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PASSOVER |
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In rush to penetrate I call the wrong name. So much downpour lately, passing over, unleaven moon follow me, then, into the reeds you are so wet: I make a mark. Wet as the angel sign, paschal moon dipt into & rises, real bread this
for me, I follow, flow along, pushed by longing, exodus, exodus. road, or rivulet, out into the night of bleeding angels No, not this house! (Above the door, the urge to penetrate) Walk in, drift in, I have seen the symbol inside me: silver pink fish pick up the essence of the moon & go. I have seen God & not spoken. Left bread. Wet, still warm, to put my right hand in you & call your name. |
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time. Wet|
Why come to me as you?
parse take this your——body present to me as the speech
circle, the favorite parts. Desire. eyes. nipples. navel. father. history's grandeur the ambitions embodied, embedded as method, brevity, get it done. Accomplishment of youth to die into so you come. (pressed to me a father's lips, person of Tenth House concerns: shape of occupation a mouth saying what it wants to me become. |
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AVENUE OF PINES |
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Ancient avenue of pines, the macro cosmic sway among as if a little Lionel will stop, puffing pellet smoke filtered in to poly styrene snow. We are silhouettes against the plastic windows & face forward. If we look out at all, it is to see ourselves, vague words about to avalanche upon us. Be still & wait. No train passes, no troika, sleigh. Hold our balance now the world is upside down. Snow settles on the pines again. |
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simple movement, into, blessed, pressed hip to hip, gift the slight curve of christrnas (stares at me, chocolate on the tongue. simple movement of Will across Time, I open before you like a field
you say, & fill me with your mouth. |
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the organism comes at last to consider the known: prefigured, wife or husband, way the river wends, scale of sky's grey, the language "I had this dream & they were screaming" the implicate
demanding him——identify her exactly where it crosses from fallacy into. Tree of Jesse, Tree of Life, Rood
source of the Whole Thing, snowballing into entity, a subject whose time itself can be injured. Face of a man's beloved encountering the Tree. you would feel his kiss there it hurts
without him what I cannot do without,
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WEB |
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Evoke nothing
September gossamer, real text from her eyes as we finish
along that strand in the mail "nothing" that is "for you" (the spider
a letter comes it is fog it is morning
she is not sad, really: there are words
along the strand (had the moon stayed up
to a spider long gone since morning might seem a sort of imago lunae (what does she think of
as I go limp, Fall
at the passing trees. |
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In the analysis of wetness forgotten was who I was beside, like moon, traveled with me down & back. Flowing, stable, crisp blue-brown wetness. Ganges. Hudson. Dry ashes scattered land in the hell of city &, wet, flow up through the interface into the vault. A star is a wet ash. A speck of dust, someone we know together, invades your eye. A tear. A star. Wet ashes by the river under the vault of heaven. |
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I wish I could tell you it was the late night confession, the narrow room, old movie, my finger on your cheek. The taste of your tears, whatever I told you, whatever you held back: I wish it were your luscious silence, an owl crossing the moon, an old woman's prayer in a Leningrad church for her lost son, for his lost mother. The snow refusing to melt, the boredom of classes, the drive to work, the ache in the groin, the loneliness of beauty: I wish it was what you think of me when I am old, what you remember of our earlier life. Angels on the lawn, winter's last repulsive twitch, I wish it was the risk or thrill, the clear drop of anticipation that gathers at my tip & stops, the lack of time, the fear. I wish it were those eyes, excited nipples, the darkness, longing to be held without rage. I wish it was anything we ever said I wish we meant. |
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"In sunny Mexico full moon without you I am in the golden lazy land with money, I walk in water small creatures swim up & remind me." March wind, here. Jesus tells Nicodemus: that is my desire abroad in day, to know the sounds of the earth for whispers, love it is otherwise cold without. I do not know the tongue of the New World Spaniards. I have heard that everywhere you walk a garden is, I have heard everywhere you are, a man suggests tequila, margarita. the golden haired mother of god to touch & be so blessed their filthy hands reach out. They are only men, only far away. Her lips are here, the mother of God, waiting for you. |
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Some risks must be worth it. Driving fast through rain, more attentive to returning geese overhead or the mother at the bus stop saving her child than conditions, whatever passes. Can drive & kiss if the lips are right
In Spring there must be some struggle you cannot hear——the tulip shoots push through. Youth spent in that kiss, the mouth sore, petals must be tender to be beauty. The rushing season is a risk. Wherever the bulb is planted there is danger. Whenever you kiss him he closes his eyes. |
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MARCH DEBACLE |
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I can almost hear ice albedo, the sun skips upon the shell floes, frazil disks, unencumbered, break free— the shore accepts a hundred days without you, now the river begins to move. Heat rising, salt in the heart, platelets up my stream. The air takes it away at first by degrees. How warm you are huge heaves cast upon the brown banks dry crackle, dark crunch, fish, whistle of a mountain train south, water circles
to go north.) The spring debacle: you arrive & everything about me flows. |
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NOW |
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What will you give me in March? Lascivious summer foods held in your palm July's blackberries purple juice we are talking about the future. What do you give me now? if the snow lasts forever, if our losses stay lost, our trespasses unforgiven? Now is just a prick, blood from the winter rose thorn running down to the tip, pink now in milky white. |
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in a long black coat against the virgin snow you write by standing in the center of that field, away from me. |
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EVERYTHING IS CALM AGAIN |
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Do I think of you, blue grey heron waited for me every day at water's edge? Grey water, the bird the needed touch of blue, some different life in that, not bound to an ecology. Maybe I noticed he was gone & then found you. That grey stream, the quiet fish between its banks, morning mist rising, rotting logs. The still heron perched, perks at the smell of fish, his beak breaks through the water's membrane. |
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Sometimes it returns to where we think it's been: our common sadness in a trunk unlocked, no real kiss, no key. We make a family of everything, & leave that, too, & say "I have one, & need no more." We leave it, certain of return. Yet what if some day we come back, look into our eyes, & it is gone? Let me lock you with my key. |
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"Wherever you want to go," like I was her horse. "Take me." The blue light in the room coming from her beautiful eyes. "Sure," I think I said. "Spring. Summer. July. Wherever." I felt the blue light ftom behind her eyes begin to penetrate my own, like a focused beam or something. Then—I don’t know how to say this—then, even though I’m pretty sure we still had all our clothes on—I think—I really don’t know how to describe this— I felt myself entefing her. But not like anything I ever felt before—it was like I was becoming a part of her. That’s not exactly it. I could feel myself coming—but it was really more like I felt her coming. I mean, somehow I felt the way she would, being entered by me, as if the fluid that was flowing out of me were spurting into me, I felt my own throbbing, but from the outside. And it seemed to last forever. She was staring at me. The light penetrated my eyes like I was a virgin, an enormous straight blue ray kept insisting and pushing, stretching and spreading, ramming and coaxing, pulling back then charging again, until at last my own eyelids relaxed, my own eyes opened fully, the ray from her eyes got all the way in. My mind was filled with words, all kinds of them. The blue that had entered was spending itself all over me, the words, the time, I’d waited so long for were now pouring through me. Then the blue dissolved to a limp sky grey. "How odd " I said to her matter-of-factly, like this was only some mildly curious sort of event. "What?" she asked. "Ecstasy. Enstasy. Out of body, astral projection, all that. Whatever you want to call what just happened." "Oh, that," she smiled. God her lips were luscious. "That’s just how we get there. That is the Way." "You bet," I cracked. "Way where?" "Summer. July. Wherever." She closed her eyes, and put her face directly above mine. I looked straight up. A golden silk parachute, the drone of the propellers fading away. Forever. |
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TANGERINE |
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"What is wonderful about tangerines is how the thin rind falls away with so little effort when they are ripe." What were they getting at, small romance in the Grand Union, a cart for disguise, winter-coated hips playing incognito? I think I know. You talked of a crystal you could touch & thereby cleanse. You & I can place our hands upon it, the transparent skin will peel away, we can taste the juice of what we mean. |
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I COME TO A DOOR |
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About the heart. Blue star, such eyes, wisdom always comes seeking such signs. I am not wise, or am no king, or I have heard of you, & follow. |
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horizontally between the skyscrapers, between her thighs, its light turning that space to gold. ..want?" she asked again. "W—. Words," I stammered, figuring without those I didn’t have a prayer. "A prayer? Is that all you hunger for? That’s like asking for something to ask with. You have a prayer," she scolded gently, "else you wouldn’t be here." The room had somehow become ordinary: just a honky-tonk kitchen, with stainless steel sinks and grill, some hardwood prep tables, knives, pots, refrigerator ... I felt like a fool. "What do you got?" I repeated. "Silly." She smiled as she slyly began to remove the flour and dough and breadpans from the long table in front of her. "Where are you heading?" "S.," I said. "On my way to S." "Aren’t you all. You’re here in A., and that’s almost there. So what’s the rush?" "No rush," I said. "Got anything to eat?" "I asked you before, Mister," she scowled like an impatient waitress. "All you got to do is tell me what you—" "want," I finished. "Nothing, I guess. Nothing at all." She began to laugh hysterically, as if I had just said the funniest thing on earth. But even though I was embarrassed, she wasn’t laughing at me. I began to laugh too. We laughed until the light in the room got weird again. Kind of blue, I thought, kind of blue. Like jazz. During all this laughter I felt my body beginning to— this is real strange, but it’s really what it seemed like— to levitate. My head began to fall backward, and my feet left the floor as my legs straightened out horizontally. Like in a magic show. I wasn’t doing it. I don’t know if she was. All I know is, she must’ve thought it was for real, because she climbed right up on me, like I was a table or a bed or something. She sat on my lap, facing me. She straddled me, her hands on my shoulders, and looked straight at me. |
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That useless stretch before Spring, where the snow is a slick brown, the sparrows are hungry. A place called A. I stopped and got out. It wasn’t like the other towns along the way. The snow was music, and the birds seemed full. A hawk on the tall black walnut? Crows, starlings, no color to it yet. Maples, elms. Mutts. Lot of cars for such a small town—looked like everyone worked in the canning factory just as you came into town. Mostly American... Chevrolets, Fords. Not much Chrysler, except for trucks, The OK used car lot wasn’t too far from All Right Canning, so you could sell them a car on their way home from work. What was that this time of year? Watermelon rind? Peas? Soybeans? Didn’t matter—whatever was left over from last summer now in the hopper, mixed with the smell of the bread from the bakery or bread truck somewhere further down. White bread. Holsum. Everywhere. Probably even sell Holsum over at the post office. A few people on the street. White-haired men standing outside the feed store; their better halves were going out of or into the A. Grocery and Dry Goods store. Food seemed like something to do around here. I asked a man in a Cardinal hat where I could find the best meal in town. A place called Maggie’s, he said. A girl so pretty, he said, all you had to do was go in when she was there and you’d want to stay in A forever. Chuckled: went in there once eighty some years ago, he said. Look at me now. I thanked him, and headed straight over, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay anywhere that long. Probably an easy place to find, if you lived around here. A shy little place, set back from the street. Hidden by pines. I wouldn’t have known it was the right place, only there was a sign above the door. Maggie’s. And an old-fashioned prop airplane above an open parachute on a three-foot bright orange disk. Like a Flying A or a Gulf sign. Orange is a big color in towns like this. Nothing about the sign said it was a place to eat, except it couldn’t be anything else. A parachute factory, maybe. it didn’t matter what it meant. I was hungry. I went in. |
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Or so I thought. Without turning around to look at me, she asked, "What can I get you?" I wondered what kind of place it was where you had to go into the kitchen to order, and why the old man in the hat told me I’d want to stay forever. Seemed pretty strange to me, a little spooky, even. But her laughter or her crying or whatever was so soft and lovely I couldn’t find it in me to get annoyed with the service. "What d’you got?" I said, forgetting the paper plate menu out front. She turned around. I wished she hadn’t. She was so beautiful, I could only think, "Forever." Dark blonde hair, mysterious grey eyes, full lips you’d want to kiss forever. Smooth young body, lissome arms. She was laughing as she spoke. "I can give you just about anything. You’re my only customer at the moment, so I’ve got lots of time." I couldn’t take my eyes off her. "Seems like it. I was sitting out there quite a while." I turned and pointed to where I thought the swinging doors were, but they were gone. I didn’t care. "What were you doing out there?" she asked me like I was some kind of fool for sitting down in a restaurant with no customers. "It doesn’t matter. You’re here now, that’s the important thing. This is where I prepare, and where I serve. Tell me what you want." I don’t know why, but I couldn’t answer. I tried to look around. The pink light that filled the room was growing whiter, stronger, so she was now lit from behind by this intense glow that was getting smaller and even brighter. As the ball of light behind her got more dense, the outline of her body became sharper, so that even though she was wearing a dark red dress, I could see her true figure, as if in some skylit, city morning loft, after a night of making love, she had gotten up early and walked naked over to the tall bright windows, looked down upon the lines of early yellow taxicabs, turned around, and was heading back to bed, the brilliant disk of the ris- |
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Plenty of tables, plenty of light. No customers, no help. The menu was written on some paper plates thumbtacked to the back wall. Meat Loaf. Coffee. Everything else. Coke in the real bottles, with the bottling town on the bottom. Slightly greasy air, a little smoke—pipe, not cigarette or grill, maybe from as long ago as yesterday. A formica counter, of course, and the usual flip-page jukebox selectors along the walls and counter. One small table with two chairs in the center of the room. In the back, I figured the pair of swinging doors with porthole windows led to the kitchen. If this was someplace to end up forever, they’re not going to have to worry about counter space in Eternity. I sat down at the table in the center—to sit at one of the wall tables or at the counter would have been to make another kind of statement, and I didn’t know who I was talking to. For what seemed like the rest of winter, no one came in—either through the front door, or from the kitchen. If it hadn’t been for the Maggie’s outside and the bottle of ketchup growing from the center of the checked tablecloth, I could have convinced myself I was in the wrong kind of place. I wasn’t going to wait forever. I got up, sauntered coolly over to the swinging doors, and looked through the porthole window to see if anyone was back there. Maybe they didn’t know they had a customer. Maybe they didn’t care. Nothing but the reflection of the table and chairs in the dark glass. Even my own reflection was lost in that hole. I pushed on the doors. They swung open freely. I expected to enter a dark room, but instead, the room was bathed in a bright pink glow. A girl of sixteen or seventeen was standing in the center, laughing or crying softly to herself. She didn’t notice me. |
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