Arts & Sciences

I was born as a woman, I talk you to death,
or else your ear off,
or else you to sleep. What do I have, all the time
in the world, and a voice that swings brass back
and forth, you can hear it, and a focal point where
my face should be. What do I have, I have absolute
power, and what I want is your money, your drool,
and your mind, and the sense of myself as a snake,
and a garter in the grass. Every bone in the snake
is the hipbone, every part of the snake is the hips.

Because in medieval Italian it meant “room”
I tied the curtains at their elbows with
what could have been honor cords or worse
yet, a belt from the 60s, so hideous were the
tassels that were dancing a little tarantella
after I had propped the windows and the wind
had carried in the song the rubbing trees
were making, without any accompaniment,
mind you, from a tambourine, although the bells
of   the occasional sleigh played that part,
while I waited for the vixen and their shameless

To make, you first have
to create materials. Re: man, we know
the rib removed. But, before — ?
Forget ash to ash, dust
& c.

Stick a floating rib (i. e. thoracic
11 – 12, y’ know — “Edenic”) in a glass
of  water with the promise
it’ ll grow
roots like leek or fur

“I know kung fu.” It won’ t bring back the world.
5:15 a. m.: I wake from another dream,
the same as every dream. A man builds a ship
in my chest. Each of the sailors
carries by her breast a picture of her sister.
The ship is not the image of a ship.
Beyond its sails there are no stars.
The water is only water because it’ s black.

In every life there’ s a moment or two
when the self disappears, the cruel wound
takes over, and then again
at times we are filled with sky
or with birds or
simply with the sugary tea on the table
said the old woman

I know what you mean said the tulip
about epiphanies
for instance a cloudless April sky
the approach of a butterfly
but as to the disappearing self
no
I have not yet experienced that

Matisse, too, when the fingers ceased to work,
Worked larger and bolder, his primary colors celebrating
The weddings of innocence and glory, innocence and glory

Monet when the cataracts blanketed his eyes
Painted swirls of rage, and when his sight recovered
Painted water lilies, Picasso claimed

I do not seek, I find, and stuck to that story
About himself, and made that story stick.
Damn the fathers. We are talking about defiance.

My poems: fledglings, heirs,
Plaintiffs and executors,
The silent ones, the loud,
The humble and the proud.

As soon as the shovel of time
Threw me onto the potter’ s wheel —
Myself without kith or kin —
I grew beneath the hand, a miracle.

Something stretched out my long neck
And hollowed round my soul
And marked on my back
Legends of flowers and leaves.

I stoked the birch in the fire
As Daniel commanded
And blessed my red temper
Until I spoke as a prophet.

Saturday morning in late March.
I was alone and took a long walk,
though I also carried a book
of the Alone, which companioned me.

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

and then there are the one-hit zombies
cursed to an eternity of Monday nights

who runs our music does not make it
controls manufacture and marketing of rhythm
schemes on and fixes the charts. it’ s polyphonic
from the dark of the chitlin to solid gold dawn
doublecrossed over

a love come down

after the plunge
sloshing around in limbo

that too sweet gospel splash