There are eyes, glasses even, but still he can’ t see
what the world sees seeing him.
They know an image of him they themselves created.
He knows his own: fine-lined from foot to finger,
each limb adjusted, because it’ s had to,
to achieve finally flight —
I
here I’ m here I’ m here I’ m
here here here here cricket
pulse — the katydidic tick
(and then a pause) tick
(and then a pause) in greening trees — tales
of a gratitude for water, the hollyhock’ s
trumpet Yes, Tenderness
her glove and hoe — her bad trip
love/grief, her medic tent
talking me down, kissed fissures
in the world’ s despair, what I’ d
loved — alive for a while — a day called
Rip and Brood, a day called
Glorious Hour, the long hunt and the worm found
I spit my smack,
Jim slugs his Jack,
Rob stews his lack,
Carey prepares his rack,
herons hunker on blowdowns,
deer wait on high moon for their rounds,
and the campfire
might as well be an empire
we all
watch dissolve
(in the slough, a carp roll, a splash)
into ash.
I like to lie with you wordless
on black cloud rooft beach
in late june 5 o’ clock tempest
on clump weed bed with sand
fitting your contours like tailor made
and I like to wash my summer brown face
in north cold hudson rapids
with octagon soap
knees niched in steamy rocks
where last night’ s frog stared
at our buddhist sleep
but most of all I like to see
the morning happen...
Immersed
we don’ t
ask
who entered
whose stream.
Take
my hand there
is no
line no
bridge only
fond
foolishness —
the bread
crumbs I
bring you
in
morning —
they float
on the
surface
water with
two
violins
un-
strung like
the silent
song
on your
lips soft
as the
same
hands I
crushed to
keep
you from
death.
She dances only in her necklace,
scotch-lit surely. He touches his glasses.
Nightie-less, dugs whipping, hair sprung,
some music inside, out, wet tongue
tip at her lip, no mere palsied shuffle,
both bony feet lifted, elbows awful.
Shakespeare’ s banshee of wailing parts,
a woman with hair, a woman with warts.
He’ s fixed to the floor. Dear Heloise:
do other presumed-sane mothers do this —
wait in the dark after the ball
to strip for their sons at the end of the hall?
You don’ t need a machine to do that.
A plastic bag will do. But he built it,
his tools cast about in the unit
while he got up his nerve to use it.
Nothing more was stored there.
A poured cement floor, a triple-locked door
after door after door down a corridor
reeking with the odor of everything over.
In heretofore phrases, he left a note
outlining his Help! in argot
so wrought it was hopeless to ferret out
his intent, meant or not.
I saw I dreamt
Two men hoisted hung up not American the rope
Not closed on their breathing
But this rope tied them spine to spine somehow
Suspended
From the mood of a tree not American they were
African Ugandan Nigerian
Without a license a right to touch
The sin their touching incites
And I heard their names called out Revision
Or Die and You Must Repent
And Forget the Lie you Lily-Boys you Faggots
Called up from the mob
Leave it to the street vendors
of NYC to improvise a shrine
from whatever they find,
setting a place at their table
for animal and divine nature
symbolically joined with
color-coded floral candelabras.
a face stares back.
across the hostile centuries.
add a twist — delicious.
and never feel a thing.
commercial — added stretch to every gesture.
how it is made.
I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.
I’ d be all give. Let me put it like this==
in the nocturnal, recessed bed==
of nettles.
resembles the bird it will fly into.
Right now I’ m trying to open wide.
she turns to a tree.
she would be neither-nor.
smoky field.
that is space.
the bride.
