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Odor of
oranges
frankincense
and cool
rained-through
night air
I mix myself
a cocktail
of equal
parts Dutch
Passion
Space Jill
and Blue
Dream
I sit
outside observing
Venus and
her court
skateboarding
through
moon-lit
clouds
after
seventy years
what can I
tell you
we’re still
mostly
afraid of
one another
call it
suicide or murder
I wonder
when we
have
devoured the world
will we have
learned how
to get on
without it
Roofless window
frames
without glass
the whole
fourth
wall missing
never built
on a
hillside
somewhere
in Baja I
remember
your views
the drive
to Ravenna
was like
your spring
look
abandoned
projects
in the east
so much
space
but in the
west
only time
Where
there’s smoke
there’s a
person
often a
person on fire
who has
transferred
his burning
to another
thing or
person
or else it’s
lightning
that
enkindles the earth
to start
again from scratch
and the
smoke only follows
what’s too
late to save us
often ourselves
on fire
think of love
as the smoke
of fear
burning think
of a person
learning
I set a trap
for God
like the one
he set for me
I will catch
a God
and set him free
though he
won’t do
the same for
me
he will drag
me
to his lair
and
strip me
bare
and ravish
me
and when he’s
done leave
me
to myself
again
despairing
he
won’t come
again
Sometimes my
angel
takes me for
a walk
the rope of
reason
is tenuous
at best
he thinks I’ll
grovel
at his feet
because
he feeds me
I’ll be
loyal
truthful meek
and loving
meat
but then he
kneels
and nuzzles
me
his heart is warm
and sweet my
own
flares up and
burns
something
passes
between us
that almost
feels
complete
Angels exist
simply
because
they’re
needed
who doesn’t
need
one
stumbling
along behind
holding the
tightest
leash it can
who doesn’t
need
restraining
indoor
training
of the
outdoor mind
to feel at
times
a god
accompanies you
wild
thing
Some things
I just have to
walk away
from like craters
in the earth no getting over
or around
turn and return
not the way
I came to find
where I went
right instead
of left
slowly in my mind
to where it
all unraveled
as if it
were that simple
I feel the
habits of centuries
drag me
further into the ditch
I forget for
a while when all
is said and
said and done
it’s joy in
the end that wins
Yes a fat
gray cloud
is sitting
on the face
of the sun
it looks
like a man
pleading
with his cat
projected
onto the
screen of the sky
above some
of these trees
who want to
be churches
again but
when you
got to visit
where
the great
thing happened
there’s
nothing there
anymore but
the tomb
of its
disappearance
not even a
shirt he wore
or a piece
of his hair
To be as
small as a Verdin
in this
world a bird as tiny
as a mouse with
wings the
very trope
of insecurity
and fear
always glancing
from side to
side to stay alive
but to have
a beautiful
yellow face
and solitary
habits and
to own just
a few notes seldom
heard
in the great music of the
sky
I hear the
sound
I feel the
warmth
I see the
world
I taste the
moon
I smell the
earth
I move in movement
I say the
word
I balance my
body
I sense the
truth
I grow and
decay
I love
someone else
I touch the
beginning
I dreamed I
drove far north to see
the aurora
borealis for myself
to put my
hands in the wounds
so to speak
and feel some natural
jolt of ECT
lifting memory from
my shoulders
for a while
and pushing
out the sadness
perception
accumulates so
I could see
the true glory
behind the
world dancing
with itself
but I got lost
in one of
those bars in one
of those
snow-bound northern
towns and
woke still sober
here in my
desert home
Like an expert
tailor measuring
poking and
pinning as if
for a whole
new suit of clothes
all day the
wind molested
the house
testing and probing
imagine that
is the holy ghost
accosting
your soul rattling
your cage of
flesh with fingers
of wind spun
round the world
how many
times only to place
at your door
a swept silence
a few leaves
and empty envelope
addressed to
someone who
doesn’t live
here anymore
I like to
sit outside
my house at
night
and wonder
who
lives there
I mean
I try to
look straight in
through the
windows
at myself
without
being
terrified
for as long
as
Christ is
with me
it’s not
that I
don’t love
myself
it’s just I
love
you more
Dear Joe
Dear Ben
I’m sending
you symbolic
Hawaiian
shirts
to wear in
heaven
on the hot plains
and hats and
scarves
for the
draughty hallways
of the
winter passage
those subterranean
mountains
can be fiery
but cold
and the
zephyr of the soul
stops at
midnight steaming
in the
middle of nowhere
for who
knows how long
no cure but
to endure
If I show
you my naked garden
will you
show me yours
it’s not all
about the flowers
you know but
the integrity
of the
movement of a form
how it rose
furrowed
and then lay
back down
meanwhile it
embraces you
and would
take you with it
into a life
of pure and
impure
passion if you let it
yes do it I
say at the end
of every
summer but always
it turns and
looks at me
as if looks
could kill
Out of all
the people
I really
wanted to fuck
or I really
wanted to fuck me
there was
you
the one the
least
likely to
detect
my retreat
as reason
to follow
actually
sex is not
that
complicated
to begin
with
but what
else
would we do
with these
bodies
and their
stubborn
ideas about
love
They say
change is in the air
but then
everybody knows that
he’s always
lurking around
some rainbow
that isn’t even
a rainbow
putting on some pose
singing some
soft number
but when
will the real change
show up not
the ruse or the lure
the pimp or
the altered state
every
night I hurl my body
up onto the
shore of the bed
with the
final waves
from the
shipwreck
castaway
again
I think the
four seasons
are like the
petroglyphs
left by an
ancient star people
or the
imprint and the after-effect
of the
breathing of a great
interplanetary
being
the intimate
embrace
of warmth
and light
across the
universal circle
and every
year the little grape
of the earth
with the sweetness
that gathers
on its surface in the fall
is lifted to
the mouth of that god
and chewed
and swallowed
and the seed
spat out again
into the
waiting sod that got
this whole
thing started
The first
half
of the life
of the earth
as in the
individual
life of its
creatures
was a long
slow process
of
densification
and
accumulation
which now in
our time
as in the
middle
of a dark woods
turns and
goes
the other
way
toward purer
and
purer
etherization
and
everything
begins the
long
slow
unraveling
return to
light
I can’t wait
Not so much
crumbled
as having
had a great fall
I ate the
broken fortunes
of my cookie
pieces:
a wacky
invention
will lead to
your success
a tacky
connection
will lead to
your excess
a flaky
inflection
will lead to
your distress
a cakey
confection
will lead
you to confess
an inner
conflagration
will lead
you to undress
Breath me
in
world-breathe
into the
darkest
depths of
myself
carrying
your light
then out
again
after a
silent pause
to the
farthest heights
past the
starry night
how much
more darkness
there seems
than light
out where
the senses
roam and
disappear
out there
you
in here you
I see there’s
nothing more
The son
brings
the father
back
from the
dead
he proves
the father
never died
at all
but was made
to seem dead
and maybe
for a while
death seemed
real and
final
until the
son
proved
otherwise
and broke
the spell
In a place
unsafe
to pigeons
so only the
smaller
birds can
enter
to drink
their
tea of
orange
and
pomegranate
leaves in
winter
out of the
wind
but still in
sunlight
a pocket or
small
grotto with
its
grail of
water
waiting
equally
for a Buddha
or a few
small
brown birds
When we
remember
that everything
is light
or derives
from light
even the
darkness
is an
offspring
though it
cannot
comprehend
it
still the
light
thinks us
and
time to time
carries us
out
in waves
of thoughts
to the far
stars
where
somehow
we are made
useful to
love
and sent back
again
the light just
keeps
working and working
to get us
right
Believing
oneself
beautiful and
special
feels like
believing
in some
far-out religion
mustn’t you
forget
what you
came for
when you get
there
the rose
light
on the
stucco wall was
and wasn’t
you
strange how
no one seems to notice
this is a
life-raft we’re on
the fog rolling
in
occasionally
I caught
a glimpse of
myself
moving
against the trees
Walking on
snail shells
what can’t
be said
trying to
light a candle
when all the
wicks are bad
you have one
old message
or is it you
are one old message
to listen
press delete
there’s
something about green
and purple
hooking up
you know won’t
last
imagine each
man is a line
and the
lines are running together
then some
break off
while others
pick up speed
gathering
and loosening
complete
thoughts as they scatter
Let’s leave
all the lights up
on the
houses this year
you never
know when Christmas
might strike
again
the gifts
wear out anyway by July
right on
time for the Christ-
Child’s
second birthday
just this
morning a single
blue morning
glory bloomed
in an inside
pot
in an
improbable blond light
you know its
life’s a solitary day
so I sat up
with it till it was gone
folded like
a prayer
At that
perfect age where
everything
is for the last time
long enough
to have understood
my childhood
its embarrassments
as necessary
groundwork
for those of
my adult decades
it all seems
so simple now
how could I
have been so clueless
as at the
last page of a good mystery
everything
slips back into sense
even if the
plot was forced a bit
by the
introduction at the end
of several
other possible outcomes
for the
culprit and his victims
The proof of
the poem
is that you
want to be that poet
you want to
have said that
having
thought it already
but without
taking the time
to notice
every curlicue
or
substantive correction
of direction
we’re talking
getting
turned around
a dizziness and
loss of balance
momentary
but profound
as in
dancing or moving
at a great
speed or at
a great
height off the ground
It isn’t
that we’re all really evil
but that
evil comes into the world
through us
through all of us
all the time
so let’s start there
with a clear
sense
of our
unique smallness
with a universal
potential
for the most
heinous acts
under the
most beautiful sun
talking the
talk of the nameless
who suffer
in our name
and let us
finally understand
what evil
really brings
the freedom
to love or not
Imagine if
three
rich old men
showed up
at your door
one
Tuesday or
Wednesday
morning with
real not
symbolic gifts
like you
were
the Dalai
Lama
or the Jesus
boy
the
reincarnation
of
Zarathustra
bowing to
you
with deep
reverence
and telling
you yes
you must save the world
When I
raised my hands in the air
two yellow
leaves fell from the tree
I was facing
my whole life
in those day
slavery had already
been
civilized into Edwardian
consumerism
and Neo-Platonism
but one
still died under the lash
now of the
fear of death itself
I just
didn’t want to accept it
that human
beings would let
this happen
over and over
that the
older ones who knew
and could
say are silenced
with dementia
and money
while the
young forgivably
are too
close up to see
