K.L.I. 1936-2015

                                           

The last Freemason died today
carried with him
into the Familiar Strangeness of afterlife
the secrets of unsatisfiable yearning
pothos, from which
his architecture grew.
From absence alone
he made deep song.

from CALLS

A bridge to nowhere!
Stagerite, explain myself
in thy book I looked in vain

and so they closed my eyes on me
now I must write
what I would read

and all the stories start again
and never end.

from CALLS

Be arbitrary.  Be anybody.
The world of capital
forgives every choice

just keep choosing.
Only the hermit is villainous,
probably verminous,

disagreeable, old.
All the wrong things.  He
of all men is not arbitrary.

He has chosen nothing
and nothing has accepted him
as her bride.

They live together
anywhere far away.
Sometimes I have dared to climb

the easier rock slopes of their abstruseness,
could even hear them talking from far off,
a man saying nothing with all his heart.

from CALLS

twice I was a Christian
no matter what they said
I loved him because he is a door

he said, because he knew himself
better than I knew me,
when knowing is the same as being

Enlightenment is not about light
it’s about ment, the mind
behind light and anything else

from CALLS

Last days.  I feel you love
we are only still beginning,
Eden in the rearview mirror

closer than it appears.
We are beginning.
Every archaeologist knows we just woke up.

There seems a pressure in the air
that silences the ears.
Crickets or tinnitus who can tell,

we are newborn always,
immaturity is my sword and shield,

from CALLS

Lady, did you see my fugue?
It ran this way,
it said it was finished and I believed it,

it took advantage of my credulity
and ran away, this way,
its nature to flee and mine to follow,

did you, Lady, hear my fugue?
It favors underbrush deep ravines,
hilltops, ruins, crowded streets,

it knows more names than it can touch,
it tries to wrap you in its changes

from CALLS

For there is anger in the human world
and hymn tunes don’t help
need a bolder potion,

ah, I have made a mousetrap for the moon,
now I am him but who cares,
a new slant on every story

but nobody cares,
that leaves me free
for alternate alchemies galore

next year I’ll catch the sun
and pin her to the door —
why not, it’s the house that speaks, not me

from CALLS

Escape the consequences.  Born big
or born small, it is your genius
building you out and out and out

from the thought you are.  I, Paul,
a citizen of Rome,
tell you this, do not conform

to the system, but renew instead
your first mind.
The mind that makes you

from CALLS

...It seems lunacy to me
to spend your days
going up and down the staircase of yourself,

gymnastic delirium.  And to do it,
Valéry cautioned, armed to the teeth,
lunacy.  Better be hollow.

Hollow Earth theory should really mean
there is nothing inside the body,
just a central sun peopling vast emptiness.

from CALLS

how precious the sky is,
it keeps us safe,
the trolls inside me can’t handle light,

only in the parking lot understand
the meaning of the place you’ve been,
mall, market, club, cathedral,

all the cars roasting in the moonlight
for all you know having the same dream.
Be different.  Look up and dissent.

Nothing lasts up there,
the words dissolve in mind
and we are meek water again —

from CALLS

You never know the distances
love must travel
those who dare to speak of love

as if we all know what it means
yet must be told
over and over again

by voices plodding through time
soft as marimbas
in a beastless jungle

from CALLS

No punctuation darling
it’s so overdetermined,
nothing lost between the words

let them breathe themselves.
As in a chapel
no gap between the building and the cup,

you drink the architecture too,

from CALLS

is there life beyond oxygen?
seems such a simple thing to ask
the temples come crashing down

isn’t that what Samson was
a blind man’s question
that broke the building down,

say the word and the city falls.
You go to a surgeon to get something out
go to the movies when you haven’t seen enough

why do you write me the letter you do
if not for the only answer I ever have?
Write the words down and follow them home.

from CALLS

We live in the age of names —
sticks and stones will break our bones
and names will surely kill us

because there is no answer to a name,
it deals a fatal silence.
It says John.

But what about the word on the other side of a name
it names an action or a thing,
isn’t it fatal to say arise or a rose?

Thinking crash lands in a name —
but something slithers from the wreckage,
free from depiction, beyond the boundary,

a hint, a yen, a glint, a go.
And it begins to know.

from CALLS

Compliance is sensual,
it’s being with rivers
it’s riding time’s back

and being friendly with the night.
I hoped I was listening,
dawn a spasm of gentleness

pale through trees —
the witches have done their work again
and foiled the bosses a few more hours

look around, look all around
they whisper, watch us
rinse into the sky what is not color yet

watch and do nothing but be.

from CALLS

I could sit here and hunt for dawn
comes easily these days
or sleep my way to Jericho again

Where Moses’ daughters rise
a cunning school for love’s diplomacy
and otherworldly wisdoms all combined

they let me in some nights
let me interrogate them
in my broken Hebrew to learn how,

just how.  For they know everything
again.  Small school all white adobe
shadowy within, we see by skinlight,

read by the light left in our eyes
by years of looking outward.

from CALLS

You can tell he’s near the end
he’s starting to make sense
abbreviate the obvious!

The leaf covers itself with gold
I call it dawn rain birds in a bush
things that mean little last forever

lost on the railroad like Bruckner’s hat
found on the shore like a baby seal
I can show you pictures of the world,

priest carrying the sacrament to a dying man.

from CALLS

I pressed the eject button, put myself to sleep.

And there you are again,

lost brother, woman cousin, inconnue.

So many animals in my zoo

with me, and I who own the lot

live in the smallest cage.

Jone’s Bienenkorb and we have heard her hum.

He said, and I supposed the lecture ended

but I was still talking:

from CALLS

then something happened

and beauty lasted longer than itself

and gave us to think.

There are not many roads to silence

and music is the sweetest of them

though the longest

with pretty girls and boys along the way,

fangless wolves and paper forests

a pirate ship in every bathtub

and no more war.

I touched my hand

I wondered who it was.

We don’t have to know all the names

but they all are blessing us at once —
what else is a name for?

from CALLS

It’s all a fugue and everything

has to come

again and again through all the doors.

Look out all the windows,

sleep in all the beds,

hide in the cellar and run out over and over

because that is the nature of nature

the minute you let it

turn into the oldest music.

There was no music before Bach

or maybe Biber,

just people being beautiful out loud

then something happened

and beauty lasted longer than itself

an excerpt from CALLS, a long poem in progress

Byzantium rises again,

post-Abrahamic, luminous and blue.

Am I the last pagan or the first?

Open the Questionary and slip in,

they’re all there waiting for you

and you are their only answer

Charlie Chaplin eats his shoes

St. Apollo hides the moon

if you listened more I’d talk less

isn’t that what witchcraft is,

your skin slick with Oil of Listening