Desire [even in the time of the tyrant]

then i am sprawling in through me
then i am fastened into myself
into my points and my pulls
then i am spinning in rev, in stare
it is a stun and a shunning of this life
it is a slutting of this life
it is a spawning of this moment
i am a promise awake with knowing
a pull in a thread
sprawling
a sputtering
a stuttering
a slant
a song
a rising
a falling
a driving to the edge & waiting
a waiting for the edge to fall
an edging closer to the fall
a wanting the fall to crush
and now i am in the fall
i am the fall
i thank the desire
i kiss the desire
i hold the desire
i thumb the desire
i bite the desire
i thrust the desire
i grind the desire
i rub the desire
it is without oars
& sitting
lulling
circling in a pond
it is the wind tracing
the feet of the kicking beneath that surface
the earth beneath sucking & sucking
that filling of the mouth
that shattering of time
i am bringing myself to a standstill
i am allowing the water to spread
i am afloat in the desire
the desire of me
of you
i am pinning myself to the surface
waiting for the moon to fall
longing for the pierce of stars
tonguing the night
brushing away the darkness
til there is light
around
beneath
inside
til my eyes
open
to the white
of the sky

Come, Pioneer

/1/

What forest is there to run to,
other than the one within another’s heart?

What appears to be deeply rooted 
is half dead         drowning
            and sucking at the sun.

/2/

I hate to say this 
but what is stable
can be easily disrupted,
and what is easily disrupted
can cloud       even        the clearest of days.

This is what I have come to know 
after being turned on,
             turned over,
                             and turned round.
/3/

I want to spark the heat of this body with the heart, with 
the heart of the heart, with the heart of the heart of this 
body, with the whole body of the heart, and then I want to 
slow it down and tinker with it. I want to slow it all the way 
downdowndown to a gentle timber,
                                                                            or fall.

/4/

To pioneer is to take part in the beginnings of something.

Come, Pioneer.
I am tired of shepherding this heart. Help 
me to believe. Come.
I am near willing to give it up and over. Come,
before I bury it all under.

Related Poems

Sonku [what i want]

what i want
from you can
you give? what
i give to
you do you
want? hey? hey?

The Nude

translated by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi

My eye laps at you in lamplight
Like a white hot tongue. Longing

Draws back, then rises, tidal.

The curtain of my hair
Announces my breasts. Your lips:

A languid breeze. Like a miracle
We feast and feast and nothing is spent.

Let flesh attend to flesh, sex to sex.
O, dexterous gold watch of the universe

On which one minute can straddle
A hundred years.