Any fool can get into an ocean
But it takes a Goddess
To get out of one.
What’ s true of oceans is true, of course,
Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming
Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’ s seaweed
You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess
To get back out of them
Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly
Out in the middle of the poem
They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the
When did I learn the word “I”?
What a mistake. For some,
it may be a placeholder,
for me it’ s a contagion.
For some, it’ s a thin line, a bare wisp,
just enough to be somewhere
among the gorgeous troublesome you’ s.
For me, it’ s a thorn, a spike, its slimness
a deceit, camouflaged like a stick insect:
touch it and it becomes what it is:
ravenous slit, vertical cut, little boy
standing upright in his white
communion suit and black secret.
Air as lost time
Voice of a cloud, of a ghost crowned with nimbus
Smack-thin, it lingers forty years
I thought it came from the jeweled world we’ d seen
Everything stuffed, urgent, glittering alive
But it was just pleasure, blank and sure
Now what is there to sing
From speakers, the tune folds and fades in waves
Earphones drive it through your head
A charm,
a dream of protection.
Gurgles hold the night light’ s glow.
A stream of clouds
misting the branching tubes.
Water, in fog, a tub, plug to
wire in the wall saying
Okay, it’ s okay all night.
* * *
They say I am excitable! How could
I not scream? The Swiss monk’ s tonsure
spun till it blurred yet his eyes were still.
I snapped my gaiter, hard, to stuff back
my mirth. Lords, he then began to speak.
Indus catarum, he said, presenting the game of cards
in which the state of the world is excellent described
and figured. He decked his mouth
as they do, a solemn stitch, and left cards
in my hands. I cast them down.
What need have I for amusement?
My brain’ s a park. Yet your company
The last line should strike like a lover’ s complaint.
You should never see it coming.
And you should never hear the end of it.
Just wasted
and taking it.
In life
I rally
constantly.
Effort is what we
breach. And
accountability.
Honed limits
do you require
ruthlessness or subtlety?
When I was little I cut off the heads
of many lords. I can’ t count on the energy
that took to rise in me at will, but I’ ve
strengthened my ability to make a
stand-firm surface. A steady gaze will drive
conflicted information away, back to the
abyss from whence it came, but I’ ll be right
here the morning after, wracked in a
private shame too awful to admit and
of no consequence at all. I work very hard
not to let myself go. Any channel
can tell. Due process appears in beauty
and misgiving at once; an agility
THE NIGHT THAT LORCA COMES
SHALL BE A STRANGE NIGHT IN THE
SOUTH, IT SHALL BE THE TIME WHEN NEGROES LEAVE THE
SOUTH
FOREVER,
GREEN TRAINS SHALL ARRIVE
FROM RED PLANET MARS
CRACKLING BLUENESS SHALL SEND TOOTH-COVERED CARS FOR
THEM
TO LEAVE IN, TO GO INTO
THE NORTH FOREVER, AND I SEE MY LITTLE GIRL MOTHER
AGAIN WITH HER CROSS THAT
IS NOT BURNING, HER SKIRTS
OF BLACK, OF ALL COLORS, HER AURA
OF FAMILIARITY. THE SOUTH SHALL WEEP
BITTER TEARS TO NO AVAIL,
