salt tears
Wet on its writhen face;
Ah! let the sea still be mad
And crash in madness among the shaking rocks—
For the sea is the cry of our sorrow.

“Lights out" along the land,
“Lights out” upon the sea.
The night must put her hiding hand
O’er peaceful towns where children sleep,
And peaceful ships that darkly creep
Across the waves, as if they were not free.

The dragons of the air,
The hell-hounds of the deep,
Lurking and prowling everywhere,
Go forth to seek their helpless prey,
Not knowing whom they maim or slay—
Mad harvesters, who care not what they reap.

Out with the tranquil lights,
Out with the lights that burn
For love and law and human rights!
Set back the clock a thousand years:
All they have gained now disappears,
And the dark ages suddenly return.

Kaiser who loosed wild death,
And terror in the night—
God grant you draw no quiet breath,
Until the madness you began 
Is ended, and long-suffering man,
Set free from was lords, cries, “Let there be Light.”

It is best now
to give suffering its way with me,
like a sea with a stone,
and let the spray which is others' joy—
the spray dancing on those
I bumped against
while bounding and tumbling and rolling here—
give me content.

Suffering
carves smoothness
which cannot cut any longer—
should I roll again. 

A yellow leaf from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me.
Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me
Stretched in the brindled darkness
Of the sick-room, rigid with will
To die: and the quick leaf tore me
Back to this rainy swill
Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

Now light turns the room a deep orange at dusk and you

think you are floating, but in truth you are falling, and the fall

is so slow, yet precise, like climbing a ladder of straw. Now

leaning forward, you open your hands that keep opening. Is

this what Yes feels like? Making a shore where no water was?

^{translated from the Spanish by Mary Crow}

And don’t you feel also, perhaps, a stormy sorrow on the skin of time,
like a scar that opens again
there where the sky was uprooted?
And don’t you feel sometimes how that night gathers its tatters into an ominous bird,
that there’s a beating of wings against the roof
like a clash among immense spring leaves struggling
or of hands clapping to summon you to death?
And don’t you feel afterwards someone exiled is crying,
that there’s an ember of a fallen angel on the threshold,
brought suddenly like a beggar by an alien gust of wind?
And don’t you feel, like me, that a house rolling toward the abyss
runs over you with a crash of crockery shattered
       by lightning,
with two empty shells embracing each other for an endless journey,
with a screech of axles suddenly fractured like love’s broken promises?
And don’t you feel then your bed sinking like the nave of a cathedral crushed by the fall of heaven,
and that a thick, heavy water runs over your face till the final judgment?

Again it’s the slime.
Again your heart thrown into the depth of the pool,
prisoner once more among the waves closing a dream.

Lie down as I do in this miserable eternity of one day.
It’s useless to howl.
From these waters the beasts of oblivion don’t drink.

Llega en cada tormenta

¿Y no sientes acaso tú también un dolor tormentoso sobre la piel del tiempo,
como de cicatriz que vuelve a abrirse allí
donde fue descuajado de raíz el cielo?
¿Y no sientes a veces que aquella noche junta sus jirones en un ave agorera,
que hay un batir de alas contra el techo,
como un entrechocar de inmensas hojas de primavera en duelo
o de palmas que llaman a morir?
¿Y no sientes después que el expulsado llora,
que es un rescoldo de ángel caído en el umbral,
aventado de pronto igual que la mendiga por una ráfaga extranjera?
¿Y no sientes conmigo que pasa sobre ti
una casa que rueda hacia el abismo con un chocar de loza trizada por el rayo,
con dos trajes vacíos que se abrazan para un viaje sin fin,
con un chirriar de ejes que se quiebran de pronto como las rotas frases del amor?
¿Y no sientes entonces que tu lecho se hunde como la nave de una catedral arrastrada por la caída de los cielos,
y que un agua viscosa corre sobre tu cara hasta el juicio final?

Es otra vez el légamo.
De nuevo el corazón arrojado en el fondo del estanque,
prisionero de nuevo entra las ondas con que se cierra su sueño.

Tiéndete como yo en esta miserable eternidad de un día.
Es inútil aullar.
De estas aguas no beben las bestias del olvido.

its ruthless syntax, and the ease with which it interjects
itself into our days. I thought how best to explain this—

this dark winter, but that wasn’t it, or beds unshared
but that isn’t exactly it either, until I remembered

Saturday afternoons spent with my father in the garage
and those broken cars one after another. At the time,

that’s what we could afford. Broken things. Saturdays,
there was always a game on the radio and I’d stand

beside him or lie under the engine, oil cascading from
the oilpan. Daddy would curse wildly, sometimes

about the car, sometimes about the game. Sometimes
Mama called for one or the other of us from upstairs and

I’d trudge up to see what she wanted with a sigh.
We sighed so much then. Funny. If you asked us

if we were happy, we’d say: Families. They are happy.
There’s a solace in broke-down cars: you can find what

is broken. You can make it whole again. I’d pop the hood,
peer into the sooty inside and Daddy would pass me parts

for my small hands to tender to each need. Daddy
scrambled into the front seat, turned a key and a roar

came out that would be cause for rejoicing. But time came,
(this is the inevitable part) when he would draw the white

handkerchief to his head in surrender. I would always ask
if we could've tried harder. Baby girl, he’d say. She’s gone.

Admit it—
you wanted the end

with a serpentine
greed. How to negotiate

that strangling
mist, the fibrous

whisper?

To cease to exist
and to die

are two different things entirely.

But you knew this,
didn't you?

Some days you knelt on coins
in those yellow hours.

You lit a flame

to your shadow
and ate

scorpions with your naked fingers.

So touched by the sadness of hair
in a dirty sink.

The malevolent smell
of soap.

When instead of swallowing a fistful
of white pills,

you decided to shower,

the palm trees
nodded in agreement,

a choir
of crickets singing

behind your swollen eyes.

The masked bird
turned to you

with a shred of paper hanging
from its beak.

At dusk,
hair wet and fragrant,

you cupped a goat's face

and kissed
his trembling horns.

The ghost?

It fell prostrate,
passed through you

like a swift
and generous storm.

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. The desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

We do not suffer much now; it is over.
We wanted to forget; we have forgotten.
We tore our hearts with healing; they are healed.

You have gained peace, you who were once a lover,
The garlands of your sacrifice are rotten;
Your garden has become a clover field.

Only at times, in intervals of quiet,
When music gravely claims the twilight air,
And melts the sinews of some bitter thong,

Your heart feels something of the stress and riot
That flung it between rapture and despair;
Something awakes that has been sleeping long.

You say: I am so strong now, I could chance
To play with these old things a while, and taste
The occult savour that I knew so well,

Yet, what was this great love,—a strange romance,
A fierce three autumns, passionately chaste,—
Youth’s customary path, no miracle.

Even that frosty thought, so fugitive,
Shows what is lost beyond all hope to gain,
And just how far from love we two have gone.

We did forget, we healed ourselves, we live,
But we have lost essential joy and pain:
We lived; we died; and having died, live on.

He’s cleaning out the trunk in which his clothes 

are stored for summer, bathing suits, surf shorts, 

swimming goggles, neatly folded beach shirts,

all laundered, put in plastic, and then closed

away—and finds a black and silky bra, 

some short shorts with a tiny waist, a sleek 

black top, all empty of her, as is he, 

although she ghosts through him all night and gnaws

his dreams. They were so close he thought he wore 

her like a skin, as she wore him till they 

wore out. When doubt crawled in, she stored away 

her love and latched the trunk and left. It seems

he catches just a whiff of her somewhere

in the blouse. No, it’s clean. Too clean, too clean.

 

Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool,
Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool.

Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb
Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim.

Like soft rain-christened sunshine, as fragile as rare gold lace,
Your breath, sweet-scented and warm, has kindled my tranquil face.

But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties
Now, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies.

And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word,
To stir my fluent blood as never your presence stirred.

^{for J.}

Afloat out on the starlit water
where ordinary life’s a dream
as to two figures in a frame,
I touch the moon, and watch it shatter.

But when I touch you, you remain,
my body weightless in your arms
while quietly your hand conforms
to the hard griefs along my spine.

Beneath the sky’s unseeing eyes
I let my head rest in your palm,
making a little world of calm
for luck and longing to revise 

scenes too early to recall—
the frightened mouth, the soured breast,
abandoned den or splintered nest
resurfaced in the Lovers’ Pool.

Where our bodies intersect
like children whose fingers cross
to make a promise promise less
and guard this moment from the next.

And now before you disappear,
I’ve brought us once again to soak
in sulfur, salt, and arsenic,
so that in here, we’re always there.