little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid
¿ are you
on the other side
waiting
for alarms
in a desert
of sleepless
evaporations?
¿ are you
beside yourself
in the aisles
that distance
makes shorter
than light waves
in the daylight
that pounds
a lead slab
in the soup
that the winter
dissolves?
Long neglect has worn away
Half the sweet enchanting smile;
Time has turned the bloom to gray;
Mold and damp the face defile.
But that lock of silky hair,
Still beneath the picture twined,
Tells what once those features were,
Paints their image on the mind.
Fair the hand that traced that line,
“Dearest, ever deem me true”;
Swiftly flew the fingers fine
When the pen that motto drew.
marry at a hotel, annul ’ em
nary hep male rose sullen
let alley roam, yell melon
dull normal fellow hammers omelette
divine sunrises
Osiris’ s irises
his splendid mistress
is his sis Isis
creole cocoa loca
crayon gumbo boca
crayfish crayola
jumbo mocha-cola
warp maid fresh
fetish coquettish
a voyeur leers
at X-rated reels
Mr. Van Ess bought 14 washcloths?
Fourteen washrags, Ed Van Ess?
Must be going to give em
to the church, I guess.
He drinks, you know. The day we moved
he came into the kitchen stewed,
mixed things up for my sister Grace —
put the spices in the wrong place.
My mother saw the green tree toad
on the window sill
her first one
since she was young.
We saw it breathe
and swell up round.
My youth is no sure sign
I’ ll find this kind of thing
tho it does sing.
Let’ s take it in
I said so grandmother can see
but she could not
it changed to brown
and town
changed us, too.
O my Lord,
if I worship you
from fear of hell, burn me in hell.
If I worship you
from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.
But if I worship you
for yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face.
Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
Nor more than a honey bee
Takes on his foot
From an overspilling jar.
Passing the shop after school, he would look up at the sign
and go on, glad that his own life had to do with books.
Now at night when he saw the grey in his parents’ hair and
heard their talk of that day’ s worries and the next:
lack of orders, if orders, lack of workers, if workers, lack of
goods, if there were workers and goods, lack of orders
again,
i make signs everywhere, with sticks, stones and leaves
for those in the clouds from below the line to arrive
i don’ t have a language to speak to you with, my tongues are all fish
i know that a one is a circle, and that nothing is round,
except every corner i saw by the hearts
lined up on the spine
i know that the winter will finally be here again, and that the summer
will die and be born with its ice
