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.
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.
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.
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.
They hoard their trinkets:
Children, dogs, and houses;
monuments
to the funeral of common fellowship.
And yet the wick of superstition
burns;
faith may be an island
on which one becomes shipwrecked,
and most find their loves
ashen,
carried by the wind.
But you,
I would have you stay as common,
and smoothed,
and beautiful;
filled with irregularities
like the rose quartz I hold
in my hand.
The boy pondered the spot of ground:
low, soft, and brown.
Slightly sunken from rainwater
(what little had come that season).
The embrace of the earth
wrapped lightly around a single friend.
I’ll join you one day, if what’s said is true, he thought.
A large pine and its children
covered the softened patch of grass,
waving their arms each night in song
(he has witnessed this).
As he sought to ponder, his father walked past,
behind him,
carrying something to the truck.
“Don’t tell your mother. There were tracks;
I think coyotes got the body a couple nights ago.”
Lord, they have killed thy prophets,
and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
She talks to her guests of how she buys organic now.
This will help the years of beautiful chemicals
synthetic, which saturate the entire pyramid
and drip down its sides-
paint makes it look pretty.
Hear the rail of fifty thousand machinae shutting down,
clogged with impurities- please make sure nature does its job.
Fifty thousand moving from dwelling to edifice, speaking with the air;
the subway homeless content in conversation with himself.
She talks of how she fears terrorism.
Her home is made up like an old body, full of machines to filter
the air and the water and the food and the surfaces.
The machines become old and are dumped behind Golgotha.
She talks of how she loves the sun and the summertime.
He will emerge from his place in the wild,
where he eats grass from the ground as a beast
She will say, “Come inside and get some fresh air.”
He will say, “What a beautiful television.”
Soon the shroud replaces the virgin garment.
O Death, where is thy sting? When the time comes…
there will be no more summer and no more winter.
Please- legitimize, politicize, build, bandage, drug, dam, and splice;
make sure nature does its job.
According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber,
eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day.
Sudden stars tossed on the raiments
of a red evening,
resting in the desert air.
Woman, talk to me;
your words are thunder…
Cloudlings vault low
over the belly of a dreaming earth.
Remember this:
your hair is flowering grass
bending on a draught moon.
When you leave in the morning,
remember this:
my eyes are hewn rock
baking under streams of sunlight.
Litany_of_the_Lost 