The Ressurection (Mahler 2nd Symphony; The Resurrection)

1.

Sing now a solemn song,
for our hero is dead;
who flailed his fists
against the sky;
now a funeral march.
There is no sweetness in the pain,
no, not yet;
but there shall be tears flowing,
and bitterness.
No, not yet the jubilant frenzy
of flutes, the
exultant horns of triumph!
Pause, all ye mourners,
beside the flower-laden box.
What were our murmurings now
over his pale face,
the somber beauty of his shuttered eyes?

Sing now a song of Death.
He is held captive by the Slayer;
he is whiter than a snowflake;
his heart is cold.
What road shall his feet trod now,
what dust shall he stir,
of seeking, of suffering ?
And what are these wreaths
That we lay about him?
O that in life
he may have been so regarded,
so garlanded!
Now his mouth can revolt in no manner,
not even to fend the worms.
Tell me, people, what is the
value of remembered
eloquence ?
No, not yet the jocund voices;
not yet the whirl of praise.


2.

When we were young we ran in fields,
where morning glories blazed,
whose light chased night,
and gave us the world.
But flowers fade, like the brilliance
of our lost days;
Everything withers,
petals, hearts.
Now let us sit by no sorrowful hearth,
but on some hill
overlooking the sky and the grass,
and watch the children play.

Someday we will learn again to play,
It will come back to us,
somehow, like spring,
ever returning.
O rivulets of summer!
O wildness untamed!
Upon their gossamer wings
bees dream of nectar.
Down in the village
they are dressed for a festival,
our rosy young.
Come, they bid us join them.


3.

The dance of life!
a young girl moves with the
delicacy of lace, and
that boy's face
is rife with the wildest wonder.
I nearly drown in the flight
of lithe and lissome limbs!
O my lady, you are old,
and I am old;
and our hero is underground
along with hopes and fears
we sent to the darkness with him.
Sadly, we realize
our affinity with
the same awful shade.

Let us flee from here,
for it is far too bright
and I'll soon be deaf in this clack
of ring and broach and bracelet!
They may as well be devils
bowing the crazed fiddles;
and I am so disheartened I would fain
be as deaf and dumb as the moon.


4.

The rose in its perfection
astounds us to question,
can we attain what is ethereal.
When will our paths fill
with the effugence of angels
Who will lead us toward...


5.

...Heaven.

To the blare of trumpets we rose up
and pricked our ears as fanfares sounded
in the distance. Nightingales gave
the final earthly call.
Is this the attainment?
The mountains were shaken with thunder,
and rattled the valleys;
the earth shook under the heels of legions.
We stared upwards in astonishment
as the even tore assunder.
Arranged in rank and file we trampled
the grass, but the flowers were immortal
and sprang back up, tall and terrific,
with faces like suns.
We all wept openly into our hands,
each tear like gold.
This is the attainment!
The consummation of suffering and desire
in one moment, in one single, magnificent climax.

At last the voice of the Titan cried,
Ich bin von Gott, und will wieder zu Gott
We heard, and gave praise accordingly.

*


Walk beside me, my love;
between us pure spirit, the sanctity
of Resurrection.

7.17.1987edited10.30.2012

The Candle

The night comes down, and distant engines whine
upon the motorways. Yeats, ninety-nine years
have separated us. Before my birth
a woman out of Spiritus Mundi rose,
walked, and still walks, beside me. Holiday
makers are conveyed across my ears,
and I may rest assured (your song proved this)
that she's not one of them, unless, perhaps,
some young road-weary scribbler in her cell
shuttles among the mean and medium;
Ill-fashioned for this age, dishevelled, vague -

a candle swings and burns my vision out,
save for a timid rustling in the breast.

I cannot name her, for who names a ghost
that kicks the dust upon a stair, that moves
a cup, that rattles in a sugar dish?
She floats around my modest room, a gust
on the casement windows, or the ticking sounds
the furnace makes, will send her flying out.
A man clings desperately to what he loves;
you know that; and that I'm a man who knows
true desperation, blackest futility,
for what I love's imponderable to my touch.

A candle swings, and slide on cords of light
the twin doves of the image of my love.



mid to late 80s

Cabin Fever

I heard the wind upon the house all night
Railing as if in anger while I lay
In bed awaiting patiently for light.
I could not sleep, for what the wind would say;
I could not sleep, fearing the wind would do
My quaking walls some harm and lay me bare
To elements that might have run me through
Should I be sleeping and be unaware
That I could well be in some jeopardy.
I kept my eyes wide open in the dark
As if expecting a catastrophe.
I struck a match, and in that timid spark
The shadow of my hand across the floor
Reached, and seemed willing to unlock the door.


1989

Who?

is that stranger floating
quietly in the dark? noting
his flickering candle I
deem him firefly.


1987

To Apollo

I cannot bear the darkness, nor the light.
I say that you will be the end of me.
You whip me all the day and all the night.

You are a tyrant. I will quit you quite.
Because, my lord, you steal my liberty,
I cannot bear the darkness, nor the light.

Why, liege, do you require betimes, for spite,
an ode to nothing? I am never free:
You whip me all the day and all the night.

And I have thought of running. And I might.
What of the sun, and moon, and poetry?
I cannot bear the darkness, nor the light.

Yes, I will turn my tail. It is not right
that you should hound me so unstintingly.
You whip me all the day and all the night.

I'll hide under a stone. I will not write.
Let others gather of the laurel tree.
I cannot bear the darkness, nor the light.
You whip me all the day and all the night.


1987 (One of my first vils, if not the first.)

Dawn

Trees shed the
robes of night

while with
miraculous

silence
birds begin

one by one to
settle in their

branches
among the dewy leaves



1987 (Imitation of WC Williams)

Hippo Refined

                    He shall be seen 
performing on a harp of gold.


He shall be seen performing on a harp of gold?
Who shall be seen? And where shall he be seen?
In Heaven, iterates the noble Shade:
In Heaven. Heaven, the foster child of hope
Which springs eternal like returning spring.
In Heaven, draped in sweetly scented flowers:
Roses, perhaps, or hyacinths; perhaps
Chrysanthemums, less hymned in verse; perhaps
No flowers at all, for what need then for flowers?
Only the Luminescence, the too-bright
Effulgent Being, sceptered, and a crown
Of clouds and bright blue angels with light white
Wings. Only that One: power and prime desire
Of Souls, the Thing that strives for things not quite
Possessed: imponderable beauties and what Truths
The Sacred Urn elucidated not.
The Sacred Urn elucidated naught
Save but to strive, to better That behold,
Which is possessed of Beauty, which is Truth.
In Heaven. There we must presume is That,
And What created That, sublime, enthroned:
Triumphal pipes and raptured violins
Surrounding and resounding in the aether.
The breath of the Creator, breath of GOD.
He shall be seen performing on a harp of gold:
A wallower, a prince, his poison found and purged
And him left washed and slender, slenderer
Than GOD, at any rate, and prettier
Than, no, not GOD, not certainly; but seeing
As he had been born fat, a pretty thing,
More palatable, easier to swallow.



1999 (imitation of Eliot,Pound,Stevens, a big mess)

Know Where You're Going

Knock it unconscious first, then tip it over,
preferably on its side: then cut it open.
Its belly is soft and vulnerable where, behind
tough skin, things undigested churn; things
still digesting; a stew of image and sound.

Use a good blade, one whose fine edge you've stayed
awake nights sharpening with oil and stone.
Recollections in idleness? That's a start.

Bury the knife's point deep in the animal,
then slice deliberately. Now, with both hands,
stuff in the things you've learned in life. Impregnate
the guts with ideas, so that, some hundred years on,
eyes that light here might see what you were up to.

Surely, a hollow brute is a joy when, saddled,
you're off at a gallop, heading in no direction,
happily wandering nowhere in particular,
but that can't last. Give the reins a pull
and think for a moment. Over the far brown hills
a red sun sleepily descends. Consider:
a journey presupposes a destination.



1999 (imitating David Waggoner: badly; sent it to him; rejected, you can see why.)

Fragment from The Passing of Flatus, a lately discovered play by William Shakespeare

Queen:
My Lord, 'tis spoken of thee here in court
That thou hast shown a grievous lack of mercy
In that thou wilt not pardon noble Flatus.
For my part, I were liefer wed to one
That suffered not the general censure, but
Maintained a goodly popularity.
Lord, do reverse thy judgment! Spare good Flatus!
What? Is the letting go of sundry stinks,
Those bellowing or whisp'ring belly- blows,
Unpardonable? Flatus so reprobate
As to deserve no opportunity
To seek redemption? Hast my Lord no heart?
Speak, King, my husband, wherefore art thou mute?
Wilt speak? What sayst thou? Nay, wilt thou not speak?
My lord...(She elboweth King in ribcage)

King:
Lay off thy elbow, woman! Fie!
I feel a jumbling in my lauded midden
That tokens many an immanent relief.
Fool! Fool! Bring us our regal chamberpot!
Where is that jangling jack? (He looketh about) Ah, there he is!
I see his motley rags behind the arras!
(Furious, but soft) He play'th upon that little bell again!
(Furiouser, and loudly) I say, If we do slip in that again
That he pulls from his lineaments yet again
And fall upon our tender parts again,
He's headless, and we pay another fool!
Certes, there ne'er hath been a famine of fools
From which to choose! (Loudlier) Fool! Fool!


Fool:
(Much motion behind the arras) I hear thee, Liege!
I'm coming! Aye! I'm coming! Aye, my Lord,
I've come, and now am coming. Here I come!
(Fool slinketh from out the arras) What is thy pleasure, Lord? I wait upon't.


King:
My pleasure, sirrah, is that thou goest fetch
Thy King our chamberpot, and pray, make haste!
Post-haste, sirrah, for an thou art not quick
Then bringeth not the useless chamberpot
But, Fool, a mop instead!


Fool:
As here's a fool,
A rascal, and a knave, I am most willing,
And will put fire upon my tinkling heels
And flick a wake of flame behind me! (Fool scampereth off)

Queen:
Lord,
an't please thee, I must take my leave, anon. (Queen buggereth off)


1998 (King:Ian McKellen;Queen:Liv Tyler;Fool:Robin Williams)

The Wonder Garden

The child I was seeks the wonder garden:
little in Levis he wanders, wondering,
among trees that tower over,
Ked-shod heels padding the moist ground.

A narrowness of vision, simplicity
never to be recaptured, a mourning for that bride:
my innocence, that cleaved to my side,
a heart safe from experience.

Now the screws of time tighten, stretched
on the rack of conscience.
I do not mellow into middle age
but struggle for green-limbed days

of fingers smeared with huckleberries,
of knees stained deep with soil.
The insignificant deeds of youth
were replaced by manhood's insignificance:

Ennui of day to day labor,
dependent on scant recompense,
requiring sustenance for flesh.
(O visions of Elysium!)

The time for dreaming, of
leaning in a bower and spinning
devout lines to nothing
is gone, gone lang syne.

Arcadia is laid waste, ravaged,
uncomely and unkempt;
a shadow in some corner of my mind
where passion's spent.


late 80s or early 90s

Shostakovich 14th Symphony

In this work we know that Death is Russian.
Low tones, as if from a dank charnel rise
moldered and black, and terrifyingly burst:
the noxious cackle of a witch, a vivid
basso cry and shriek as of ghoul or banshee,
one apart or two together: a dissonant song
or withering death-rattle. O come from dark
keeps, you haunters of subterranean depths
who have put cold coin in ancient Charon's hand,
come, and dance macabre in chancel vaults;
spin, scream and tussle like grim celebrants.

Then timorous, desolate violin and cello
remark a purgatorial ambivalence: shapes
cower and huddle in gauze-webbed corners,
frightened by echoes of their spent fury;
words, dashed against stone like fists of mail,
fall like rotten plums or leperous growths
to a dead stillness. O unhallowed calm,
do you foretoken hell, or peace of Paradise?
A strident Soviet motif ceases with a question.


mid 90s (Lovecraftian purple)

Wallace

I

Out of a fecund furrow young Wallace crept
and bided his time: from that generative hollow
slowly he fared. To clang and clamor of gongs?
Were zoos loud with the cries of brutes? Did amens
of organs hullabaloo in candled aisles
of churches? trinkets tinkle in Katmandu
to token that most grand arrival? Perhaps
some insignificant stars went nova, bursts
that flung effulgence over measureless voids?
More likely plums in unattended gardens
fell earthward unregarded, roses reddened in
silence as they always had, and things occurred
as they had always occurred when through the labial
curtain Wallace wetly swam and blindly cried.

And he was prince of patience, and practical
beyond the comprehension of his kind
who lick the boots of time and fervidly kiss
the arse of death: four decades and three tenths
of a further he passed in preparation, provisioned
by cool uncowardly conscience, in ambition
sane and certain, temperate. Now how few
who thrive on flittings of the tongue, who wonder
at baubles of sound that furnish silence, may claim
as sober a sense of endeavor? As calm a dream?


II

No sloth was he, nor sluggard: clock hands ticked
for order; thus his heart sent civil blood
to civil veins. Verse is no accidental
aggregation of sign and syllable
sent from some mythic muse, nor incidental
aside breathed past the back of the hand
to elite neurotics in the know. Who works
in poetry is no effusive oracle
nor histrionic medium who hums.

Who makes a chair or table is at task
no less a saint or savior: in a sense
the world is better for its sawing men.
Lawyers
have shown palaver lords it over sense
by demonstrating how it is that wrong
is right and right is wrong; and to assist,
the poets propagate mendacities.

Not Wallace, the man of business. Poet too,
he spoke of Sundays simplified by sense,
of perfect pleasures in the present tense:
What lies beyond the clutter of light and cloud
is merely stuffless aether; your suffering
will glut no angel to satiety;
Nor will your pious hunger or languor keep
Infatuate eyes of cosmic gods upon you;
nor will self-immolation, self-subjugation,
all means of the surrender of the self,
the mingling of the soul in the Greater All,
secure your place in the massive hollows of Heaven.

Rise and unwind the webs of shiftlessness,
the dross of dreams that, like uncomely dust,
has settled on you. Rather, be patinated
by sheen of satisfaction, being source
and center of all that moves you, (nor determined
by any invisible force) emboldened by volition.



late 90's (inspired by Ayn Rand; imitating Stevens. I now have a different worldview and do not endorse the one I had here.)

Ode in a Mirror

A girl unleaving in a glass
her flimsy garments light and frail
is like some paradisal tree
whose fruited branches, lithe and pale,

are stirred to dance in balmy swirls
that on its ornamental leaves
rain havoc, though in ignorance;
or, like a garden flower that grieves

not to unloose, after a time,
her delicate petals to the earth,
affirmed that she is beautiful.
To liberate the soul, to birth

a slow unsheathing of the flesh,
is reason coupled with her grace.
O sweet enchantress, who must spin
a dance from an uncertain pace

like her, the fabled damsel fair
constrained to spin gold out of straw,
weave into permanence your art
and tune by chance, in orchestra,

the instruments that music make
(albeit not of wood nor brass):
of beauty's charm and passion's ache,
O girl unleaving in a glass.



mid 1980's (imitating Stevens and the Fugitives)

Conservative Prayer

Where movement is reflex
and time unconcerned,
there are no ruins.

Then turn over the glass,
let the sand run into space:
a trickle, like water through

dry fingers pressed as lips
on a faint kiss. Steady, like strings,
let ring an idle chord:

A pillow to bear the soothed head
toward no waking;
dawn's sanguine horror to shake

no dust from the lash.
If love lasts for a moment,
be as ice on my cheek;

burn in a steadfast redness,
and make it ache
like a kick, or a slash.


early 90s

Aubade (With Eliot & H. Crane)

We will have an open book. The long hands
of new September sunlight, golden fingers
stretching across the desert, desolate
acres, multitudes of empty lifeless miles
unhusbanded, untended, trespassed only
as a means of passage. Eliot maybe, or
Hart Crane, voyager who leapt into the maw
of the ancient salt-beast, fodder for the old
sea-serpent wreathed in sea-weed, he that reareth
an horrid head from the roiling wave whose
eyes are mad with moons and the paeans of gulls;
or back to Eliot whose works are towers leaning
colossal among hovels of modern verse.

An open book, the hot white porcelain
male kiss of coffee on the bitten mouth:
the gnawed labial flesh in tensions that mounted
and turned more strands to the silver of surf: the
gray of twilight round the whorl of the
ear, before the fall of the sun behind
the far away scrim of horizon, before
the silk of night is pulled grandmotherly
over the dozing shoulders of the world.
We want, are wont, to dip our ever-young eyes
In the warm and abluent waters of poetry
before we yawn, before we quietly close
the lid of our book, before we curl
inside the innocuous chrysalis of sleep.


early 90s

Concerto & Quintet

I.

Love must be like Chopin
played gently over the rain
that drizzles in the afternoon
beyond the soft
security of beauty, carefully
possessed, ubiquitous
in the heart, the warm room.

The tears of the weather
streaking the glass, when it's
all you can do to hear it
above the waterfall-like
cascade of the piano
filtering in the house, the
shell of the ear, eased and kept
safe in what is wondered on, and known.

The trees bearing up under
gray cloud cover, swaying
like drunken men in league
against the elements,
exterior to the mild music,
the peace and health
that permeates like the heat
of a flame behind a hearth's grate.


II.

Peace must be like Schumann's
sanity preserved by Time's
mercy, out of his madness,
the quintet's calm vocabulary
murmured, plush as the carpet
over which it whispering moves,
like a sated cat on a cushion
curling to sleep in a heart, hearing and holding,

protecting the momentary jewel
of every visible note, each crystal
bead of the chain that showers
soothingly as idle hours,
as the infant October cries
in the turning wood, and sighs
against the stalwart home
as futile as a second's hopeful silence.


1986 (probably imitating Delmore Schwartz)

Smith & Jones

Mrs Smith and Mrs Jones
compare insurance policies.
They say beware the niggers, them are coming,
and the jews.

Mrs Smith and Mrs Jones
Button shirts and hide their bones,
Pretend to be in love with God and Christ
(but not the jews).

Mrs Smith and Mrs Jones
converse above white cups of tea
in kitchens cleanly kept and neatly swept
by hired brooms.

Mrs Smith and Mrs Jones
smile and smirk their dental work.
They dip in swimming pools, and when they cry
they lie.


1999

In a Clothing Boutique

Local girls in ceaseless trains
touch adeptly, half aware of
lithe perfections taken for granted.
Arms swing naked; hands like wands
handle cloth thereby enchanted.

Garments yet unblessed by flesh
hang disconsolately unbodied:
virgin-wear not yet perspired in.
Fair flowers all, these shapeless things
A girl might choose to be desired in.


1999

Stiletto

Here come those long-legged
lean drawn amazons,
illumined by flashbulbs,
expert at promenading,
walking on stilts, well
balanced in stilettos,
each step a masterpiece,
groomed to be ogled, all
underfed & humorless,
empty by design.

Who ever gave you
the keys to this kingdom?
you who are foreign
& so much a stranger?
lord of your harem,
by aristocrats lauded,
well thought of by nobility
who pay you such homage.
How do you maintain this
sweet grand illusion?

w/ smokescreens & mirrors
you parade your phantoms:
the mirrors are the eyes of
the vain & the soulless;
the smoke is the breath of
the Zero, enraptured.
Grasshopper gauze wings,
velvet slipper stocking,
cellophane mannequins,
urchins & nipperkins.

Black coffee suntan,
mocha cream alabaster,
sway swing sidle turn,
flash pop lipstick. Praise
limbs in transparent
garbage spin stride/pose.
Stop: march.

Who appointed you
trendsetter sultan?
Last down the runway
drowned in plaudettes,
enwreathed in flowers
of shameless adoration?

Queer. Dictator.
Madbird. Dowager.
Queen of the old-moneyed,
the fawning folk.
Circus clowns muster,
stand sweet bronze
soldiers w/ fat mouths,
Pout. Kiss. Pivot. Suck.

Cinnamon fire blonde
bitch bitter lemon smile,
hitch-hiker thighbait,
walk slow summer simmer.
Skirt puppet turn stand,
skinnywiggle moptop.
Bushmuff triangle.
Why are you stopping?
Why would I eat here?


1998 (for song lyrics)

Omens

The dead roses in the garden;
the scum on the still pool;
the silence of garbage pails
standing like soldiers
awaiting orders to move on;
the silence of the dog house;
a general sense of absence:
absence of life and motion,
of blood in living veins,

absence of vitality
at the end of an age
steeped in corruption.
Not only in high places
but in the lower classes
this deathly quietude
fell abruptly.

The post man the ice cream truck
never came;
the lawns went unattended;
the schools closed up;
and the churches,
even the churches were vacant
and Our Lean Savior On His Tree Wept
And His Mother swept
Her stony garments and sighed;

and even the weathervanes
were statuesque
for scarcity of wind;
and not one mourned
in the stupefying nothingness that abounded.



early 90s (imitating T.S. Eliot)

Schubert 9th Symphony

I love this common pomp and circumstance:
carriages dropping white gloved ladies off
at halls, their entire beings rouged and powdered;
a driver cocking his head discreetly to catch
a glimpse of stocking; coaches and six, like chariots
weighted with gods, fragrant with claret wine,
pass by and slow. Such is this work,
rife with restraint, romantic to its core.

It calls up to my mind vague images
of childhood, or rather, some childhood
I may have had in some soul's life:
tarps of awnings over sidewalks, fronting
elegant restaurants; the clack of horses' hooves
against the square, tile-like stones of streets;
my hand in the hand of a tall lady, her skirt
full of that broad, fashionable stiffness,
starched white ruffled sleeves faintly scented,
the tiny jingle of necklace and bracelet. Now
we're punting down the wide river, flanked
on either side by weeping willow trees;
on one hand the rumble of an allegro comes,
basso profundo, from the symphony hall.


early 90s

Blue Shepherd

Nymphs unleave by calm water,
shed silken stuff, seamless
soft colored raiment they discard
like autumn trees
their delicate issue

until the earth is carpeted in piles
that breaths of Zephyrus make animate
with frilly last leaps
before they, lifeless but still scented,
lie grounded.

I chew them with teeth pared blunt
by grinding; taste them, like warm mint
or finger stolen jam,
with insatiable buds
which of Fancy are not surfeited.

Secreted in shrubs I hunger
but never will hie me to them:
driven away, my feet ravage
over undergrowth thick
Arcadia-wise.

Being the paragon voyeur, my desire,
ages established, must remain
unsatisfied forever: my seed
stored, barren, until the
last poem be written.



early 90s (imitation of Plath: style not content)

Catastrophic

We are a nation fattened on sorrow and pity,
for happiness is no longer interesting.
The home and hearth is well and good but please,
keep that to yourselves. We would hear of abuse:
a harsh word or a slap on the ass,
a squeeze on the thigh or spring-blossom breast.
Give us these confessions, for we are brought
together in imperfection, we are partners
in our discontent, lovers in misery.

Tell us of the homeless, that increase
exponentially, you would have us believe.
And we do believe, with ravenous desire.
Tell us the latest statistics, because
we feed on the music of numbers. We stare
at the face of doom like apes in a mirror.
It's an ever increasing wonder how many of us
are truly mystified. We want you to tell us
again the number. It makes us feel that we

cannot fairly rank ourselves among the poor,
being that we have roofs and television, not
when we are told about the bedraggled
workless homeless (the number please).
How can we feel poor when we lay our heads
on eiderdown every night and dream dreams?
The television reassures us that we are
moral and good, for we do not run in gangs,
sleep around, or beat our wives and children.

And when the daily bread of human failure
ceases to really satisfy, we are given
the heaven-sent balm of some new disaster:
a plane gone down or building bombed:
people dead, firemen sifting among rubble,
grieving women weeping into a newsman's
microphone. The tears and the limitless sobbing
hearten us to new joys, and we may lay down,
for the time being, the burden of our lives.


mid 90s (imitating Jarrell most likely)

A Rose for My Friend in the City on the Coming Birth of His Child

My friend, chronicler of urban anxiety,
teller of tales of steel speeding through tunnels,
to you I send this metaphor from the Mohave,
from the open places where one's voice is a chorus,
where one's footfall is like a thunder of hammers;
here, where the sun is massive and merciless,
I stand among a trillion upon a trillion
grains of dust, to tell you of these magics:
flick of the scorpion's tail, coyote's joyous cry,
moonlight sharp as the edge of a killing knife
which Mother Night, in her infinite tenderness,
lays down upon the world like a cool silk sheet.

I hold these things like gifts in open palms, for you
to take and turn in your own hands, as Eve did once,
with a creature at her ear, whispering falsehoods.
But I give you no falsehoods. I give you solid
sincerities baked in a sun as close as a kiss,
hard hills of stone with sparse and twisted growths,
steep chocolate colored spires that burn like candles
in summer's relentless fire; I give you waters bluer
than the veins under the skin of a child's wrist,
flecked with white froth, churned by the wind's tumult;
but more than anything, I give you space:
space to lie down, to learn the value of silence;
to roll and laugh, and to be the child you once were;
to run like your child, who even as we speak
is at peace, who is blooming there, like this desert rose.


mid 90's

Islands (Original Version)

I

In twos and threes we boarded the vessels
That bore us over the breast of the sea.
The stars were tipped with flame: the tongues
Of crimson fire, like thread stitched in the heavens,
Like grapes upon the vines: the royal purple
That burst in wines that flowed upon our lips;
O winds that drove the hulls of sailing ships,
The hands of Neptune, eyes aquamarine.


II  (The Dream)

We stood at the foot of the stairs
Like virgins, peach silk on our blushing cheeks
And linked arms, dancing, before we ascended.
Doves were loosed, the cages opened.
Wine we drank from tapered glasses.
Chandeliers, like pendulums, swayed.
The guests went into the Garden.
There were violins; the silver din
Of flutes; mad burgeoning of music;
Amens of birdsong from the leaden branches
Knitting leaves to fend the blight of winter:
Wands of wives that spend the soft green skeins,
The nimble fingers of the summer-weavers.

The dance of the virgins was beginning.
Barefoot on the velvet lawns,
Innocence kept like cherished diamonds,
Pearls of inestimable price. O harps
Of gold that undulate for hands
Of helping angels soaring through the aether.
Sharp the blades of emerald to the soles
Of tender-footed milk-white lambs that caper
Round the maypole, running glad for May;
Dew that pearls, that drips upon the petals
That make a white mandala round the sun.

O little sun, the heart of the sunflower.
Days and days of hunting in the clover,
Rolling over, between the shoulderblades
The grass is crushed. No tender place for lovers.
Fingers strike the spun-gold strings of harps
That make God's music on the hills of Heaven.
Tambourines and bells of Paradise;
Languid lutes that pipers play for Pan;
Dryads dancing for the Demiurge;
Old Silenus leaning in a bower
Made of faery dust and heather purged
From hills that plump the greenswards of Arcadia.


III

We stood eagerly at the prow and gazed
Half-heartedly into the chopping ocean.
Our girl, she cut through that black surf
And spit salt-foam, as brazen as a harlot:
Her front teeth forth, she took large bites
Of Neptune's muscle, and his bitter brine
Washed her back and swabbed the deck.
No thin black line appeared on the horizon;
No wisp of turf to whet our salty dreams:
We sea-dogs, madmen long uncontinented;
We drunken dancers of the lurching planks;
We saturated and demented rabble
Tossed in violent tempests of God's tears.

Some of us leapt into the bitch below us
And welcomed oblivion in her wet embrace;
Some of us met the Devil in a knife-edge
Below-decks and expired upon a curse.
Well may He judge us, should we walk again
Upon the earth that stays fixed to our heels.
Well may He judge, and save a little blessing,
Mighty Jehovah, who wrought the mercy of islands.


IV.

The queenly moon lurked in clouds,
Patient as the sun descended,
Bottles broke upon the boards,
Unbridling Bacchus, who stole a puking swab.
Disguised in that pale raiment
He reveled from stem to stern. The sails
Bellied. The ship lurched westward.
Gulls shrieked like Banshees in the twilight:
O ravenous coven, cawing reminders
Of lands we leave behind us.


This prayer we humbly whisper
At the altar of the Wheel

In solemn incantation
With a tremor of the eyelids

Beneath the skull and crossbones,
We children of the storms,
Thumbs upon the triggers
Of our plundered arms:


Sweet Christ, Prince of peace,
Tamer of winds, O make the waters smooth,
Wine-maker, Alchemist of Heaven,
Blond Trumpeter, Immanuel,
Be with us in the unbroken waves before us,
Be with us in the froth and foam of our wake;
O Conqueror of the ancient ones,
The ghosts of Rome and Athens.
Thy heel will abate the wrath of the pagan,
The Titan, the maker of storms;
Thy heel on the neck of the Giant
Will temper the wrath
That haunts the dreams of the mermen.

VI (The Dream's Reprise)

The bells on the feet of the virgins, who danced
With knees high on the grass, march-scented,
Made sweet music, like boughs thick with starlings
Or chattering sparrows. Old Silenus tipped
His tankard back and wet his throat with foam.
Stranded, we lay and dreamed of islands.
Siren-songs were gold threads gently stitched
Between our dinned and sea-sick ears.
We watched the silken ankles, the tender feet
And calves of virgins leaping on the greensward.

Watching the spray of dew that gemmed the grass,
We thirsted with fresh vigor, madness remembered:
To taste the bursten grape upon our tongues,
The crushed royal purple fruit of crawling vines,
Harvest of vinyards, splashed in earthenware,
Swung from the white first-fingers of the virgins
Who came upon us and steeped us in sweet breath,
Who wet our wind-cracked lips with fingertips
Ensanguined with chilled wine, a teasing touch
That wakened and enlivened us, we crewmen
Who slipt into the coverlet of Death,
Who with our last breaths pitched a volley of prayer
Upon the ceiling of Heaven, we sailing men
Who rode the black beast, who, with stinging eyes,
Stretched in the guts of ships and dreamed of islands.


1997

Walking at Night After a Death Threat

The lights on either side of the road are neither
a comfort nor a cause for fear, and the same could
be said of the darkness, which does not dishearten
nor console. The firmness of the pavement, a deeper
black than the night's, solaces more than the noise
of cars passing on the highway running parallel
to this by-street, more seductive than the saloon
across the field of desert, with its allure of alcoholic
oblivion, the chance exchange of strange flesh.

I grip the knife in my palm, its blade buried still
in the handle, the edge dull but its acute point
able to stick in the offending bone. I walk briskly
but do not hurry, the tip of my cigarette a beacon
I choose not to hide behind my hand, affecting
an honorable courage. Were I an animal I would
sniff the temperate air, hackles at stiff attention.

Suddenly it occurs to me that I am an animal,
that liberal fictions dissipate utterly: that blood
can spill as well as run hot with sudden malice
and bring the blind black temper of a killer.
The term self-defense becomes ambiguous,
and platitudes that are blatantly obvious
at the breakfast table, swaddled in light
and the pacifying murmur of television -
 I will not instigate violence; I am a man
of peace - these truths lose luster in the dark
moment of fear, the precise, chilling exposure.

This is the realization of bone and sinew,
when the immanence of death is brought round
as real as the flashing edge of your knife
as it stands in front of you, its curling finger
come-hithering. And you say then I'm coming,
You bastard, here I come. And you do.


early 1990s

Red Light Sequence

I.

Extended like a ludicrous plant, the venous
trunk and cobra-crown. The tongue teases,
dancing over the split tip, appeasing
the basest of the longings of man's blood.
Docile, sunk in ornate bedding, the beast
reclines, languid with nervous exhilaration,
legs and indolent rump passive and inert.
Loveless, he observes the passionless motion,
bleach-blonde curls swept over tanned shoulders,
mouth engaged in soft strangulation:
constricted lips of manufactured red
attend the beast, sublimely comforted.


II.

Ascension and descent, intrusion and retraction
to seemingly endless repetition, motion
that acts upon the cusp of tiresomeness
and yet retains its urgent energy.
The beast with two backs; the time honored dance;
the joining at the edge of violence;
the ritual coupling: mixture of two flames
whose temporal conjunction burns nothing. O
fledglings mated by the prying light,
the leering invasion of the spying lens,
who casually unfurl your slender limbs
to be the plunder of insatiable eyes
that stare like dead lights in infected rooms,
be curled again, in childhood's chrysalis
redressed. Be dressed again in innocence.


III.

Not Helen, nor the Nile queen were so borne,
upon such luxury of silk and satin, not
the well-fed olive flanks of Cleopatra
nor the white thighs of Queen Elizabeth.
Such sweet superfluous pillows buoyed no heads
which by day's light supported diadems.
No royal arm lay regally at rest
in such an amplitude of opulence.
O city of angels, few walk haloed here.
Where are the streets that run with milk and honey?
And yet the streets are filled with fallen angels
who stare with bright eyed sorrow at the stars.


IV.

On shins and forearms, she patiently leans
and shows off everything. Bathed in vivid light,
the fair fruit hangs between the parted flanks
that fill our field of vision and blot all else.
But we sit in solitude, perpetual bachelors
with smoky fingers, in alcoholic stupor,
petulant bellies distended, rife with desire
that turns from yearning to a sickening pain.
Lithe shapes of girls, shadows and lantern slides,
intangible reproductions of real flesh,
dangle beyond our reach: our barren hands
reach in disgust to purge a burning seed.


V.

Now she reclines, her backside lushly pillowed,
muscles relaxed, legs indolently wide;
her eyes are heavy-lidded, drowsily gazing
at us that leer wild eyed.

Our numb and glossy paper loves requite us
stare for stare, and feed the maw of hunger;
and while we stay unsated, we grow older
and they younger.

Intangibly transfixed for us in time,
forever fair and fabulous, but cold—
Thou sweet unravished brides our crippled fingers
cannot hold.


1997

Soneta

Our boy in hand, she rises, padding
in shimmering pantalettas,
small-heeled across the livingroom.
From our cozy kitchenette I leer

large-eyed and jealous of that cloth
that clings to where my hands have been.
I count my blessings. As I write
these selfish words the coffee cools,

the walls are settling in a silence
that indicates a toddler's spring
has wound itself out. O merciful Sleep,
Visit the brow of the rampant child

but keep your meddling dust from the eyes
of the ravishing angel that with him lies.


1999

Acrostic of 13

Rare numbers let us tempt, and countenance
Old superstitions squarely: exorcise
Belief in seven year curses and bad luck:
Impertinent fancies better left forsaken.
Now I will have you nearly at arm's length,
Reaching across a thousand miles, I seal
Our tenuous bond in riddles, bound in this
Union, like two fish writhing in a net,
Not touching, yet joined at the fingertips:
Two tangible threads in an ethereal web.
Remember never to disjoin this bond
Entwined by chance; and, pray, discover in this
Enigma how I dwell upon your name.


1.23.01

A Prurient Ode

From this the broad shoulders of
Pontiffs, presidents; from this the
Cocked ears of generals, matted
Hair of industrialists:
This fecund furrow.

How shall I not praise, pray,
This flesh? this maker of flesh?
This chrysalis of fruit, this blossom,
This tart split peach or cleft,
Crisp unfinished plum?

For we to a man are kindred
In Famine: would have our tongues
Blessd by this for sacrament.
What wafer or wine will placate
The brute beast? Or sate him thus?

O flower of folded petals,
Furld, fair-scented bloom that
Chastity's steward of, wherefore
I cannot cease to laud, nor
Feign a lofty discretion.


1999

Erato

She seeks out the peace of
The gardens, for her
Hands stir like the wild-flowers,
Her hair a quiver.
Of Spiritus Mundi: of all worlds
A citizen, a flower
Lacking not in the least
Petal or leaf,
Nor is her beauty liable to ruin.

A girl, or woman: her eyes
Are the brilliance of fire
And of ice; her teeth like well-carved
Marble; of that pallor
Also her complexion.
A pure wandering ghost
Thru field, thru wood, a seeker
Of tomorrows and days past,
Never steadfast but chaste, in continence truant.

She hears from the wings of honey-bees
The hum of enterprise,
But that is none of hers:
To be idle is her business,
Or to walk slowly, or to stand
Still and be statuesque
In order that one might behold her
For that instant and ask,
As of an urn, just what it is she is.

But do not, for she will move on
A moment after and will not reply.
She has meetings elsewhere:
Another soul, another grappling eye.
And far anon, in eras not now dreamed,
She will sojourn,
As Fancy shall forever roam
And poets burn
To steal the latent wonder of her kiss.



1985ish

Him (Hymn 1)

deleted.

Horrible poem. Horrible...