The heretic’ s papers were spread out on the armchair
*
At the window, fruit of
spring,
you can bite again
against the weather
weapons I let fall outside
pharmacies, drowsy and bright
*
Air comes to the confused bends in the rail where
in a mirror lush food puts you
out for 1 night. Then it is the weather
at noon that prepares to spring on you
in December, a month ago
blowing the lights out with a sob
*
On long walks
a poorly tuned radio
The poet is a man who feigns
And feigns so thoroughly, at last
He manages to feign as pain
The pain he really feels,
And those who read what once he wrote
Feel clearly, in the pain they read,
Neither of the pains he felt,
Only a pain they cannot sense.
And thus, around its jolting track
There runs, to keep our reason busy,
The circling clockwork train of ours
That men agree to call a heart.
The morning after
my death
we will sit in cafés
but I will not
be there
I will not be
*
There was the great death of birds
the moon was consumed with
fire
the stars were visible
until noon.
Green was the forest drenched
with shadows
the roads were serpentine
A redwood tree stood
alone
with its lean and lit body
unable to follow the
cars that went by with
frenzy
a tree is always an immutable
traveller.
my house’ s stairway is seized
with vertigo.
Matter having forsaken its laws,
we land in hell,
ascending to heaven.
*
Shadows move along ladders
under the silence of ordinary things
there is another silence:
it belongs neither to the leaves not to the
dead
In the dark irritation of the eyes there is a snake hiding
In the exhalations of Americans there is a crumbling empire
In the foul waters of the rivers there are Palestinians
OUT OUT of its borders pain has a leash on its neck
In the wheat stalks there are insects vaccinated against bread
In the Arabian boats there are sharks shaken with laughter
In the camel’ s belly there are blind highways
OUT OUT of TIME there is spring’ s shattered hope
In the deluge on our plains there are no rains but stones
I had heard the story before
about the two prisoners, alone
in the same cell, and one
gives the other lessons in a language.
Day after day, the pupil studies hard —
what else does he have to do? — and year
after year they practice,
waiting for the hour of release.
They tackle the nouns, the cases, and genders,
the rules for imperatives and conjugations,
but near the end of his sentence, the teacher
suddenly dies and only the pupil
goes back through the gate and into the open
In you all deaths gather, all
the broken glasses, the sere pages, the derangements
of thought, they gather in you, guilty
of all deaths, incomplete and guilty,
in the wake of every mother, in your wake,
motionless. They gather there, in your
weak hands. The apples of this market are death,
these poems retreat into their grammar,
in the hotel room, in the hut
of what does not join, souls without rest,
aged lips, bark ripped from the trunk.
They are dead. They gather there. They failed,
I have written a couple of poems about trees
poems about trees and snakes and lakes and birds
poems about nature and life in New England
I write crappy poems and eat babies
if you like poems about trees you’ re in for a treat
when I get nervous I get hyper and bump into people
I read to them what MapQuest gave me
round during then in the mom seeker panties
to help me narrow down the slut thing word jobs
rawr I’ m too stupid to be able to make my point clear
Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina.
Lands on the crown of the palm tree.
Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips.
We carry canoes to the edge of the salt.
Ah, ah groans the crew with the weight, the winds cutting skin.
We claim our seats. Pelicans perch in the draft for fish.
Ah, ah beats our lungs and we are racing into the waves.
Though there are worlds below us and above us, we are straight ahead.
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’ t see, can’ t hear;
Can’ t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’ t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
