These Poems

- 1936-2002
These poems
they are things that I do
in the dark
reaching for you
whoever you are
and
are you ready?
 
These words
they are stones in the water
running away
 
These skeletal lines
they are desperate arms for my longing and love.
 
I am a stranger
learning to worship the strangers
around me
 
whoever you are
whoever I may become.
 

6.3.96-6.4.96

Dear Adrienne
 
But love was never more
than what Elijah
listened to
                        That small
                        that still
a summoning forever
immanent
regardless of its wavelength
pitted against tyrannies
gigantic
in a kitchen
or some other battlefield
                       computer rituals of quit
                       or cancel
                       or the friend who lies
It is often—like the calling 
of the psychopath
“a clean cut kid”—
that we mistake
the madness of the trickster
demon
for our own
or 
minimize the meaning
of these words on open
opening 
space
 
inside this cartoon
context
where it’s normal
to approach a wall
for money
 
this then
is the lens 
to magnify
ignite
redeem
and willingly defy
the maggots eager
for that moment when
our spirits die
and dying
deify the fearsome
meretricious
killer agencies
that jeopardize
the birdsong of our days
 
Oh, Adrienne!
This is that love
                                  It’s here
                                  Between us
                                                          growing
 

Related Poems

How Do I Know When a Poem Is Finished?

When you quietly close
the door to a room
the room is not finished.

It is resting. Temporarily.
Glad to be without you
for a while.

Now it has time to gather
its balls of gray dust,
to pitch them from corner to corner.

Now it seeps back into itself,
unruffled and proud.
Outlines grow firmer.

When you return,
you might move the stack of books,
freshen the water for the roses.

I think you could keep doing this
forever. But the blue chair looks best
with the red pillow. So you might as well

leave it that way.