September

September is ambivalent
& tries to be summer and winter
at once but ends with a certain
dullness that is not Autumn.

I cannot read the seasons' changes
by the dressings and undressings
of trees in the sensuous woods of New York
from whose deciduous lap I came

with eyes sapphire-blue at birth
which then betrayed me and left
me brown-eyed and ordinary.
Lacking a physical appeal

I bowed thru adolescence
over the leaves of books
that turned my eyes myopic.
Now in the sweltering desert

of Mohave I renew the old passion.
Beset by a gnawing hunger
for the sweetmeat of poetry:
the taste of her blood and sinew.

May October be fair,
her skies beneficent with rain;
the insistent sun tempered
but a pleasant presence still.


1989

For Jared

My beautiful
blue-eyed
banshee
breaks the

tranquil time &
tensely truncates
the conjugal meeting:
corrupts

the legal coupling; O
bright white face you
smile like sunrise
& rock w/ pride

without moving
your hair awry & deftly
clumsy (unbearably!)
beautiful boy

Suburbia ii

A woman ascends a staircase
laundry laden
sweat breaks
on her forehead

A child stirs in a crib:
a wakening cry
that pierces stillness
like a factory whistle

beloved havoc wrought
on the calm of morning;
honey of disturbance
on the sheen of silence.

Blessings

We incline ourselves again toward the new-year:
two summers now before the double zeroes
boggle our machines: programmers live in fear
of the new millenium, but the Christian narrows

his eyes and glares at the clouds for a vision
of stallion-mounted Christ, eager for a rift
to suddenly appear and widen, the incision
by flaming swords of angels, the promised gift.

Sedentary, I regard my son
whose pictures dress my office walls, my wife,
whose wine-dark eyes defy comparison,
charmed and calmed in the magic of my life.



1998 (Thank You, GOD)

James was Wright

My infant son shrieks, then is suddenly placid,
and sleeps against the supple body of my wife.
I finally understand how I have wasted
The previous thirty-two years of my life.

Suburbia Cantos

1.

Open windows.
Birdsong mingles soft
sounds of birth
strained thru shields
of fragrance;
struck bells of spoons;

silence of dormant
crumbs lost gold
ingots
of morning.

Exhaust:
gray webs
in golden
sun's revolt

cast away darkness,
all-thumbed evils
of night his coolness
kingdom to moths'
fanatic powder flight.

Felt ecstasy of
burning;
kiss of the fire god.
O sweet blue
dance in death's raiment.


2.

We do not have
questions for the
far away mountains,
playing I am the
sun king
behold the glory of my
coronet.
I am golden.

We leave our wives
at home
for they will have fabric
full of shape
& the strange wonder
of softness,

prize trinkets &
labor at allurement.

We do not know
of such things;
we drive steel thru
labyrinths
unaware of dimension;

wet sheaths await us
for the evening ritual.


3.

What are you,
white magic?
Have you bones among
sweet cream?

When will you fly
O bird?
Or stay for the
palm's nest?
The solace of the mouth?

I will hold you
against the
insult of
Oblivion.

Nourish me,
wife,
mother of
life.


4.

She keeps the
cave neat for
the comfort of
the blind worm,
to whom Money is
the rain calling
to ground.

She stands, she moves;
her wrists are touched
w/ water.

If you look into her
eyes you will walk threadbare
among stars;

if you kiss
her mouth
you will be a
fool w/ a crown of rain.




late 1980s (imitating Jim Morrison)

The Pavilions of Heaven

"And after many a summer dies the swan..."
- Alfred Lord Tennyson



Ye grand and garish parlors thatched with gold
Beyond the fragrant blooms of flowery gates;
Ye stately palaces, and proud estates
Wherein the foot spurns clouds of silver dust
From washen tiles of pearl and amethyst;
Through orient halls above thee, to the east,
Phoebus, the golden, draws his chariot!

Ye trees, whose boughs are affluent with leaves
More bright than polished glass in sunlit waters;
Ye hills and valleys cleft of emerald
Through which, like amber foaming overbold,
Rills move like moonlight on a diamond chip;
O Heaven! Nymph and Fay, and sylvan wight
Upon thy swards are gathered, hip to hip.

Ye cloud towers, paler than the sharpest star
"In the abode where the eternal are ",
Poised on the topmost pinnacle of night;
Ye up-piled mountains, grappling with the light,
Whose masonry provokes the praise of kings;
Quietly the kingdoms over which thou seest
Lie in the breadth of the Almighty's wings.

And they are blest who trespass into Heaven,
By His allowance, and Eternity's.
Through airy mansions, wrought of priceless stuffs,
Scented with fair and fragrant tapestries,
Theirs is unequaled transport, who, for Faith,
Forgo the dark, ignoble halls of Death
And nobler move to populate the skies.

Drunk of the honey, and the manna-dew,
Drunk of the milk of immortality,
The changeless eras into eons pass,
Passing anon, anon, for Heaven's glass
Is ne'er an empty vessel, but is turned
Over and over, time and time again -
For such is the reward of faithful men.


Mid to late 80's