to come away with Hesiod
and leave the rock as though to rocks
the tree to trees and dwell on other things
imagine the injunction
to leave the mint to its own devices
among the dust & stones in the shadow
of rocks or tree-roots hard as rocks
imagine poems left to their own devices
as poets gorge on air & airy thoughts
& figures – the thought sobers me
to the bone of a sobriety earned
at the expense of the airiness Hesiod
was commissioned to name
Tell the truth of experience
they say they also
say you must let
go learn to let go
let your children
go
and they go
and you stay
letting them go
because you are obedient and
respect everyone’ s freedom
to go and you stay
and you want to tell the truth
because you are yours truly
its obedient servant
but you can’ t because
you’ re feeling what you’ re not
supposed to feel you have
let them go and go and
Not forced to fall for hideous Phaon,
nor to drift dreamlike from
a Victorian cliff, pursued by visions
of slender limbs, peach-soft hair,
dewy violets clustered
in an unwilling lap, not exiled
on a distant island for writing
smartly about love, not called amoral
nor forgotten, not murdered
by a jealous lover, nor weakened
from drink, did not make an incision
in the veins, never murdered
in a tavern at twenty-nine
nor thought mad, released immediately
from St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics,
Pindar, poet of the victories, fitted names
And legends into verses for the chorus to sing:
Names recalled now only in the poems of Pindar:
At Robben Island the political prisoners studied.
They coined the motto Each one Teach one.
In Argentina the torturers demanded the prisoners
Address them always as “Profesor.”
Many of my friends are moved by guilt, but I
Am a creature of shame, I am ashamed to say.
Culture the lock, culture the key. Imagination
That calls boiled sheep heads “Smileys.”
Don’ t believe our outlines, forget them
and begin from your own words.
As if you are the first to write poetry
or the last poet.
If you read our work, let it not be an extension of our airs,
but to correct our errs
in the book of agony.
Don’ t ask anyone: Who am I?
You know who your mother is.
As for your father, be your own.
Truth is white, write over it
with a crow’ s ink.
Truth is black, write over it
with a mirage’ s light.
If you want to duel with a falcon
soar with the falcon.
rain on the lake
room at the lodge
alone in a room
in the lazy light
loons on the lake
geese in the air
moose in the woods
aware awake
a cry dislodged
from the musty woods
the gamy musk
of the one aroused
the roaming moose
the rooms lit up
the woods awake
in the loony light
the moon dislodged
the lake aflame
the Muse amazed
amused aroused
Now the summer air exerts its syrupy drag on the half-dark
City under the strict surveillance of quotation marks.
The citizens with their cockades and free will drift off
From the magnet of work to the terrible magnet of love.
In the far suburbs crenellated of Cartesian yards and gin
The tribe of mothers calls the tribe of children in
Across the bluing evening. It’ s the hour things get
To be excellently pointless, like describing the alphabet.
Music: Sexual misery is wearing you out.
Music: Known as the Philosopher’ s Stair for the world-weariness which climbing it inspires. One gets nowhere with it.
Paris: St-Sulpice in shrouds.
Paris: You’ re falling into disrepair, Eiffel Tower this means you! Swathed in gold paint, Enguerrand Quarton whispering come with me under the shadow of this gold leaf.
Music: The unless of a certain series.
Mathematics: Everyone rolling dice and flinging Fibonacci, going to the opera, counting everything.
Fire: The number between four and five.
