There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.
The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.
The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.
The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.
You see them on porches and on lawns
down by the lakeside,
usually arranged in pairs implying a couple
who might sit there and look out
at the water or the big shade trees.
The trouble is you never see anyone
sitting in these forlorn chairs
though at one time it must have seemed
a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.
Sometimes there is a little table
between the chairs where no one
is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
I imagined the atmosphere would be clear,
shot with pristine light,
not this sulphurous haze,
the air ionized as before a thunderstorm.
Many have pictured a river here,
but no one mentioned all the boats,
their benches crowded with naked passengers,
each bent over a writing tablet.
I knew I would not always be a child
with a model train and a model tunnel,
and I knew I would not live forever,
jumping all day through the hoop of myself.
Stars by the power of their orbit
are stars in the order of the sun.
But if they are not figures of orbit,
they are not in the sun.
Exactly like me: by the power of my yearnings
I am in the family.
And if I will not yearn,
I am not in the family.
Memories are a house.
Time is a roof. All the time a roof. All the time time.
I would like sometime to die
unto them and see them.
Let’ s make believe
I am happy, I laugh
Black poison, all of me
Its bottleful,
Become sparkling water
My cup runneth over
I am your son
You are my daughter,
The only one
I Google myself
I want you to love me
When I feel down
I want you to Google me
I search myself
I want you to find me
I Google myself
I want you to remind me
I don’ t Google anybody else
When I think about you
I Google myself
Ooh
I don’ t Google anybody else
At home alone in the middle of the night
I Google myself
I Google myself
And see you before me
Any fool could see
Just how much I Google myself
Get down on your knees &
Friend me and Poke me
Wandered tonight through a city
as ruined as a body with broken
ribs and a bared heart. Looked for you
there with cookies in my pocket, searched
for a sigh, for movement in demolished
streets and alleys. Tonight
since I’ d forgotten for a moment where you are,
I searched for you with hope in my bones.
But no matter how I lured you with my voice
and my eyes, walls of debris
Our sweet companions — sharing your bunk and your bed
The versts and the versts and the versts and a hunk of your bread
The wheels' endless round
The rivers, streaming to ground
The road...
Oh the heavenly the Gypsy the early dawn light
Remember the breeze in the morning, the steppe silver-bright
Wisps of blue smoke from the rise
And the song of the wise
Gypsy czar...
My body is powdery white and round
I sink and bob like a mountain in a pond
The hand that kneads me is hard and rough
You can't destroy my true red heart
