In my car, driving through Black Mountain,
North Carolina, I listen to what
sounds like Doris Day shooting
heroin inside Sly Stone’ s throat.
One would think that she fights
to get out, but she wants to stay
free in this skin. Fresh,
The Family Stone’ s album,
came out in ’73, but I didn’ t make sense
of it till ’76, sixth grade for me,
the Bicentennial, I got my first kiss that year,
I beat up the class bully; I was the man.
To cure a child of rickets, split a living
ash tree down its length and pass
the child through
(naked, headfirst, three times).
Seal the two halves of the tree back up
and bind them with loam and black
thread. If the tree heals, so will the child.
(The child must also be washed
for three mornings in the dew
of the chosen tree.)
The great sea
frees me, moves me,
as a strong river carries a weed.
Earth and her strong winds
move me, take me away,
and my soul is swept up in joy.
I
Should I take this time, while the children are in school,
to untrim the tree? Standing in the dish we let go dry,
it looks well-preserved, as if Christmas were still
in our future; would it spare their feelings if I dismantle
piece by piece its grandeur, or will I amplify
their sense of loss, to de-jewel it without ritual?
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’ s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’ s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
to come away with Hesiod
and leave the rock as though to rocks
the tree to trees and dwell on other things
imagine the injunction
to leave the mint to its own devices
among the dust & stones in the shadow
of rocks or tree-roots hard as rocks
imagine poems left to their own devices
as poets gorge on air & airy thoughts
& figures – the thought sobers me
to the bone of a sobriety earned
at the expense of the airiness Hesiod
was commissioned to name
Turn, turn again,
Ape’ s blood in each vein!
The people that pass
Seem castles of glass,
The old and the good
Giraffes of the blue wood,
The soldier, the nurse,
Wooden-face and a curse,
Are shadowed with plumage
Like birds, by the gloomage.
Blond hair like a clown’ s
The music floats — drowns
The creaking of ropes,
The breaking of hopes,
The wheezing, the old,
Like harmoniums scold;
Go to Babylon, Rome,
The brain-cells called home,
The grave, new Jerusalem —
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
When I’ d reported to the couple, thus
That up there no one murders now for gain
Since no one owns a thing, the faithless spouse
Who’ d beguiled that woman so improperly
Lifted his hand, now tied to hers by chains
And looked at her and turned perplexed to me
So no one steals, if there’ s no property?
I shook my head. And as their hands just touched
I saw a blush suffuse the woman’ s cheeks.
Where does such tenderness come from?
These aren’ t the first curls
I’ ve wound around my finger —
I’ ve kissed lips darker than yours.
The sky is washed and dark
(Where does such tenderness come from?)
Other eyes have known
and shifted away from my eyes.
But I’ ve never heard words like this
in the night
(Where does such tenderness come from?)
with my head on your chest, rest.
