5pm on the nose. They open their mouths
And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.
First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,
They both let loose at once, and I think
Of putting on my shoes to go up and see
Whether it is merely an experiment
Their parents have been conducting
Upon the good crystal, which must surely
Lie shattered to dust on the floor.
1. gone to lunch back in five minutes
night closed in on my letter of resignation
out in the square one of my threads had broken loose
the language i used was no and no
while the yellow still came through, the hammer and the drills
occasionally the metabolism alters
and lines no longer come express
waiting for you what muscles work me
which hold me down below my head?
it is a long coat and a van on the horizon
a bird that vanishes the arabic
i learn from observation is how to break the line
We say lightning has no wings
when it slides down our houses
We say loss is just a condition
we acquire to bury our pity further
We say the bleeding hands
on the table filled with red wine
imported products and passports
are just reminders of
who we have become
We have no titles no birthright
no groves or Shakespeare
to return to
We apologize for the fear
growing out of our ribs
Apologize for the numbers
still etched on our tongues
Pure veins of bogus blue-blood and such fancy hungers
~
In the end no surprise of reports of you dying younger than your gods
~
Kicked back in the classic toilet scene
~
With a spike in your arm and twelve large in pocket
~
Thanks to a lucky day scamming the dumb Social Services folks
~
It’ s a human thing, pants at your ankles, leaving unclean
~
Because life’ s road is only one night in a bad motel
~
Harry, you could play basketball in your bare feet, and win
~
My garden is the wild
Sea of the grass. Her garden
Shelters between walls.
The tide could break in;
I should be sorry for this.
There is peace there of a kind,
Though not the deep peace
Of wild places. Her care
For green life has enabled
The weak things to grow.
Despite my first love,
I take sometimes her hand,
Following straight paths
Between flowers, the nostril
Clogged with their thick scent.
A huge purple door washed up in the bay overnight,
its paintwork blistered and peeled from weeks at sea.
The town storyteller wasted no time in getting to work:
the beguiling, eldest girl of a proud, bankrupt farmer
had slammed that door in the face of a Freemason’ s son,
who in turn had bulldozed both farm and family
over the cliff, except for the girl, who lived now
by the light and heat of a driftwood fire on a beach.
Mrs. Coley’ s three-flat brick
Isn’ t here any more.
All done with seeing her fat little form
Burst out of the basement door;
And with seeing her African son-in-law
(Rightful heir to the throne)
With his great white strong cold squares of teeth
And his little eyes of stone;
And with seeing the squat fat daughter
Letting in the men
When majesty has gone for the day —
And letting them out again.
You’ re clean shaven in this country
where trees grow beards of moss,
where even bank tellers
look a little like banditos
in vests as pungent as sweatsuits.
Still, you prefer the vegetable air
to almost any other place on the map.
After the heart attack,
you considered Paris —
the flying buttresses,
the fractured light of its cathedrals;
The unrestricted sun
had split the day in two,
and now we went
on the edge of the afternoon
like a tableau of bent figures
made of faded blue duck.
We went like a wandering
and stinking, sweating brotherhood,
pull by pull between
the leafy cotton plants,
with the pathetic appearance of arriving
at the end of the furrow.
But we always arrived
in a rush to get there,
and the sole logic was
we had to move over
to the next furrow,
and no one could stop
Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez.
The little white dog on the Victor label
Listens long and hard as he is able.
It’ s all in a day’ s work, whatever plays.
From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained.
He even listens earnestly to Bloch,
Then builds a church upon our acid rock.
He’ s man’ s — no — he’ s the Leiermann’ s best friend,
