I was thinking: God has abandoned me,
So, what of it — he is a priceless ray of light,
Or a thin needle in the haystack of man. And cruel.
I have turned away from him — torment me no more.
But which of us is more cruel? More to be feared?
The one who has no body, of course.
He has made us endless, vast —
So that our grief will know no bounds.
Providence, 2001
Bashō, with your grass pillow, what underground sounds come into your dreams?
Do blue-horned beetles scratch against the starless night sky that lines your head
with the starless night skies of their own domed backs? Do centipedes trickle through?
Do worms burrow with their snouts, with their bodies that are entirely snouts?
Snoozer, I can only ask you this because now you are dead asleep:
Do I ever appear as a nightcrawler whispering in your ear?
Are the words, “I love you,” as soft as the cough of a good luck cricket?
Motionless forgetful music of women and men
touching each forehead, breathing a soul into each immeasurable other,
on earth where we are, stranger, through madness unattainable
or grace, in difficult traffic reaching for each immeasurable other:
no one on earth (O bitterness, O desire, — who commands the ships? —
or, who — ) touching the Lord’ s shoulder, and breathing a soul, has measured
this motionless forgetful music of women and men. Thus
I (behind the eye what sleeps?) must from the blind borrow this light.
Don’ t forget this: Men who live in this time remember the price of each bottle of vodka. Sunlight on the canal outside the train-station. With the neighbor’ s ladder, my brother Tony “Mosquito” and I climb the poplar in the public garden with one and a half bottles of vodka and we drink there all night. Sunlight on a young girl’ s face, asleep on the church steps. Tony recites poems, forgets I cannot hear. I watch the sunlight in the rearview mirror of trolleys as they pass.
A kiss on the forehead — erases misery.
I kiss your forehead.
A kiss on the eyes — lifts sleeplessness.
I kiss your eyes.
A kiss on the lips — is a drink of water.
I kiss your lips.
A kiss on the forehead — erases memory.
1917
I am happy living simply:
like a clock, or a calendar.
Worldly pilgrim, thin,
wise — as any creature. To know
the spirit is my beloved. To come to things — swift
as a ray of light, or a look.
To live as I write: spare — the way
God asks me — and friends do not.
1919
The White Whale Review.
Pushed prow southerly into the golden wind:
hurt the eyes: gold pelted water: so looked less far away:
plovers huddling on the tide's last piece of shore:
Rise up in brightness: clap wings::
I told myself I'll go where eagles go: if to brimstone:
my wake a narrow river back
to its source in cedar: and when sunlight embers
the shore's soft fleece will be before me.
I am the man
Whose name is mud
But what’ s in a name
To shame one who knows
Mud does not stain
Clay he’ s made of
Dust Adam became —
The dust he was —
Was he his name
The statue, that cast
Of my solitude
Has found its niche
In this kitchen
Where I do not eat
Where the bathtub stands
Upon cat feet —
I did not advance
I cannot retreat
