Mouthful of earth, hair half a century silvering, who buried him.
With what. Make a fist for heart. That is the size of it.
Also directives from our DNA.
The nature of his wound was the clock-cicada winding down.
He wound down.
July, vapid, humid: sails of sailboats swelled, yellow boxes
Of cigars from Cuba plumped. Ring fingers fattened for a spell.
It’ s now all about money
about which poetry rarely reaches
transcendence. But love must still fester
even under that. Everyone I know
frets if poetry can still matter,
but what about love? It’ s all become
too much for them, and they’ re all
on the soma. It makes sense
with these pills when the someone
they thought they loved for years
by never thinking about it says,
“I don’ t love you anymore,
but let’ s stay friends in that mellow
woebegone way poetry now
sings without singing.” Of course,
Mangled, uncared for, suffering thro’ the night
With heavenly patience the poor boy had lain;
Under the dreary shadows, left and right,
Groaned on the wounded, stiffened out the slain.
What faith sustained his lone,
Brave heart to make no moan,
To send no cry from that blood-sprinkled sod,
Is a close mystery with him and God.
Dark as the clouds of even,
Ranked in the western heaven,
Waiting the breath that lifts
All the dread mass, and drifts
Tempest and falling brand
Over a ruined land; —
So still and orderly,
Arm to arm, knee to knee,
Waiting the great event,
Stands the Black Regiment.
Victor gets a real sense of power
from making his own raisins. He buys
pounds and pounds of grapes
and leaves them to dry
on the kitchen table.
Theresa doesn’ t want to hear about
her ex-husband’ s cancer. Not on Father’ s Day.
She takes a train all night
to have breakfast with her cousin.
All Sunday she rides the train back.
Once Martin’ s wife had left,
he decided to take advantage of her space.
He built a sauna where her closet was,
and now sits there every morning
to read the paper and Buddha.
The grave has more power than the eyes of the beloved.
An open grave with all its magnets.
This weight on the wings. The sky is waiting for an airship.
I have the feeling that I haven’ t got much life left.
Three hours after the celestial attack.
Why don’ t I respond when I’ m being offended?
Because my religion doesn’ t allow me to.
Exterior maps: geography. Interior maps: psychography.
And in your hard cathedral I kneel.
Mountains pass camels pass
like the history of wars in antiquity.
The reservoir churned and cloud-deformed
The far line of hills, fused, bunched color
bitter wind against this hunch
my folded bones
I can see the rust earth beneath trees, the rough mats
gathering weight in semi-darkness, dim
nesting bases of trees
Graft of dark cloud upon lighter one behind, building up
of something, a thickening, deposit of cold air, dark web
of insistence, built up in me
rings diminish, duck reflects flight then threads off
Long branch of land, rusted oaks smoldering
fawn shore, grasses bare scripts of green
black fingerbones of the willows, splayed
rubric fringe of the reeds at the edge of water
The reflection is its own blurred dream
The blended edges, furred thing
tawny path of stalks brushed into gray slope behind
Bright yellow mostly gone now, the dominance
The shelter of it carved, caved
Across the river, the park and the little Ferris wheel
closed down
The great oaks emptying, russet, gusseted
the hovering slant light leaking from the outer edge
of cloud bed
leads and shawls pulled forth
Thy synchrony of the lost elements recovered
the shivering water surfaces, planar unmeldings, remeldings,
riverine alchemies, unlocketed selves
now the reemergence, the sun pouring global gold
stripped batting of cloud
glimpsed ligaments
dusk coming up under
lithographic, nib-hatchings
instruments click
the fine-sprung locust
replicate dinge along hill-lines
tailings of umber, the rust smudge
There is still that hemmed ocean of oaks
the various reds, the somehow
silver cast over the brown-gold
