The Apotheosis of A Pale Rose
is this blank morning’s
imaginary medieval text
a clever comedy from Langue.doc
with results both unavoidable
and sexual the translations
sold down through time
with less and less fragrant
connection to the new
singers arriving in the trees
as if the light were offered
from inside the chest this time
and not the rose as token
of the swallowed sun
imagination unrestrained
and memory undone.
Now that all
the debt collectors
are back at their desks
working the phones
and sunlight is waiting
for you in the yard
and they’re picking up
body parts in the rain
somewhere you’ll never go
and that same dog
who’s been barking for weeks
finally shuts up finally
uncomforted forlorn
you can work your way back
from the rose alone
to the purpose
of the rose
and the getting it
to grow.
The day you
first entered
your rejection
was windy
a spring was
in its step
awnings flashing
bursts of sunlight
bursts of malediction
leaves aren’t from
the same mind
as flowers even
the first rank of
petals is already
brown while the
newest at the center
pink edged with red
overflow spicy perfume
only in thinking
can we reach
something before
it reaches us.
Birds own their mistakes
I’ve seen them lead
to strength and rigor
mortis a mistake’s when
one’s love’s refused
turned back on
itself the window
approached at great
speeds body sound
hitting cement
emitted by longing
afterwards when
time returns
knowing how much
you’ll need it.
Love’s simply
a deeper experience
inside experience
the saturation of
your attention with
its estuary
grassy alert
deep green
you pull and
pull against
as if suffering
always has to be for
something
as if even this
wouldn’t kill it
it would be restored.
No kissing no hugging
no hands below the table
no touching one another
no gum allowed
sit facing one another
speak only to the one
you’ve registered for
any violation of these
rules will result in the
immediate termination
of visit and may include
serious repercussions
for all involved.
I have not made
the inside look like
the outside
the outside look like
the inside just so
they’d blend into
one large room
in the mind
faithful to mindlessness
a little altar to absence
spring fills in
what thoughts
are worthy of a mind
can there be more
of you?
It’s like a god
is gloating down
on this geranium
but no one warned me
when I first came here
about the orange
blossom scent
in the night air
sirens and satyrs
sniffing around beauty
the bees come sticky
and go home drunk
while the mockingbirds
are eating my tomatoes
I’m lashed to my chair
until we sail past
this too-sweet world.
This morning is mine
but who do I mean
who wouldn’t want
to return to that
ream of the line
as hovers above water
prepared to go deeply
out into the deep
they don’t want to leave
us alone the gods
keep their thoughts
uppermost in our minds
fighting it out
one side for love one not
feel how the flags abandoned
by another world
are whipped
where hearing
is braver.
He’s writing a fiction
called Anyway, Your Honor
about a defendant who
hypnotizes a judge
and a whole courtroom
of lawyers and thieves
not with any deceit
but the pure trauma
of the story he tells them
and the history of this
story down through
the space of a life
a diorama of their
passions they could
recognize and own
and so relinquish
and forgive him.
I was just calling to say
I won’t be coming
to dinner last night
I forget what cities
I chased through
on automatic before
I realized I was tired
the world is ravaged
but I am only merely
disappointed in the plot
life takes two
hours to tell you
what should only be
a sweet ride
on that canal again.
Empty for years
your father’s vase
still on the desk
blue-legged trees
over snowy fields
dirty brown hills
his neck is perfect
a headless legless
beer belly beauty
wearing a blue shirt
and tan pants
is our failure that
farmhouse behind
raining clouds
a creek in thaw
or the holy nothing
which it holds?
Pulling the blooming
mustard out
from the moist
loam you put
your hand in
that last moment
crumbly sweet-
smelling before you
disappear
completely
what came first
nothing or eternity
the blood pouring
out for which it
shapes its own
pale grail
or each morning
cautiously
contained?
Finally having tidied
up the yard a little
the goddess can put
her fat ass down
in a firm chair
for a few moments maybe
that 1.2 milliseconds
we lose everyday building
the Andes as some measure
of our moral rigor
and how far it reaches which
nature can’t help reflect
stricter economics all
things being equal actually
with the right to say so which
only the spirit can import itself.
In a field where numbers
trump any kind of intuition
yet when she folds her
arms in tightly to her body
she spins faster and when
you remove the load
the land springs up farther
and farther away from
the center of the earth
everybody knows someone
who died in the rubble
the little shore creatures
in states of decomposing
he saw the sea can’t fall
so the shore must rise
finding fossils on limestone
mountain-tops built up
slowly from sea floors.
Commiserating with him
over the penalty imposed
as his own self-imposed penalty
really underwhelms the killer whale
eating its own trainer
one of the sweetest
girls you could ever meet
she knew her from high school
knew it was all
she ever wanted to do
look at this he smiled
and waved pointing at
the huge flowers in our
own yard as if that too
could never happen.
Into this cold landscape
the various plants are of course
sleeping but in the warm
sun they wake up early and
immediately start their
breeding-burning they love
the rhythm of the
swaying-dancing and
work hard to resemble
wave after wave
of that leftover
beauty pushed through
them like a sieve
into our own much
thicker world.
Under the ficus tree
some leaves sour
some leaves green
with my coffee cup
balanced on the lip
of the big blue pot it’s in
watching the sun
dry the ink into
these spaces as I try
to write them down
on the cold palm of
your hand my name
you would otherwise
poor turtle already
have forgotten.
A poem is like a scale
an ache an instrument
that plays a day by day
kind of gig by which
to mix and match
the tears of things
and to replace the
outside seen as in
a painting of the
inside among those
who lack the insight
the memory according
to those who lack the
love the learning and
to repeat the zodiac’s
reach each animal
contributing its
consonantal best
each planetary god
its moody vowel
everything in all
at once and rest
and up and down
the tortured scale.
If we think backwards
from these things to
the beauties whose
thoughts they are
not using our brains
but feeling our way
along the walls
the empty spaces
where open windows
could replace
the soul world
would we come to
the last movement
of light where
it stands ready
to destroy us
or begin again?
We thought we could
hide behind the
lantana maybe
we dead to you
invisible ones
watching the ripening
go on and on
behind the green
lantana never without
flowers mineral
umbels pink-yellow
black seeds
we thought
you would go on
without us or else
flood-engulf us
with your love
O ye gods
and so we ran.
