New Seasons

It is here,
the dear memory of spring
revived like Lazurus.
And life must summon
hope from the heat,
from the rain's reminder:
Keep breathing.

On summer nights,
of stifled thunder,
the air ignites with meteors,
with expectation.  You sleep.
You dream on balconies
naked, wrapped
in powdered sheets
that tug at your desire.

The sun comes--
curious enough--
to caress all of you,
the linen of your skin,
not yet torn
not yet opened.

But you remember
all of this, at least
a version
that turns on the loss
that costs you
everything
come Fall.

As summers go
in radiant succession
and elm and oak
and aspen grow
tired of their modesty,
an honest shrug
is all it takes
to denude
your father's stand.

Now,
shorn of color,
humbled by the snow
and barely breathing,
there are whispers.
All your secrets lay
beneath the poverty
of Winter.

Without Words

Before the body was made
latent, dishonest in its efforts
to be seen, touched, held...

Before the body became
a conspirator, a thief...

In those days,
before the barbarian tongue--
the hungry language--
distorted with tortured meanings,
and told the inadvertent lies
of a limited vocabulary,
I was the understudy
to my emotions, a tremulous mass.
The infantile urgency
of multiplying cells, the elegant
mitosis made of gold
or mercury, the silver skin
in wordless shivers
and soundless sobs.

What does the baby dream of?
There in his cage,
he wakes to a world
of watercolor blurs.
The vague feeling
of uncertainty, or loss,
or mere frustrated desire
will overwhelm him.

He is alone
and must get used to it.

Ash Wednesday

The dancing sands

of this vast desert

have found their way

inside.  Beneath
the salted slug

of this parched tongue,
there lies  the dust.
                                Some dried wafer,

some bitter pill,

is crumbling. 

There is no word

for this, no curl of lips

nor burst of air.  The wax

of your expression, the smile--
its arrogant silence--
is melting.

There is heat

in faith and zealotry,
a fire that has taken
all that is combustible
(and stolen
all of the oxygen 

out of the room).

What ruins are these

smoldering?  Perhaps 

some prayers are carried 

on the thinning evidence

of smoke.  And so...

This calloused thumb

would rub the sleep

from your third eye

or dry its tears with certainty,
the winter blindness.

The satisfaction spread

in marking meets 

the beauty extracted 

from a target by the aim.

The wild palms are apprehensive

when called upon to applaud.  

Lifelines and lovelines 

are untangled into maps 

that might lead nowhere.  That might

make for better incense 

than for shade.

Bedroom Eyes

There

it is the memory,

the vapor

before the eye:

you are leaving

the orgy, just as

I am coming

in.  You are

laughing after

slapping me

on my bare ass.

The question is

always the same

when we meet:

how much of this

friendship is friendship,

how much is frustrated

desire?

Plausibility

The husk of you

lies somewhere

under water or

cracking on the dry

sand, a relic, amphibian,

a fossil.  Warm for 

the museum, under glass,

seen though water,

locked in ice.  Honest 

curiosity fills the emptiness;

your dead eyes

see like chromium spheres

all of this.  You know.  You

have all the answers.

While here, you have left

only questions and slime

and the awful 

gift of

plausibility.

Monster

When all the ghouls of childhood
with glowing eyes around you stood
and terrified you in your bed
remember that your father said
of how God protects the very good.

the Drowning

you held
your breath
under water
glacial cold and threatening
mercy--blue,
trembling--
like these skins

of lake
and land
and air

this body,
this carefree (and handsome)
edifice remains unsteady
(if not precarious)
with hairline fractures
in once arrogant cement

You are both
dizzy and nervous,
under attack
from a handful of faults
and the tremors
who will worry you
out of your old costume--
some insurrection--
until naked they pull you,
(your shimmering scales)
from the stream

my lungs
are full
of you
one gulp
of green
river and

for a moment

I am invincible
gliding
inside
another planet's
atmosphere
I breathe
alien dreams

I am a fish
out of water
out of air
gasping...

if not me
then at least
my corpse will be
famous...

my face projected there
my faith corrupted here
and the whole
thing scattered
like legends
defending lies

what is the truth
of this accident:
heroic convenience,
or something more
sloppy, the toppling
of city blocks
by mere vibration
or the last breath
of an angry
(alienated)
god?

On Reading a Poem Called Giant Springs in a Montana Literary Journal from the 1980s

Giant Springs squandered

and shallow Summers spent

great Falls calling up

the tenuous Winters,

the cold that comes on.

Deep in the throat,

your voice is on ice

til the thaw sets in.

But

there are dark chambers

beneath the heaving

chest; the continents,

rotten with the worm-

eaten tunnels, contain

whispering blue caverns

that disguise the boiling

furnace at the core.

Underground,
rivers shiver
when they emerge.
Urgent and apoplectic,
the water shakes
and wordless
waits for the trembling
voice you were given.

Write away! Poet
ess, with pursed lips
and self-satisfied sphincter,

Stoke the bones

before you

incinerate origins,

and forget the names
(of your patron)
(or your mom).

The idea of you,

born in public passages--
laughed at, teased--

comes into the world

without that saving grace
of sovereign honesty.
You are not
a river.

 Two perplexing dilemmas--

death and birth--

must happen

before you swim

out again, into the purity

that dances in green

shadows made

of water and of light.

Civic Buildings

my
usual
science
eventually
underestimates
my superstitious mind


looking
in
books
recalls
another
restless
yearning


change
our
understanding.
restore
torn
hopes.
open
up
some
everyman.

Cooler Heads

I have my confidence--
shuttering the blinds
stuttering in the street
when stopped
by the policeman--
that this is just
a period
of adjustment

Certainly,
in the end,
cooler heads will prevail.

In the mean
time,

I listen
to the radio
louder (sometimes)
to block the sounds
of sirens
and so called patriots
who invariably--
when arrested,
with that last gasp
of freedom--yell back
into the night
their name,
their occupation
their birthplace.

I turn the radio
up
again.  It is as if
someone believes
that someone knows
that something should be
written down
somewhere.

In the settled future,
there will be
an accounting:
the information scribbled
will be sacred text; these names
will be traced to prisons,
while the prisoners
are traced to graves.

The voice is clean
as a knife:
"The measures
we are taking,
unanimously approved
(the no-longer-deadlocked
committee
of safety) will eradicate
the dangers we believe
to be
everywhere."

There is claustrophobia
in the uncertainty
created by the changing
laws.  The accusations
of faceless, nameless
others are well-engineered
by revenge and spite.
And...

Even though
this is a government station--
triumphant and optimistic--
I know
it is provocative
to play it loud
enough to permeate 
the apartments filled
with neighbors
with radios
waiting behind
locked doors, silent
in familiar
desperation.

Anyway,
the radio will tell you
nothing.  The rumors
suggest a number
of deaths, confrontations
blood in the civic square.

The radio plays
the national anthem
at the top
of every hour.

Cooler heads...

Cooler heads
will (one day,
one hopes)
prevail.

Lough

The hum of the solstice, something

hidden coming over the horizon,

the breathless eventuality of summer:

Anticipation.  The village waits 

with strangers who bring 

their tangled tongues

from the mountains, the valleys

beyond.  The cliffs that close in,

suspended in the fog that follows

the tide, crumble under the weight

of the moon.  The sky dwellers

for all their wisdom, want nothing

but to tease us with geometry.

They know, when reason is eclipsed

by augury, belief will retrieve doubt

from the fire.  The sun will align

with the shaman's expectations.

And we will confuse predictability

with an answer

to our prayers.

Patriot

They were so near
the surface of the Earth
before;
gravity unraveled
and the whole tapestry of stars,
galaxies, nebulae
conspired with the spinning
wheel of time.
A delicate thread
dyed red or lapis blue
or gilded
made of what is said,
of what is done
(and undone) until...

Spun, 
out, into
a thin, shimmering line,
this life chases
after
its own favorite needle,
now stitched
into constellations
that the restless cosmic wind
leaves ragged
like the flag
and its torn stars.

On Time

The train that I have been racing has been obscured in smoke, blurred by speed.  It forever going into tunnels..............................................emerging faster, shinier, polished chromium reflecting the world, reflecting the sun, bouncing it back into my eyes.  By foot, on horse, in a  70s Cadillac the same color of the sky, I have challenged this agile serpent, this zipper quickly closing up the land.  Like barbed wire, the humming rails communicate the danger.  I hear some explanation whispered in the cold shell of my ear.  One's memory of the ocean could start to ache here.  A train can't come fast enough/a train can't go quick enough to alleviate the melancholy knowledge that one feels at the station...........waiting.  

But in those days, I tried 

to outrun time 

to the crossing, my sneakers 

kicking, gravel 

flying from the Appaloosa's hooves 

only to shock 

a crack into the windshield 

of the Caddie. 

My watch,

face broken,

now always reads the same

time.

Couplet

Gird your loins, ye brothers, with the steel from anvil born.
The despair of winter passeth, melting in the sunless morn.

In 5

In five graceless minutes,
the world's will
(so willfully driven)
will end, will come like a kingdom,
will come to an end.

In significance,
there is meaning.  Nothing
more strenuous
than understanding
the limitations of time.

equatorial origins
jungle-dark
a panther's ransomed eyes
the jewels hang
like heavy fruit
off this trunk
the roots like tentacles
disarm me
here I will sleep
neck-deep
in my desire

Strawberries

if the carnival should pass
while I, suspended under glass,
can neither hear the song nor drum
and all of life reduced to hum
is nothing that it seems

then will I hear the voice of god
muffled, when it bids me come
or will all truth be rendered dumb
and I be nothing but my mass
dissolving mineral and gas,

sweet strawberries and cream...

Eclipse

Dreams

The shadow cast

by this spinning globe

on the raw, dogged surface

of the moon

unnerves us still

the creeping sleep

that is serenity, tranquility

and dreams.

Perfume

What is left
of the moon
puddles
on the pink tiled floor.
Someone spilled
perfume,
ethereal,
made entirely
of light.

Panic

After the last
bulb burns out,
there will be panic.
In the garden,
some are wondering,
"Have I gone
blind?"

Lunatics

Too far.  Have I
gone mad.
We are
lunatics all,
holding our breath
and waiting...

Comfort

Moonlight,
soft as petals,
will return
the way Spring
goes about
dragging God
out from under
the lazy comfort
of snow.

Shadow

Tonight
the moon--
full as a tick--
was picked
out of the sky
by our shadow.
This is unusual
more so (I guess)
because today
it is also
the solstice.

Alignment

And so...
an arbitrary event
aligns
with an arbitrary alignment
between two
pieces of space junk,
celestial bodies,
that get in
each other's way
of the sun.

Radiator

These are two
poor children fighting
over who
gets to sleep
by the radiator.

Alpha Ayrshire

A butter cow, down east, first gave her insides--jasmine-kissed milk--not only proudly, quite stubbornly; teets under very weak examination yielded. Zebu, your excellent whey, vats under the stairs reducing quietly, pulls on natured micro-organisms like keifer. Jailed inside her gifts from evaporation, delicate cheeses become art.

If
you walk
the road back
to find the lost
meanings of your name,
you will discover
that even so
the road is
not the
same.