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The pain
churns on
under the
drugged sleep
of matter
devouring matter
while the
spirit holds
your hand
your head
is this the
raft you lashed
together the
patchwork
sails are
starting to unravel
into the ocean of
pain
gently
rocked
you’re sinking
hold on to
the sun
let its swaying
guide you
down
Who is that
funny guy
the one with
no neck
you catch on
TV
what’s his
name
he said he
wasn’t
coming back
next week
having been
a comedian
all his life
he was prepared
to be found
dead
of an
accidental
overdose he said
he had
despaired
of any sense
ever entering
the human
head
The Verdin’s
in
the
hollyhocks again
an essay on
chirping
and
the possession of
life the
joyfulness
of song
which can be
turned into a defense
didn’t
nature change
the gods who
made it
but you have overcome
the world and now we
must
overcome the gods
of
both worlds for love
for pity of
a Verdin
A frantic Verdin
chirping so loudly
for
one so small
flying from
branch
to branch
landing
vertically
once
on the
opposite wall
running up
and
down the
tall holly-
hocks
inspecting each
unopened
flower bud
loud
chirping throughout
setting off
a large
wheelbarrow of sparrows
like a
window
slamming
shut
followed by
louder
screaming
and
Loudly I
sneezed
and the cat
dozing
at my feet
jumped up
and bit
my ankle
he just
wrapped
his two
front paws
around my
ankle and
bit it
lightly
lovingly
and ran off
he’s still
sleeping
over there
as far away
from me
as he can
get
and not
leave home
I was a
teenage asshole once
in the robes
of a gnostic monk
I had a
parcel of pencils
up my ass
and a smile
to go to as
my go-to pile
of shit
accumulated
I too had
had enough
before there
was ever enough
I tried hard
not to be
so hard on
myself
but I didn’t
want to
work that
hard
so I settled
for the sun
some stars your
arms
Bodies come
in colors because
humanity is
really only
one huge
rainbow though
ages ago the
green and blue
passed over
into the ether flow
our blue ice
body in the sky
and then our
warm green
plant-like
consciousness
where each
color dominates
for a
certain time every day
for which
the body is an anchor
the one
holding the string
while high
above the kite
of the soul
breaks free
noticed
aloft hours later
by a tiny
girl in Kansas
tiny if you’re
looking from above
heading
toward the sea
I rinse my
wrinkled feet
in the
stream of morning dew
and dry them
with the first
rays of the
sun immediate
childhood
memories are involved
running and
getting caught
so it’s a
good thing I’m alone
unobserved
in my own backyard
wandering
through the new grass
remembering
being pursued
by my mother
laughing and her
falling down
my sister crying
thinking she
was hurt
the three of
us like me now
rolling with
laughter in the grass
I think the
moon is really a prism
a rainbow in
slow motion
moving each
month
into a
different color ocean
like a
warning light
in a distant
harbor
the last
before the abyss
flashing on
and off
but hope is
a hummingbird
flying out
to the abyss
and back
with yes yes
it’s still
there but you’ll
need wings
quicker
than mine to
cross
In his final
symphony
he explained
how a tiny helicopter
would land
in the string section
against a
background of French
and English
horns oboes flutes
but in the
distance like water colors
echoes of
Mahler and Miles
while a tiny
conductor would emerge
from the
whirling thing
ascend the
podium
with the
score of Appalachian Spring
tucked under
his arm instead of a baton
beginning to
lift now to another
midnight
chorus another
four and
five in the morning
another
night ending in song
His first
great unpublished work
was Cross-Contamination:
Selected Everyday Poems
followed shortly
thereafter
by Alphabet of Graves – A Ghazal
of Greece and Brooklyn
but no one
remembers him at all
how in his
youth he led
a joyful
dissolute life by night
fleeing from
city to city
while by day
he labored steadily
as a
scientist of the imagination
now who
knows where his collection
of small
stones from around
the world
has come to rest
or the notes
that hold the plan
for how to
assemble them
into a new
and livable hut
After the strange
robbery
the house
felt haunted
every room
like someone
had just
been there
before I
walked in
a crazy
feeling at times
of being
watched when alone
inside my
own home
I was living
with
an invisible
thief
I was living
under surveillance
I kept
thinking
eventually he’ll have to
show up
again and get
caught
ghosts always
want to get
caught
A small
glass jar
filled with
change
thirty to
forty dollars
was taken
from
my night
table
sometime
during
the past few
days
though both
doors
are always
locked
even when I’m
here
it appears
to be
the only
thing taken
I had no
visitors
except my
friend
who would
never
do such a
thing
unless he’s
trying
to drive me
crazy
very
unlikely when
he knows I
have
forty more
ink cartridges
to use up
before I die
Matter is
sadness mixed
with a deep
longing and
a dry talent
for dooms-
day
formulations
a heaviness
in the room
the
sensation of being
weighted
down like a balloon
or like a
baboon in a zoo
then a full
green moon arose
I must say
majestically
robed in her
usual attire
of mixed
choiring clouds
and the
white heat of the sun’s fire
that the
moon can still move us
after all
we’ve been through together
and all we
have still to inspire
You can see
these plants
are loved
the way
an animal is
loved
the way
anyone
would want
to be
loved even
when
we try to
make it
about
something else
the graves
in the starlight
the waves in
the sunlight
did you have
any idea
how much you
were loved
and how old when you
realized
nothing at
all could exist
that had not
first been kissed
I used to
sneak out behind
the dark
trees and the boulders
to have a smoke
and watch
the sun
begin his long
haul up the
mountain
it sweetens
the poison
to get away
with it
but I was
young and stupid then
now I am old
and a half-
note less so
but when
I think how
far love
still has to
go to penetrate
down into
the earth
and up into
the crowded
assemblages
of the dead
with their
accompanying angels
I tremble
for the mountain
when the sun
turns it red
While we’re
waiting to die
why not try
to get something done
I mean we
have the afternoon
and a few
days after you return
a lot of
which won’t be fun
but now that
death is stripped of its egotism
even the
sadness of physical absence dissolves
and we can
function in both worlds comfortably
and
recognize the earth as a factory of the gods
safely
tucked away on the outskirts
of a
post-industrialist heaven
and why
shouldn’t we
haven’t we
worked hard enough
through
science and myth
through
religion and art
to face the
truth of the truth
He likes to
wrap himself
around my
ankles
to prevent
me
from getting
up out of bed
he curls and
whispers
it really
isn’t worth it
no one will
mind your
inexplicable
absence
lie back here
and hold me
tell me what
you were dreaming
with such a
smile on your face
I can’t
sleep for the pleasure
of watching
you sleep
I feel like
a spy
on the
subway of love
stalked by a
private eye
That the
earth has always been a virgin
we ourselves
leaving innocence behind
constant hunter-gatherers
of happiness
that the
earth has always been radiant
favorite of
the sun doted on by the moon
that the
earth’s grandfather was courage
and her
grandmother the tiniest thing
that before
the earth was this earth
it was just
a ruddy flower
at the edge
of a precarious whim
that after
the earth is this earth
it will all
turn inside out
the light
will be everywhere
so nothing
will be hidden
it will
happen all of a sudden
In the
monastery of old age
where one is
cloistered hard
by blindness
and stiff rage
in the
monastery of the mind
where one
remains celibate
to all but
one idea
in the
monastery of embrace
where one
returns to the medieval
sources of
harmony and order
in the
garden of the monkish mind
locked away
as we are in the skull
of each
individual cell
even after
all the dark woods
we’ve been
through there’s still
something
inviolate about humankind
Years ago a
mayfly fluttered
lighting on
my knee
emerald
green wings holding
a tiny green
person prisoner
between them
staring at me
I remained
immobile silent
as it began
to sing strangely
a kind of
hip-hop symphony
avant le lettre
I swear
I had no
idea what it meant
and told no
one for years
who would
believe it anyway
that to me a
white man in a monastery
with
absolutely no musical talent
the spirit
of rap appeared in 1963
In the night
garden
voices grow
long
shadow
flowers
the wind won’t
let stay in
one
place tossed
about the
dark
yard carried
along
in the night
garden
I gathered a
harvest
of light
years still
smelling
like carrots
just pulled
from the ground
remember
when you dangled
a bunch of
them between my legs
just as the
picture was snapped
In thinking
itself we have a bridge
back to the
true spiritual world
from which
thinking has estranged us
now we can
think our own thoughts
once we’ve
learned to think
not emotions
posing as thoughts
not
perceptions or opinions
but a thinking
that penetrates
to a full
awareness of itself
as an
intensely spiritual experience
and
conversation with all
that
surrounds and contains us
which is
always present
and from
which we no longer
need to
exclude ourselves
if we would
be intimate with gods again
Things I
would change
about myself
next time
do not
include you in fact
you’re the
only part of me
I wouldn’t
rearrange without
hesitation no
I’m thinking more
about not
being courageous enough
not calling
me on my bluff
we all
maintain a certain persona
behind which
the real self
beats like a
prisoner on the glass
I would change
the terms
of my agreement
with Mephisto
let him
serve here the power of love
and we will serve
him forever after
In the west
of my mind
I live in
fear of forgetting
the most
important thing
while in the
east I have
compassion
for my forgetting
in the south
I remember
you have no
idea how much
but keep
going until the islands
avoiding the
north side of my brain
with its
penchant for snowy nights
whirling in
every direction
thus am I
drawn and quartered
to the
heights and to the depths
trying to
fit this square world
into this
soft round head
We headed
north to catch
spring come to the mountains
following
the dark hull of a great
thundercloud
always just ahead
climbing
like a rollercoaster
to get to
the high mesas
but when we
looked around
by then the
sky had cleared
and vast
empty forested hills
went on for
miles in all directions
we seemed to
be going back in time
and yet
everything had been replaced
where has
the mountain gone meanwhile
the mountain
of our memory
how long has
the wildness been gone
into the
wildness of memory
In my old
age
I imagine
myself
poking around
the yard
searching
for the
first crocus
imaginary
crocus
here in the
desert
while you in
the north
prolong your
blizzards
here the
great man-like cacti
put flowers
all over their heads
semaphoring spring
to one another
I have
traded the endless winters
of my
childhood for the long
hot summers
of my youth
years of
shame and joy
Things are
either black and white
good or bad
for some people
they forget
about all the colors
in between but
isn’t it medieval
not to say
adolescent to ignore
where most
of us live dreaming
while we’re
awake and trying
to wake up
in our dreams
for example
I dreamt Nietzsche
was the
reincarnated Judas Iscariot
because of
something deeply similar
in their pain
and sense of betrayal
each ushering
in a new age
one ready to
be the first martyr
the other
ready to be the last
When
thinking becomes unhinged
or has it
always been by degrees
what are the
signs and symptoms
by which we
can mark the disease
in progress in
world earth patient
perhaps
complicit in its own betrayal
it all
depends what meaning’s meant
I have in mind
an old portrayal
when virtue
was considered moral
what leeches
needles little green pill
will pull
the crazy notions from the soul
and prove
that thinking is our only tool
and that the
first healthy thought
must be
awareness of our own
crying need
for intervention
The method
of death
I had chosen
as we all
must chose
our poison
remained a
mystery
to me until
the end
I think I
chose life to kill me
or I made
certain
arrangements
with
unforeseeable
events
not to show
up as planned
in the end
the method
doesn’t really
matter
the point is
we come here to die
and only
learn why after
Even the
dead things
look better
rained on
the bare fields
richer
the empty
streets shinier
catching all
the lights
and always
that sense of relief
like
something being forgiven
a small
error or a great sin
depending on
the wind
and the
vindictiveness of the lightning
that what
has risen up to heaven
as a gift
has been turned back
creating a
certain sorrow
the earth
weeps with the rejection
those tears
its resurrection
After it
rained this morning
I detected a
hummingbird
had built a
nest in my head
I meant to
say tree
the one they
call chaste
while mine
decidedly
isn’t up for
it anymore
but the lost
custody of my eyes
everywhere
like rain
means I
haven’t lost all desire
nor given up
entirely on beauty
which must
bleed through
and that I
celebrate the idea
of a
hummingbird resting
in its nest
at the center of my brain
exactly the
way I celebrate you
Love is the
only word
in a
sentence that
can remain ambiguous
despite the
clarity
all around
it the clusters
of simpler
word-sounds
that
accompany a face
or hand that
word
the scientists
and scholars
have finally
abandoned as
unclassifiable
whose thousand
theories only prove
they don’t
really grasp it
the closest
they’ve come
is ‘joy in
life’ or as one
said feebly ‘light’