Tuesday, September 30, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Sixteen

16.

And down it sinks
the thing you mean—

no names please
we’re all lovers here—

don’t you think pronouns are beside the point?


Monday, September 29, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Fifteen

15.

Not sure how to spell that
would you repeat please
(engine running driver asleep
hedgerows full of gorse and fuchsia
how the rain brings the blossoms on)
not sure if it was wheel or wither
was it wheat or west or mill,
truckload of apples, Avalon?
Are you sure?  Does it bite?
Take off your house and wear the sky,
I know you’re shy,
keep talking fast, they won’t see your eyes.



Saturday, September 27, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Fourteen

14.

So something has changed—
the wave curled in at Brighton Beach
minutes after Rockaway—

we intercept our fates
traveling perpendicular
between Jupiter —that tyro star—
and where we are.

A line of fate
runs down the palm—

my head anyhow is full of Gypsies,
I am the tower of Babel
I am in heaven
you are angels
staggering around—

or is fate somehow
different from what happens?

A secret elsewhere buried deep in here?




Thursday, September 25, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Thirteen

13.

Her  body changed while she was away from it.
When she came home
the legs were longer, the floor
seemed a long way down,
thinner, less interesting.

She bought a book
to tell her what to do
but all it said was I love you,
a useless sentiment at the best of times—

She dreamed she was a chandelier
and streamed light down to fill an empty room


by then the ground was really far away.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

A VOICE FULL OF CITIES

GRAVITY FEED Part Twelve

12.

The sly beauty of the actual,
that’s all.

Leave behind you bits of paper
scribbled up with writing

they’ll find the right ones
eventually,
                             your zettelbuch,
you can be sure of that—

nothing is ever lost, alas.



Tuesday, September 23, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Eleven

11.

Think of it as an art show
an opening,
                             you’re standing
around waiting
for the pictures to open,
you understand the brie
on the gluten-free cracker,
sipping Saratoga,
is that
supposed to be a cow?
And there’s a woman with green eyes
how well the artist caught the fear in them.
Or is she a man.  Or is it a mirror.


Monday, September 22, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Ten

10.

Pay no attention when
they talk about the world.
Nothing to be said about it
it didn’t already say for itself.

So shush, hush,
talk about something you
well if you don’t understand it
at least you want,
or want it, or even
remember,

                             say the taste
of fish after you cut yourself on the can.





Sunday, September 21, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Nine

9.

But it all comes down
to coming down.
Standing is more exhausting than walking,

when you walk
you lift the world,

snatches of levity
hoist you before the fall,

red books on a lazy table
students hiding from whom they read,
peeking sometimes through masked eyes,

they know something’s
buried in there.  David Jones,
George Barker, Thomas Vaughan,
Thomas Browne.
                                      The alchemy is all
                   in the waiting, in paying
          attention.

In the athanor of the skull
a deathless peace.
Soul by soul the world escape.



THE LANGUAGE OF EDEN

THE LANGUAGE OF EDEN 
is now available on Metambesen:
http://www.metambesen.org/books/

Saturday, September 20, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Eight





8.

Well it usually does begin again.

It wasn’t what he thought
but what he made you see,
Brakhage, that genius,

changed the way the world
knows how to come at us,
changed the time of seeing—
Hall’s Burning Glasse lights up the mind—

speed was the trick

you can’t see at all

if you don’t see quick.

Friday, September 19, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Seven



7.

Phantasy integers
keep the machine happy,
you?
           Numbers count nothing,

they are the dried stains
that colors leave
on the mind, the
“angstroms of affliction”
he called them
before he went away—

hespera men ên
evening and the conspirators
split blades of grass
and whistled through them
till the whole meadow
squealed and shivered—

go ahead, hurt my feelings,
punch the air.


Thursday, September 18, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Six



6.

Hobbyhorse for rent
that’s me, ride me
to your quested shore
and I’ll be boat again
to take you there,
your secret place

doesn’t even exist
till we arrive—
an old word means
to come to the banks of a river,
stagger ashore—
now no boat, no home, no me

he said.


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Five



5.

Tamas has it too,
the names he knows
now of many things

so listen, sister,
the song says.

                             Love the new poets
answering the ocean,

knowing the song’s
not in the throat
                   (that’s opera, bud)

but in the mind.




Monday, September 15, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Four



4.

Didn’t mean to let the world back in,
it has a habit,
                             a history jones
she called it in Detroit
                                                a habit of needing       
                             and wanting,
          the names of the dead who did this
to us,
             our ancestors the fish, the founders,
Olson had it,
                             knew
          the so-called facts
                                      of times and places
are song enough
and what they did
is what song says,
a roaring metabolism of remember.



Sunday, September 14, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Three



3.

You saw them then,
                                                the material
encouragers,
                             whiffletree between
weary horses, cart
full of cauliflowers,
plodding through the harrowed
fields, glebe they say,
of memory,

and maidenheads for sale in frightened countries,
Eighth Avenue in evening shadow,

eggplant hurried supper
seminarians back to the book,
book,
             that sly theology the eyes believe—
and dear god the things we do to each other.


Saturday, September 13, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part Two



2.

Wait for it is what I do

other for the other,

                                      the others.
Bathing
                   Beauties of Rockaway,
the spill
of love left over when Time is done.


Friday, September 12, 2014

GRAVITY FEED Part One

1.


Gravity feed the maw awaiting —
think of clever things
then think away.

                             The sound you hear
                             is all you are.


Thursday, September 11, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Ten



Verbum ut pictura

See through what I say
to what it is saying,


tell me to tell you
a wider story,
one with monsters in it
things to look at
but bel repair,

a mother who grew
flowers from her secret places
and you have to understand

because I don’t,
I’m just an ambassador from the night

making girlish scribbles
in my father’s ledger book


some words intruding on your breath.



FIN

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Nine



Equivalence is all—

find something you’re equal to
and sleep with it

where else could dreams come from
or come true?

And when I say you it’s art I mean
who else would put up with my prattle?


You were on an island in the Indies
reluctant to be
                                      O be there not

but it’s hard to leave
a place you aren’t really at.


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Eight


If only I could sing that
purple kaddish for the living


but none of the words
taught me tune—

the always
was still waiting

still heavy on my palms
fruit overripe

here, I give it to you
sir or madam on the other star

I mean coming down the stairs.


Monday, September 8, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Seven



Because it still is there
it still is them.

In the movie nothing moves
but colored light—

everything you think you see
is me.


And Pilate wept
his wife clutched her temples
the Sabbath crept upon them
wrapped in ignorance
to give them ease.


Give them peace.

8 September 2014



Supermoon tonight
and it looks up to see a Superearth—
that’s you and me, darling,
alone among the apple trees.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Six



The evidence accumulates.

Sun on the terrace
on a different planet
we have not yet organized.

When you get worried
recite Saint Paul:
Do not accommodate
yourself to the system
but renew the way you think

and then he’s young again
old house new skin
badminton court out back
two maidens clad in white


a flying shuttlecock.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Five

Each part
the history of the whole world

each line
                   an epic

a movie in 4-D
waiting for the aisles to clear
when angels
saunter by to sell
those special cigarettes—

you have to see them,
it’s not enough to listen to me,

the fives are strife
of one color or another,

the girl has a sword
clutched between her knees

it’s as real as a cartoon
a word’s a proffer
invest in it
                             a word’s a door

yank it open and disappear.

Friday, September 5, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Four


Indecisive disclosure

a mind without a zipper
the purse-seine savages the sea


and there were words in it
this time, Antietam,
bone,
this time Actium

never now.

History is a lizard basking in the sun.


Thursday, September 4, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Three



 As if a window on a falcon
open the way
light lures citizens
by surfaces to sin

swim slide glide
sunwards into the Danger


I hear the radiants
talking to me

at least I think it’s me.



Wednesday, September 3, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part Two

The advantages of blundering
midnight beneath the streets of the forests

cloacal cathedral

stained glass translucent leaves
because they fell

and the trees’ amber ruin be
fine spectacle


leaf veins of innocence.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

OF THE ALWAYS Part One



  
The always
on your hands

are in your hands,

the lost grammar pf Gan Eden

a language made exclusively of pronouns

and the names of things
were still asleep.