For Gerrit

What is poetry? an image

      in the mirror;

reflection from a broadside

    pinned to the wall,

    penned by a friend,

        from where old feelings

        old meanings arise;

relief from pain; the diligence of work.



Mysterious words upon a page in adolescence;

listening to poets read. What is poetry?

       Breath, competence, success

or simply Eros.

                          “Four sides to every thing.”



The increase in electricity causes lights to flow.

   Is it only light, or heat,

      words ordered in a row.

Men or gods. I’ll never know

      or try to know

          more than the doing,

                  the flowing

rain upon the roof. That one hears,

                  and reveres

inside, away from the cold

    within the house

       where the heat



reminds one of what it is to be like

               out in the cold

   rushing over the field

     mad,



Intelligence or emotion?     language.

             Dancing dandelions
   and buttercups in the grass
remind me of other summer
flowers, simple blossoms

roses and tiger lilies by the wall
         milk pod, sumac branches
lilacs across the road, daisies, blueberries
snaps, cut violets

             three years ago still grow in my mind
as peonies or planted geraniums, bachelor buttons
in downy fields filled with clover
lover, come again and again up fern

path upheld as memory’s perennial
against stern hard-faced officers of imprisonment
and cold regulation more painful than lover’s arms
or flowers charming but not more lasting.

No, the wild tulip shall outlast the prison wall
no matter what grows within.

                   THE POOL PLAYERS. 
                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

tonight I'm cleaning baby portobellos
for you, my young activist

wiping the dirty tops with a damp cloth
as carefully as I used to rinse raspberries

for you to adorn your fingertips
before eating each blood-red prize

these days you rarely look me in the eye
& your long shagged hair hides your smile

I don’t expect you to remember or
understand the many ways I’ve kept you

alive or the life my love for you
has made me live

I skim sadness like fat off the surface
of cooling soup. Don't care about
metaphor but wish it would arrive
me. There’s a cool current of air
this hot day I want to ride.
I have no lover, not even my love.
I have no other, not even I.

I wonder what I’d do
               with eight arms, two eyes
                              & too many ways to give
                                             myself away

                                             see, I only have one heart
                              & I know loving a woman can make you crawl
               out from under yourself, or forget
the kingdom that is your body

& what would you say, octopus?
               that you live knowing nobody
                              can touch you more
                                             than you do already

                                             that you can’t punch anything underwater
                              so you might as well drape yourself
                                             around it, bring it right up to your mouth
                              let each suction cup kiss what it finds

                                             that having this many hands
                              means to hold everything
               at once & nothing
to hold you back

that when you split
               you turn your blood
                              blue & pour
                                             out more ocean

                                             that you know heartbreak so well
                              you remove all your bones
so nothing can kill you.