Stars from five wars, scars,
Words filled with ice and fear,
Nightflares and fogginess,
and a studied regularity.
Gon’ lay down my sword ’ n’ shield —
Down by the river side, down by the river side —
Down by the river side...
When the moon’ s worn scutcheon
touches the flint-gray flood,
I will lave him in foxglove
and vetch until the blood
of his wretched heart heals.
Without a scar, he stood —
as the men make their way
into the quaking wood.
Little Enoch learned his colors from lettered blocks
(for a is the color of fleet,
b is the color of war and demolition,
c is the color of echo and blur,
& c.) and built
a bricolage:
So cab was a whirring warbler.
bach was the Spanish Armada crashing
and crashing.
And enoch he couldn’ t describe.
And when it reached the height of Enoch,
standing, he tore whole tongues
down to their colors.
I remember Tony arguing in front of his mirrors, the soldiers
were painting the trees, Tony sat
on the floor of white hair, and all the trees were
painted white. And he spat at Alfonso’ s irony, but when
they played accordion, the fourth among us had no name.
“I am not sleeping with Tony! He simply cuts my hair!”
— but our dinner is a tiny blue fish and, with my lean brother-in-law,
we are playing cards. I pull spade after spade after spade but
I watch loud animal bones in their faces & I can smell the earth.
Our boys want a public killing in a sunlit piazza
They drag a young policeman, a sign in his arms swaying
“I arrested the girls of Vasenka”
For the boys have no idea how to kill a man.
The bald man in a barbershop whispers, I will kill him for
a box of oranges.
On a lucid morning they pay a box of oranges.
The bald man arrives with white towels and a soap and a bottle
❖
A hundred red fire ants scouring, scouring the white peony
❖
Fallen plum blossoms return to the branch, you sleep, then
harden again
❖
Cuttlefish in my palm stiffens with rigor mortis, boy toys can't
love
❖
Neighbor's barn: grass mat, crickets, Blue Boy, trowel handle,
dress soaked in mud
❖
Iron-headed mace; double-studded halberd slice into emptiness
❖
So they stood
Upon ladders
With pruning hooks
Backs to the king
Who took his leave
Of gardening
This morning
I am forlorn
As he was then
No one born
After the war
Remembers when
Of the sleeves, I remember their weight, like wet wool,
on my arms, and the empty ends which hung past my hands.
Of the body of the shirt, I remember the large buttons
and larger buttonholes, which made a rack of wheels
down my chest and could not be quickly unbuttoned.
Of the collar, I remember its thickness without starch,
by which it lay against my clavicle without moving.
Are we on the ground now? Ally cells and I said operations.
We cleared 50% of a wonderful friend and enduring opposition.
Take the solid.
Louder.
We clearly are loud. We are the postal system.
No evidence has been information.
Attacking the caves. Are you on the ground enduring?
A wonderful friend ramped it up.
You ought to open your mail.
Opposition element: the air. The talents work with precision.
84%. The population attacking the caves, the talents work with the
caves and tunnels.
The land was there before us
Was the land. Then things
Began happening fast. Because
The bombs us have always work
Sometimes it makes me think
God must be one of us. Because
Us has saved the world. Us gave it
A particular set of regulations
Based on 1) undisputable acumen.
2) carnivorous fortunes, delicately
Referred to here as “bull market”
And (of course) other irrational factors
Deadly smoke thick over the icecaps,
Our man in Saigon Lima Tokyo etc etc
