HEART THREAD 231 & 232

231.

When I said enough you weren’t listening

a phone rings far away and only there

why do we care about the colors aren’t they the whole story

all the colors of the 21 Taras the single blue of the Medicine Buddha

look around you’ll see them everywhere

on different instruments how can one note be the same

or there is no such as same

when the mind is busy we are no years old

night and morning fragrant linden flowers fade now

lindens and cicadas and sunspots who else is there

tiny homeopathic breeze to make the skin joy

color is the other word for it. 

 

232.

Does it even sound like this

is it music or does it mean

he asked an anger like layer of low cloud

but there was only blue and shapeliness was you

there is no plausible verb for being

too many people were far away and didn’t care

the pink and tinseled rider in the circus

who knows from where such people come

if people they are if come they do

I started watching as a child and never stopped

in the barnyard with ruddy feathers

the names of creatures are the same as fate.

HEART THREAD 229 & 230

229.

But from its top I can behold the sea

across the street our little stream in spate she said

ironies and departures

you know how to get here start from here

a little movement in the leaves says I’m alive

everything I give you is a sign

this’m is the blank sign

carry it with you till rain or sun

shadows the blankness with messages

then think they come from me

who have nothing else to give you

just one word after the last word. 

 

230.

Pause in the middle of meaning and mean something else

there is no road or rule just treefrogs singing

just blue sky gleaming through dense green leaves

everything is an interruption

the newborn innocent screaming

a day red in the face angry at wordless men

they try their ruler games but weather is god

I’m not saying I’m just saying

if this is not me talking then who are you

from the torn purse no gold coins spill

long low quiet run of Avenue R

civilization is built on personal discomfort.

 

HEART THREAD 227 & 228

227.

Of course do it for the other the hot blue sky

what hurts us helps the corn

protein the decisive factor in cultural history

egg white is intellect tempera and madrigal

for I was another country when I slept

and now am you

Interdependence Day each man a king

belonging to one another we are spoken from Being

he was the only one who made a little sense and look what happened

marauding mind trapped in a stale idea it had

horror of hurting another for the sake of an idea

Bruno burnt among flowers.

 

228.

You don’t need me to tell it is never right to kill

Holocaust or unsolved murder

only the numbers are different

to kill one person is to kill the world

capital punishment corrodes the state

to kill one woman destroys the human race

Jesus was a man murdered by the state

that’s all you need to know about the government

no one ever has the right to kill

this is the only thing I know

and out of it I lift stone by stone my feeble tower

to make a work where all of you are safe.  

Heart Thread 225 & 226

225.

Born again normal in a nullish world

dance in the drugstore waiting for your pills

description is prescription

ask the subway florist for gardenia

you’ll see why later she explained

walk along the esplanade all those ships are thee

nothing’s better left unsaid

or are you Irish before all and grassy

I want to know where the lost ones live

touching our fingertips together is enough to start the dance

a flaw in the pattern is the meaning of the weave

a gnat drinking salt from a child’s eye. 

 

226.

Music finds you

it was made to do that

to be small and slip in everywhere

the crawl of beauty through the null

you don’t hear anything if you listen

don’t listen to the quartet like a mechanic checking the engine

listen to music the way you go to sleep all of you at once

anything else is college stuff

required courses in tonality reality

a proud humility is the way to do anything

listen reverent as a king hearing the first robin in spring

can you do that can you take it gently in the hands of your ears.

HEART THREAD 223 & 224

223.

Then again the linden trees this year blossomed

we sleep and wake in the scent of them

pale obscure little flowers that fill the night air

but am I a character in your epic

uneasy narrative of words spewing words

stochastic craziness full of ancient Greek

when I just want to smell the flowers

rest again on someone’s cheek

as if the war had never shattered my electron shell

left me gasping naked on the shingle beach

before the monsters crept back to the deep

and the ospreys dropped fish for me to eat. 

224.

Long comber by the shore of ease

why did we ever leave

who are you talking to now

in red or in bed

the harsh bondage of rhyme

subtle bondage of sound

by clang alone bring matter in                         J.T.

will heal the legend lost souls of this pale day

find me kindling for my water

dig a hole in air and shove me in

the sound of a word is a niche around me

sense turns me marble from head to toe.  

HEART THREAD 221 & 222

221.

I never knew anything it was all made up

all bluff and prophecy

willful history of our feigned race

imaginary archive of testicular witness

none of the cathedrals were real

none of the bridges skating rinks nudist beaches

stockmarkets rainstorms Glastonbury

all loving lies I made for you

all Plotinus all Shakespeare Nag Hammadi

the lotus garden where the princess yawned

brass basins of the Temple the rites of man

national debt all lies and all for you. 

222.

So the perception of the other is the first mistake

till the Mind is peace and luminous

once it senses other all the stuff begins

the offerings and arsenal the blood and fear

until the only cure is to become the other

sink into other, make the glad of the other your whole work

then the mind’ll be one again

full of its own serene excitements

beyond the dark and light

try it if you don’t believe me

do enough for the other and nothing for me

let the ocean show the quick way home.

HEART THREAD 219 & 220

219.

You are the debt that has to be repaid

your habit patterns are your only cage

stay far away from wanting more

more humility among the trees

the cicadas have done their work and gone

leaving each Egyptian carapace behind

our windowscreen and blacktop and the lawn

worn out from sheer song fallen

Babylonian with black and gold

I am your mother too don’t you remember

London Bridge and looked upstream

into the far west we come from now.

 

220.

Call it weather it will watch you bird-eyed with wary

you came to rape our fields and steal our sheep

nothing we can do to stop you but it can

it knows the way you Troyans trust in signs

the white pig nestled in leaf shadow

the cloud walking girl-like up the oak-weary hill

we will give you more signs than you can read

you’ll never trust your bed again with all the dreams

this is our land and we are semaphores

we can’t do anything at all but fill your senses

every sense complete and all the information false

the way only the truth can really lead you wrong.

HEART THREAD 217 & 218

217.

To measure a day by a meaning

lean crystals sift into your lap

the varieties of greens exhaust vocabulary

no need to describe what everyone remembers

the whole street a secret garden a hidden sign

even a name knows how to hold your hand

wise fingers apportion peace and war

but have I forgiven all those I hurt

shutters up on the primeval coast

we help each other wade ashore

and nothing more

the gift just happens the sun just rose. 

 

218.

Do it the easy way begin with someone else

we dance in trance a rhetoric of selfishness

all we have to give our bodies are

we choose our functions in a balanced world

whatever it is it always works

that’s the mind for you

no escape from the balanced aquarium

we live and die as suits another and we are that other

so relax and try to cheat less on your taxes

it doesn’t work it all comes out of you

can’t save can’t spend can’t mar can’t mend

free will is an advertising ploy. 

 

HEART THREAD 214, 215, and 216

214.

Sometimes finish something be enough to begin with

‘a balanced aquarium’

Antin explained when we were kids

so much I learned from him I'll never admit

plants feed fish excrete feed plants

oxygen out of nowhere

only the sun needs helium

at the other end of its cosmos last dream’s gentlest touch

thrill the way a bird does or morning light

mockingbird on the bridge in rain

where herons often glide from pond to bay

I’m gasping for breath airless in Gaza

to see me suffer puts the leaves to sleep. 

 

215.

Night stuff thick

ankles of consciousness

slow drag a thickened broth

a cake of beef fat offered to birds

there are days music will not listen

means that no one hears

after a month on the sea it is hard to be anybody else

say it with your hands the way the night

is religion only something other people do

glamor of the ivory corpus constantly reminds

once there was a place where these things mean

thank God we have to make our own.

216.

Walk over there and meet myself departing

signs of death I cannot find my shoes

lost my heart in the Rockaways

began to think that love was made of skin

cathedrals walk beside you when you go

I flew over the Hadramawt and Mars looked back

the meaningless politeness of the desert rock

the empty cup I offer to my friends

how little I’ve given, how much proposed

littoral birds the afikomen found at last

set me my place at the table near the door

sometimes the sight of food makes me despair.

HEART THREAD 212 & 213

212.

This is Book VIII of the Aeneid

we finally go inland here

where the dark river loves us

into the unknown interior of your house

where maples hang overslow waters

when we look down to see our faces we see nothing

the water has faces of its own

animals (this is all about animals) begin to talk now

we write home saying “animals talk to us now

what are we going to do with our silences

our precious silence?” but no letters come back

deer run right into us we can’t understand the crows.

 

213.

I thought she was grieving in her ogival cloak

her face white but when I bent to console her

she was laughing she comforted me

she put words in my mouth I wake half-healed

have to live this clear thing not just know it

her word was sweet and I spoke it all day

in the dark country where everybody lives

keening sometimes or laughing at the faces

peering out from the hillside ancient still young

their skin soft as lamb’s ears pale as mistletoe

they look as if they remember me

but who am I now?

Robert Kelly and Susan Quasha in Woodstock, part 2

Robert Kelly and Susan Quasha present their book, Winter Music, at the Kleinert Gallery in Woodstock NY, part 2 of 2

Robert Kelly and Susan Quasha event in Woodstock

Robert Kelly and Susan Quasha present their book, Winter Music, at the Kleinert Gallery in Woodstock, NY, part 1 of 2

HEART THREAD 210 & 211

210.

So pleasure it is, pleasure and praise

the rain has stopped the colors last

don’t look back it’s only a flower gaining on you

only a womb anxious to reclaim me

the last night on the island I saw exact in dark my mother’s face

let me learn to say this countenance

expressionless veridical completely there

have I lived up to anything she proposed

we don’t know what we ask of one another

what we give we hope is what was wanted

such gifts are absolute no giver no receiver

have I ever given you anything at all? 

 

211.

Solitude, light rain, kindness kiss the sweat off his back

let him go the world’s big enough

to be big enough for the smallest words

argent, a tower gules and then he said

from this window she can see anyone who comes and goes

but everyone is upside-down

man coughing in the morning breeze

how does she keep all that she sees from floating away

to build a thing and then believe in it

a tower or a testament

Dostoyevsky railed against mere chemistry

the bonds that love us into one another’s lives.   

HEART THREAD 208 & 209

208.

Forgive that little lude or play between the going on

I lost the knack of not answering myself

I stand accused of lying down a folly to the Greeks

of rising up again at cock-crow and my people know me not

for I was married to a windmill and a lake

in summer rain every green a different color

I set it down meaning to revere it later

but then came Cossack horsemen through the aching shtetl of my brain

and who knows now where reverence went

thirteen Jews at a table telling the joke that is God

who when he was lifted up healed all the world but not himself

sunrise from the earth he had no self to heal. 

 

209.

I’m still with Abbot Benedict still with Malory

cannonshot was supposed to be the end of us

the middle time we called it when we were young in it

now it’s only now and Internet is our Maimonides

everything lasts everything changes no one remembers

pleasure is the only gift study how to please

it lasts as long as Christmas does seventeen years and come again

I want to know the cycle of each thing

lifespan of the chickadee of Niagara

of me for that matter but nobody knows

how well we’d live if we knew the date of our demise

olé! I die today.  

HEART THREAD 206 & 207

206.

If a thing can be itself and still go on

that is the raw meat in the rhapsode’s song

people all over pretending to be me

clear as Chesterton in the gloaming of the evening

would I were my father’s favorite word

not twitch so while I’m saying so

I can hardly read the word I write why I need you

there are spirits here antagonists of air

is it prayer that sifts all round us and we breathe in

what one word be scents the garden of Adonis

sacrifice means tabu only gods can have it

what would the world be like if we were in it.

 

207.

Each one a trick question do you smoke

no I only quote

comparisons are bad for the environment

don’t sit next to me while you’re quoting

I never want to hear what wise men said

do you think I want to walk out in someone else’s clothes

don’t make such a fuss just forget about it

forgetting is the hardest thing of all

that’s why you fled your island isn’t it

that’s why you sailed up the dark river where not even the trees knew you

that’s why you write down what other people say

you make them up to talk to you so somebody remembers.  

HEART THREAD 204 & 205

204.

Maddening stillness of the summer air

here as if nobody’s there, nobody cares

I come from wind and you far more

crystal movement of the invisible

emphasis belongs to humankind

gods write the book we put the italics in

the trouble is as with Hopkins’ beauty

it never seems not to be a poem

never a simple language thing that happens by

still seizes the breath or chills the heart

there has to be nobody listening when I speak

so that the words break free to all of you. 

 

205.

Now of the cicadas from their long sleep

awoke and bred and did and sang and now to bed again

what are we to some glorious animal

eloquent in hyperspace our spit their silver

because we make much of things

art is Latin for the way of making

the way of making is so our only way

childish wits suppose we too were made

no god ever had the art of us

we came out of the sea and from the ground

we mated in bold daylight and we did

and we do.  

HEART THREAD 202 & 203

202.

Could I have heard another when I thought was now

leave every I out and see what it means

real presence split the log he is there

drink salvation from an empty glass

too many voices for so few words

we suffer from the vice of versa

they marched into battle with The World Turned Upside Down

revolution only benefits the landlords old or new

would she kiss the icon of a commissar?

at some point or no point it will get tired of me

then what will you do

not even the wind in your ears?

 

203.

Starting and stopping is the same as love

properties of archaic Tocharian

guide me grammar through the spiel of trees

obscure selvedge of a vast weave

a carpet made of sand

flowers half faded dinky here and there

your footsteps rearrange the floor

walking and talking like a blessed Greek

they didn’t know how lucky they were

pagans are the only ones left laughing

after the grimoire of the bank accounts

the Grand Guignol of local government.

 

HEART THREAD 200 & 201

200.

Don’t put up more signs

I hear them hammer their stakes in

for sale signs by the frightened houses

how poignant to move among the living

how her body leaps to welcome circumstance

word the editor put in place of ‘God’

haunted by temple friezes a harlot in heaven

noble souls entrusted to my care

catch a reflection of the rising sun

outline with pencil the shadows of the leaves                 R.H.

till all the trees are written down

then sleep beside it till the rooster crows.

 

201.

I hear him over the hill or is that the sun in my eyes

a picture long enough to wrap around your waist

and go romancing in an old book

slippery pavement on the road to Neaux

in this cicada year the moon says less

moon no bigger than a mosquito

moon buzzing in my eyes

till the cock crowed and here I am

cicadas fuguing with the buzz-buzz in my ears

with one hypnotic pass I wake me up

look Robert there are days inside the day

the birds are gone but the sky is still there.  

HEART THREAD 198 & 199

198.

The only thing that can’t go on is going on

every perceptual quantum begins it all again

only the qualia sometimes linger

o Abelard o quanta qualia

the golden sabbaths of the wounded heart

wanting to know how to make it go

don’t let the children come in

all birds belong to you and fish are mine

pale wild-eyed ones swimming in my cavern

we who walk along the ground the strangest are

misshapen by desire bent over a bad book

our whole lives pictured there in code.

 

199.

Muybridge photos of a breaking heart

a daffodil in haste a monkey in a window

a dreary paper they call The Daily Olds

deer are watching from the new-ground woods

how many years have they been here

looking, crashing into our cars, waiting for something

waiting for us to do something about ourselves

units of intelligent remorse

all the broken answers

war is never an option war is never

bring me your hand to hold at least

the old man’s sword used to cut bread.

HEART THREAD 196 & 197

 196.

How heavy the weight of blank paper

carried all my life in blunt photography

spiritual effluent of Eusapia Palladino

the crux of psychic plausibility

does all this light come out of one woman’s body

is there any other source for splendor in the world

om tare tutare ture soha

she is sixteen still green in the ways of men

and she alone can save us from calamity

or tell us who can

listen to the green girl at last

the ever-virgin the truth the wisdom sleeps beside me. 

197.

As if in mime an elegant body told

the whole story from grass to cathédrale

innumerable declensions of her single noun

the dancer absolute

so the mild persistent taste of moving anywhere

from lawn to grass again the poor smell of money too

we live in poverty we shadows of some great wealth

the potentates whose kingdoms fit in their wallets

they rule the world but we could too

as this lone dancer springs up from the sounding floor

and with a single swerve of movement

changes space forever in the way we see.  

HEART THREAD 193 & 195

193.

The stones begin to speak now

tell me all I know

long ago but all too close the pines

whose house is that with one light showing

I dug a well where no water was

I built a staircase down to solid rock

no root cellar no smell of winter apples

spread the table with no cloth

on each empty plate a spoon of dust

don’t waste the fuel of breath on flames

sit quiet with the shivered memories of your life

now you can do nothing but listen and no one speaks.

195.

Posthuman is to be beyond desire

to want no more than wood does

standing in the sunlight in the snow

making more of us by being so

and those stones know us too

one day calcium will have a voice

garnet in the Adirondacks speak

red wisdom to the risen poor

be enough the other side to be!

this is politics the throb of music

Bartok Beethoven Bruckner Bach.

HEART THREAD 191 & 192

191.

So much denial kings before Eden

nothing was ever, all the rest was obvious

Orpheus exiting from the underside of words

can only tell the mind that comes to speak

but o no o no the music always wins

flee back to ferly land and talk to daisies

feast on clover and try to be

superbly be, as if a lion walked off a coat of arms

and moved into one turret on my tower  

and we lived together beside an almond tree

the weather always told us what to do

look over the wheat field a ship comes sailing. 

 

192.

And there are the children at the gate

the psalmists keening by the hilltop shrines

the lean poesy of renunciation

when praise is all the air that feeds

go where every leaf has a word on it

our holy fire once for all

it spoke and said Do not be all male

for the masculine alone is weak

terribly weak and needy of conflict to assert

what cannot be asserted

the unprovable axiom of manhood

building empires wrong again and again wind blows away.

HEART THREAD 189 & 190

189.

He will be safer as a ferly-man if men they have or are

he will be a leper-man in ordinary land

his voice the bell to warn away the fearful

because language is a holy terror believe me

hide yourself in the silence of story

there’s always something left to believe

dust for sparrows said the old aesthete                    R. de G.

be bathed clean in what defiles us

Arbeit, heilende Welle in what defines us                    F.B.

how far inland we’ve been carried by the wave

left where no other wave can come

lost among friends in a house of one’s own. 

 

190.

Poet heers a worke beseeming you                    C.M.

not war but warbling kiss the girls and make them cry

all the holy raptures of the local mind

when I wanted clarion Gabriel renew the world

now blow your horn and if you can

shock the morbid loves into new play lila

mother of the mind the play of light all over

the light was like a woman in the trees man on a rock

and in our little ears the mountain spoke

a fleet of do’s and don’t’s assails the lucid now

I am the hole in your pocket

your hand can’t leave me alone.

HEART THREAD 186 & 187

186.

Now there was a man the ferly folk took away                  R. Kirk

they brought him to a time between times and loved him there

left a lookalike back home to do his job

while he did theirs and the work they had to do

is all praising and delighting in them

for they were born before the world and wonder still

what manner people we are who hardly know them

let alone praise their sacred everlasting beauty

so he lived with them in some blessed island

till he understood at last what pleasure is

and shared it with the little brooks and the trees

and the ferly folk marveled at his industry. 

 

187.

Lie here because there is nowhere else ever

the word gave birth to me and I may have failed the word

friend’s face among the flowers smiling up

the image does not please me you never can

tell what a smile is smiling at

animal wisdom I need you near

only a beast knows when to turn away

a man by the nature of time will walk to the abyss

Empedocles Master of Consequences to vanish in thin air

hum hum hymn of the volcano

a story broken in half we hold the stub

the other part of it or anything blows away.