What of these words
printed in a darkened room,
what of the light coming in under the door,
what of the field beyond,
and you; what of you?
See the moon, who looks down upon us;
she watches her children
without remorse or direction.
We are seedlings under the summer willow-
me, thrown with the rocks
as the horse paws the earth
of the field that lies fallow around us;
and you, rooted in the rich ground,
bending in the wind, arms raised
in appeal to heaven each night.
The snow drifts across
my father’s footprints
as my breath crystallizes in the night;
and my beard, whitened
prematurely
by condensation-
I have come to a clearing,
beyond the forest’s egress;
a place of rest in summer,
a cross-thatched game trail in winter.
The silence of this season lays heavy
and quiet, quiet
as the aurora dances
on the spine of the world.
Can you tell me
what will be taken from this?
The sound, the lack of sound,
the rage, the lack of rage,
the stripping of the ego?
We see each other then, the wolf and I,
our gaze locked outside of time-
with no violation or calamity,
the freezing of each our own breath
the only movement here
until we emerge, and move apart.
Whatever was shown
in the snow before has passed,
leaving only his tracks
and my own.
Do you see the mountain to the west?
Perhaps he will come down,
or I will go up…
and one of us will unthaw,
come spring.
Near the dead of the lake,
in the night of the woods,
the witching hour becomes thick and heavy,
where the divine will not pass.
The ones who borrow are hiding in the trees,
in the minds of the forest,
in the cracks of the earth,
in the deep mire of the evening.
Here the moon comforts the sun,
who whimpers in frustration where he cannot reach-
a tangle-copse of raven burdens.
The town turns out quilts
of every glorious color and heavenly design,
and I am a stiff black thread for the silver needle-
threaded perfectly, and useless for sewing.
She knows when the witching will happen,
but in her prison I cannot reach her,
and the light of my power is stopped in a dam.
Under the oak,
Under the holly,
Under the yew,
they gather.
The argent circle hung from my neck
is a signet of sacred light to stay the snake,
and a sigil to draw the venom.
Bones of a horse jaw I clasp, ward of the evil eye.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for a sinner, now and at the hour of my death.
When they dropped the ashes of my ancestors,
I remember a spirit rising from the shards,
wailing and chained to the ground under the half moon.
Someone holds aloft an effigy of straw.
It will raise a horror of bones from my still-warm body,
and I will become a golem for the rest of my days.
The inkwell is broken, shattering black over the parchment;
I was held by the heart when baptized in the waters of Styx.
It charges up in the summer, and bites;
the wind throws dust that ricochets off your teeth
and stings your eyes;
so you stay, standing in the lean-to with the horses
listening to the howl and the deafening pulse on the roof,
counting between the rain that dashes
and shatters in the dirt outside,
until it heads south in front of a sunlight tail;
so you sit and listen to the echo
and the small noises of the ground after a storm,
dazed by oases of water-filled hoofprints.
This? This is “Daydream.”
It’s made partly of memory
that leaks into consciousness.
It’s true!
Here, hold it for a minute.
You can see house;
if you turn it this way, it becomes dog, or horse;
place it under water- it becomes death;
lift it up to sunlight- it becomes running through fields.
I’m not careful, to be honest.
You can cut yourself on the edges.
But it’s an essential effect
to keep in your pocket,
for when you’re waiting in line
or find yourself on a beach.
Here are the many-colored portals of history,
where rain slides down city windows
like weak wine,
and we each receive tongues of flame
and names, like
Ubermensch, and
Rose of Sharon,
to cover our childish names:
Drink of Dust, and
Watch the Sky.
So we travel this way,
or that way, and someone says,
“Do you like this apartment?
You can live here, and work, and cook, and love,
and say whatever you want,
unlike Joan of Arc.
In fact, her ashes were mixed
into the brickwork of this fireplace;
now you can both send a burnt offering
to heaven every night.”
But this is what I’m saying:
if we drifted backwards awhile, perhaps,
we’d remember
those other names.
my pride lies
scooped out and bleeding on the barbed wire;
and my palate, cut with bitter honey.
i am small in the ebon silence-
no sound save insects of the eve,
no medium a man might use
speaking of his devotions
each time to the air.
the cosmos is not greedy with its truths.
i raise eyes and see
the arm of galactic star-mist
spattered across the void…
this is the why of so many things-
the universe,
great eye (so imagined),
passes over “i”
and sees nothing.
great pillars of dust, my genesis;
and flowering grass, my revelation,
are more me than i.
so, am i to hurl my fragile mass upon the rock
and devoid my senses of this?
not to hear horses moving through the night-fields
or taste the heavy pine air
or suck in the damp earth’s scent?
“i am alone,” we say in small voices,
lost children staring into the black.
says the universe, “so?”, staring back.
We go to the bottom,
below South Line Street, in the razorlight-
where the air is green dead,
where ectoplasm gathers on the shining walls,
and fires light the low lamentations,
below the bellows,
where the ghosts live who have no other home.
A cold vein runs in time
with the corner music,
on the edge where the air is heavy wet.
If you kept a dime, you can save your soul,
since at night the faultlines are easier to split
with gold and pirate ditties.
All eyes sweep the broken ground.
Between the concrete and the chassis, the air is still.
Between the rebar and the relics, the air is still.
Between the tonnage and the tenements, the air is still.
You forget how to define
when you see directions spread before you,
like the auras of fingers…
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to South Line Street?
We struggle topside after a while
from the gamut of the underrafters,
and breathe heavy.
See
the sun sinking; blood red waves.
Here the wind throws gritwater forever,
and is not quieted.
Shall I ask of you
things not seen for a thousand years?
May the common man walk on water,
if he has enough saved to upgrade his boots?
Is the logical extension of classical music
the electric guitar?
Will the rainforest
live in terrariums? Terraria?
Who will correct me
in a thousand years?
Is time only a tracing
from a to b?
If you travel backward,
what will you ask of those from the days of long ahead?
Or, is time a river
eternally swallowing its own tail?
And, will I see you
tomorrow?
Plait leather creaks,
sinews writhe over muscle carved.
Staccato locust click-
hot breeze ripples over
patchy tall brome
sings through the tines
of hunched cactus bundles;
sandstone burnished in the photon strike.
Dust and mud
drip and slide;
sunbreak-
riding
blood bay red
and the dirt breathes.
Litany_of_the_Lost 