The fake Parthenon in Nashville, Stonehenge reduced by a quarter
near Maryhill on the Columbia, the little Statue of Liberty
taken from the lawn of the high school and not recovered
for months,
Simon Rodia’ s Watts Towers in the tile maker’ s shape of a ship
to sail home in, the house in the shape of a ship near Milwaukee
A cooler
head of lettuce prevailed, but when the actor
asked his question and paused
for us to watch him pause and think
inside the pause, I almost answered
as if we were in a bar, just the two of us
and a balcony and spotlight. The two of us
and programs and makeup and a sofa
from the director’ s living room and the black/
womb/agora/séance of theater inviting us to feel
together alone. I recall I don’ t recall
the question but its scope on his face
The wave of that year
flooded the sands on the mirror
to be lost is a kind of leaving
and the meaning of leaving
the instant when all languages
are like shadows cast from the west
life's only a promise
don't grieve for it
before the garden was destroyed
we had too much time
debating the implications of a bird flying
as we knocked down midnight's door
For whom the possessed sea littered, on both shores,
Ruinous arms; being fired, and for good,
To sound the constitution of just wars,
Men, in their eloquent fashion, understood.
Whereas the porch screen sags from
the weight of flowers (impatiens) that grew
against it, then piles of wet leaves,
then drifted snow; and
Whereas, now rolled like absence in its
drooping length, a dim gold wave,
sundown’ s last, cast across a sea of clouds
and the floating year, almost reaches
the legs of the low-slung chair; and
Whereas between bent trees flies
and bees twirl above apples
and peaches fallen on blue gravel; and
The strident high
civic trumpeting
of misrule. It is
what we stand for.
Wild insolence,
aggregates without
distinction. Courage
of common men:
spent in the ruck
their remnant witness
after centuries
is granted them
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’ t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
In your arms was still delight,
Quiet as a street at night;
And thoughts of you, I do remember,
Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,
Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.
Love, in you, went passing by,
Penetrative, remote, and rare,
Like a bird in the wide air,
And, as the bird, it left no trace
In the heaven of your face.
In your stupidity I found
The sweet hush after a sweet sound.
All about you was the light
That dims the greying end of night;
Desire was the unrisen sun,
Today in Rome, heading down
Michelangelo’s Spanish Steps,
under an unchanging moon,
I held on to the balustrade,
grateful for his giving me a hand.
All for love, I stumbled over the past
as if it were my own feet. Here, in my twenties,
I was lost in love and poetry. Along the Tiber,
I made up Cubist Shakespearean games.
(In writing, even in those days,
This is my past where no one knows me.
These are my friends whom I can’ t name —
Here in a field where no one chose me,
The faces older, the voices the same.
Why does this stranger rise to greet me?
What is the joke that makes him smile,
As he calls the children together to meet me,
Bringing them forward in single file?
I nod pretending to recognize them,
Not knowing exactly what I should say.
Why does my presence seem to surprise them?
Who is the woman who turns away?
