What burns in you is beauty, far beneath
the blows, this one's violent arrogance, that one's
flopping pride, I've known you these three months
& slowly learned a few of your many lessons, one
being that beauty endures, that the nights of no
moonlight when you were pushed to your knees &
you softly kneaded the man's rage from him,
that the mystery & fear & delight you felt leaving
the hospital sanctioned to hold that sly-smiling
babe in your arms, midnights when you dance nude
midst candles in your room & afternoons when
you coax a friend with a joke & a caress, that
these & more upon the thousands do not begin
to tell who you are, what beauty you contain, I
can watch you my whole lifetime as I could a
candle's flame & never know your beginning nor
your end, your why, or how your love for daisies
relates to what yaws open your wettest passion or to
secret nights when you both laugh & cry. You have
been rent, & rent again, yet tonight I kneel before
your wholeness, your delight, your striving. I seek still
to know you even as I seek still to know myself & yet
the only reply I receive are the bells of Cambridge singing
"Yin & gladness to the one who offers! Yang & clarity to the one who
receives!"
******
xx. Valentine's Day
Today my heart thumped right through
my chest & hurried to you. Ignoring me,
my words about health, safety, this
madly thumping organ, this swiftly
hurrying beast gathered its valves &
blood-fuel & hurtled miles of air & land,
it had been denied long enough, simply
this, & it had to embrace your heart &
it had to do this now—
& no matter that here was a day when countless
hearts in countless worlds were embracing
through cards, flowers, candy, curvy words
flattering as sugar, no, here was my
freakish heart with its freakish task, on
a boxcar til Burlington, a Greyhound into Montreal—
For you were ailing in the room where
we had kissed. Blitzes of kisses. A bite.
You taste like flying. My kindly, crazy, madly
loving heart was coming to you to do
what it could to pull you back to fine
thumping. Word reached me it arrived
tonight, whole if a little weak. Passport
trouble but a sentimental guard. I expect
it back this weekend—or never if that is your wish.
******
xxi.
There is a world of land, sea, & sky beyond
that of men & women. We need to breathe more
deeply, more slowly, to glimpse it, its velvet
moments & turquoise rain. Slower & deeper still
& these candies disappear leaving a stroking
wind & infinite wood. Were our breath
to cease completely, perhaps, these
numberless layers would evanesce, perhaps—
But I say keep breathing. Watch stray gull
feathers dance an empty beach, let
the chocolate seduce you with its carnal touch,
listen to your baby's tales of strange dogs
& long movies. Breathe deeper & slower
for release & connection, & if the man
calls you dream-wife smile with him
& his dream & wonder at the world he proposes—
More colors. Wilder music. The beginning
of a new freedom. He kneels above you
with your ankles resting on his shoulders.
He enters you with quicker & slower thrusts.
What is this world you glimpse right now
with eyes closed as you wiggle & claw
his legs? Breathe slower, relax, let
him enter you. Let this world begin.
******
xxii. A Summoning
We walk through the branches of this night
a city of sirens, corpses, beggars. Love
a perplexing necessity among steps on
cobblestone & tar. Tonight, dear one, you
are here for the danger of flashing lights, &
for the moment of convulsive destruction
that will occur when we breach identity &
eternity. Tonight a new rampage. A gleam.
A way. Another siren. Don't look back.
Tonight walking subsists our warmth
but a pause to trace the lights around
a statue brings chill & doubts. What are
you to me? An Artist. What am I
to you? A muse. What are we to pounding,
banging cosmos, shrilling existence?
The chance of a spark. A breach out
of this dream, into this life. A puzzle
worth suffering, dear one. Hurry. Don't look back.
Your copper hair gripped in my hand,
some dark shadow where a panty can
be pushed aside, flesh hurried within flesh.
Brick gives way before crushing fists.
Tonight I fail to subside. You fail to
let go. We unriddle the city from its
unloving existence. We breach the why
& the pain. Love between us a waking from
denial. The night is gone, dear one. Don't look back.
******
xxiii.
All that is between us has come before, &
will again, cycle upon cycle, loop within
loop, dream twined to dream, & tonight,
my love, I think of you, the longing in me
for what I have chased in you, chase in
you tonight, afar this time, this moment,
feeling how you watch me, as always,
you possess me as one possesses a heartbeat,
I possess you as one possesses full moonlight,
tonight, my love, all that has come before
rages loss & joy, old fears & new, flesh &
flowing, & will again, cycle upon cycle,
loop within loop, dream twined to dream,
& yet each time a new fury, skin crushed
to skin, a double-flame created by separate
souls, fight, flee, traumas in midnight
country gardens & beneath city bridges,
in letters, on stage, poverty's bitter-laughing
fuck, wealth's nuanced absences, each time
harder & wilder, deaths solitary & those
atwist, cycle upon cycle, loop within loop, dream
twined to dream, how beautiful you are as
you dance & dodge, blue eyes again, how many
thousand songs, Erika? Love a rupture & gestation. Love a pathless road.
******
xxiv.
A new dream. A bigger dream. No longer
a dream at all. We contain clashing
realities, we, the us sum, our transition,
our permanence. No longer a dream,
no longer daylight-governed, beyond nocturne
fire & fury. We, the love seed, a bomb,
a bloom, a burst. We contain the conflict,
its formula, its antidote. Flood & flight.
Each touch is news, each word a leaf.
Love an oak, a sparrow, a cobra.
Growing, soaring, biting from desire,
biting for revenge. Biting as scripture,
biting as gift. Each touch a bullet &
a salve. Each word a leaf to feed or fell.
A vow, a cry, a groan of yes. Wings
& tendrils & savages of yes. Crash.
The first night begets the ones still
to come. The love seed contains maps
& warnings. But beyond light & its fragrance,
creature & its impulse, mind & its grail,
what lies beyond is where we began.
What lies behind is where we will rest.
A new dream, a bigger dream, no longer
a dream at all. The answer & its question.
******
xxv. Parting, loss
Awakening. Strums of blood. An old
woman eats from a small can with
no label, adjusts her wash-worn
girdle, turns the AM radio louder.
Death & taxes. Things newfangled & strange.
Midnight. The storm grinds wetly
against the weed-lined road. The
world full of pain & ghosts, of orphan
joys with green eyes, free. The storm
passes. The earth accepts without waiting.
Moon past full. A tavern crowded with
pink cheeks & pondering eyes. Spiders
paused in spinning among the beer
taps. Shadows, some rogue, more kin
to stars than souls. The music quickens.
Beauty summoned. Falling, rhythm, upstairs
the AM radio's naggings become unnaturally
atwist with the tavern's jukebox probings.
Noone notices. The old woman removes
her makeup with cold cream. The spiders
resume. Cars outside spurt muddily away.
Crumpled pages. The limber, drunken man
clambers atop the bar, declaims
love, the deeper love which manifests
only with utter loss. He dances to win
the twenty-dollar bet. Radio & jukebox quarrel again.
Initiation. The building now entirely quiet.
I've climbed to the top floor. Tonight has
happened before. Years ago, years before
that. Falling asleep on my couch, shoelaces
still tied. Dreams like brave children gird me.
******
xxvi. Distance
A new being, arisen. Present tonight in
this old tavern as I drink quietly &
begin to let you go. The other tavern
I searched for long gone, Boston chews
its obscure history, keeps only
sentiments which sell.
Tonight pints of ale to study this new being,
midst the wood & neon, the jukebox that
drawls, shrieks, farts. Remembering other
taverns, other nights, others I had to
let go to feed the being before me, keep
it ever new, ever arising.
What held us together, what shred us
too, moonlight, words, demons, dreams
untold. I don't know. Love loses its
teeth, let's go. The tavern closes at
2 a.m. Some sort of kindness I can't
quite grasp raises my shoulder, takes me home.
******
xxvii.
All is maya. Dream. Art. Play. Illusion.
Let all the clocks slow, stop, it
makes no difference, there is always
stillness, always motion. The universe
is a hummingbird in stillful flight
watched by noone some grey snowless dawn.
Maya, ceaseless maya. Urgent, funny.
You are lying on your bed, headphones,
dark underwear, eyes closes, candles
burning, incense, cats stalking &
sniffing. What are you thinking, feeling?
I do not imagine. I don't try.
Dream. Am I really sitting in this
coffeehouse watching a worn man stare
hard at something, his eyes creviced
obscurely, his tattered body motionless?
I love him. I love you. I trickle a
prayer his way. I do the same for you.
Art. Were you muse? Yes. Were you
more? There is no answer tonight.
I think he's tripping, Erika. His
dreadlocked head leans forward, his
interior spaces engulf him. Are you
too? Spun? high? Thinking of me?
Play. Rhythm & motion. Perhaps he is
only dreaming, childhood, the canyon,
the azaleas, biting winter dawns on
horseback or Harley. You make snow
angels with your daughter. I clutch this
tighter. I want it to mean something.
Illusion. He will soon be for me just words.
His old sweaters, his jagged beard, his
plastic bag of possessions. Every item a
treasure because so few. Erika, you
were real, weren't you? You loved me, yes?
You remember me? You'll remember me?
******
xxviii.
This universe a mist, a light, a shimmer.
Wherefrom? Whereto? It doesn't matter.
March snowflakes? Tight black blouses?
Ego & anguish & hunger? It doesn't matter.
Who to love? Who to crowd by? Dreams?
Say again: it doesn't matter.
She wears a mint-green blouse glittering
chest says Rock Star. Long brunette hair.
Studies her beat quantum physics textbook.
Drinks her black coffee. I imagine her
secret taste. Imagine running tongue-wetted
finger from her lips down into her maidenhair.
It doesn't matter. What hurried my carnal wish,
no more. Tonight I watched the geese stream past
the full moon. Diminishing feathers
against shriveling storm clouds. I shall
not know your shivering wet begging
again. Walk on through crumbling leaves.
She clothes her heat for a walk to
get cigarettes. I remember getting you high,
leaning you against a wall, unable to
wait. I don't know where you are tonight.
The message of the full moon geese
was clear: the spring is coming &
you are moving on. It doesn't matter.
Well, not yet. I am moving on too.
Because it always fucking matters.
The girl in the Rock Star blouse
has returned. I'd sooner approach the geese
tonight than her. Because the heart
skips from one hungry, ecstatic matter
to the next. I think of her, I think
of you. I think of — well — it does
matter & always has. I wish you
love & content. Not happiness, not yet.
Not til the spring lands & the geese arrive home.
******
xxix. Lingering
Something I learned from you, & now
carry again bright & necessary: want
does not cease. Does not diminish.
Want unsated begins to mumble into
beard, waste its energies strangely. I sought
photos & faraway voices. My music became
stranger until it resembled oaks, braided
dreams, fell into gaps of silence &
exploded them because I couldn't stop singing—
I named you music. Called us
symbiosis. I juiced our myth with
sparks, a flood of imperatives, til fuck
& poem, flight, fancy, your copper hair,
favorite flowers, proved & justified &
encouraged, til it wasn't about romance
anymore, til it was about it, til
something could remain animate weeks
after you left.
The myth smolders. Trees are trees
again. Words are words. The want &
wish still hover, the gnaw within
for symbiosis, mate, muse, they remain
damp & loosely embodied by your voice
& skin, by whatever I was to you
for a short time. But here it is,
past dusk, & to think of you is
more to remember than to anticipate.
I can imagine waking aside some other's eyes.
I will bend & shape my sound to another's joy & grief.
Pictures of you, poems for you, ways to explain who I was.
******
xxx.
I disappear along the path away
from you, remembering moments, words,
remembering many things, understanding
little, you weren't a comet spangling
my sky, no, you were the sky itself,
I am different for having met you, loved
you, won you, lost you, said goodbye.
Tonight the glass wall descends between
me & my memories of you. Tonight I
let you go. The dawn of love dances,
free, the child, the beast, the godd.
The sun of love arcs its sky, today's
history refigures all previous days,
scripture not comet. The dusk of love
is jungle, is careening waves of sound,
distortion, into the night, blood rised &
questions tribal-mad. By midnight the
poison sets in or the sugar begins to
heal. Along the weaker hours a hand
grasps a hand no matter the contortions
& demons, the two hands grasp & watch
their love approved in the many tales
the nightsky tells. Along the weaker hours
other hands slip from each other, find
a mute joy in safety, retreat, survival,
thoughts & dreams of other, better nights.
What seemed like love now revealed to be
a comet, dirty ice & minerals burning
awhile, hustling up a scripture never to be
completed. The path behind me darkens. I must walk on.
******
For Leni
xxxi. For Leni, After an Absence
To begin again, begin continuously,
play one true note, & listen for
someone to echo it, deepen it,
twine & stretch it, will you accept
this note again, foreign & familiar,
Will you play with me again, anew?
A new dream. A bigger dream. No longer
a dream at all. Begin again, begin
continuously. Neither awake nor dreaming.
Sing to the trees. Trees sing to the
stars. Stars glitter the clouds above
you. Rain dapple you with my hungry song.
Remember you are beautiful. Begin here.
Blue moods rising, twisting anguish,
the distorting stretch to touch anything
soft, womb empty, heart cracked,
remember: you are beautiful. Healing
begins with release, a scream, crazy blood.
Shine: you are ready. Release what is
overcast. Choose to be clear. Burn your
life down. Scorch the rubble too.
Begin with nothing, again. Look at
me. First burn then build. What is
love? Break down. Burn. Build. Begin anew.
Begin again & rightly call any beginning
a miracle. Touch me with beauty, I'll tap
you with balance. We'll renew our language,
test it for music & flight. With every spring
comes the pain of thaw & the burst into
sunshine of things new, wild & green.
******
xxxii. A Letter on Love for Leni
A letter on love must sparkle with
glittering music, must be loose with
laughter & curiosity, must dance the
wilder between its every inevitable
droop, must consider its opening list
of imperatives & grinning cut them free—
Written in an empty courtyard where once
I sought you among the pink cheeks &
the clatter, this letter on love confesses
all my godds to you, one & all freak
tornadoes of art, & lays before you
this prayer & plea: listen. understand.
Our love still a fragile stone, yet tonight
you asked me to write a letter on love,
asked me with hope & uncertainty, wondered
what I might do with my black pen &
yellow paper when I promised you filled
sheets by dawn, by the morrow's bright renewal—
I wish to do for you what packs of
dreams preach at me: teach you to
teach me of love's mutual gifting, of the righteous
kiss sparking the night with ecstatic
neon simultaneity—listen. understand.
A letter on love twined with fingers, shared breath—
Dreams of empty beach utopias. Dreams
of you in chambers carved for loving.
Dreams of many eyes that have
passed by leaving streaks of memory.
Dreams of letters on love that
press through delight & daydream into
our first midnight watched, shared,
remembered. Watching the full moon
blow slowly across the sky, the door
manifesting between us, we walk through,
meet each other, smiling burn this letter to ash
******
xxxiii.
She approaches music often, opens the
window, pushes the lace aside for view
of the garden, the bridge beyond,
the ocean soundlessly far, turns back
to me, approaching music, this time
her strumming blue eyes, her black silk
pajamas unbuttoned to the tummy,
I toss my fingers toward her, run
some riled air her way, raw with
want, pending culmination, she is
approaching music now as she is
approaching me, trembling a dram
of power back along the waves of
riled air, come to me my other,
your other awaits, come to me, my
love, your beloved awaits as we
kneel before each other, compressing
& heating the air between us, carnal
greed for a new kind of freedom as
I push your black silk pajamas away
from your shoulders, sudden conflagration—
The least beginnings of a joined scripture,
within each other, riding the waves of
bliss, sending them on through the garden
& over the bridge to the ocean, hopping
a message atop these waves, from our
moment, the ways she makes bliss
with my young kiss, to tussling &
tremble of orgying spray & waves, the
metal-framed bed creaks as we
receive the pulses of rhythm the ocean
chants back, & we hurry & slow to
modulate, o my love! o my love!
I hadn't found my home but here within
us, this room, the lace madly swishing
with waves sent through colors & received
from noisy glee, there is this moment
expanding deeper within itself as we swell
together to bursting, hearts shattered
& shipwrecked on that shore in the
distance, we fall into each other, music
trailing away, arriving somewhere intended, but unnamed.
******
xxxiv. For Leni, First Day of Spring
A crown of lillies for your blonde head,
my love, & twenty-three kisses, maybe
twenty-four, the sunshine of nearing days
beckons us, upon your head this crown,
blue eyes smile I wish to serve you,
blue eyes waver you wish to receive me.
A hill of grass deep in the woods
where there is human quiet while other
things hum & buzz & prowl, I unbutton
your robe to kiss your throat, first day
of spring, we've been weaving together
since autumn, now blooming & rising.
An oak tree beneath which we drink
water & eat cheese & kiss lightly,
letters not sentences at a time,
the sunshine massages your toes
as they curl with passion's delight,
yes, my love, this pleasure all for you.
A rugged old blanket beneath which
we lie as fingers tap flesh, as
knowing coalesces, a cumulating
music, breaching love, a dance,
a dream, fear where every door opens
still our shadows release us slowly.
The air between us is warm as
we quiver then still you must have
me closer & learn this better dance
anew, I must lead you without
a word of coercion eyes closed to all
but this moment, your cheek on my chest.
Our heat carries news to the hillside
around us, the saplings & critters
watch our frenzy, no longer fear,
just fellow critters with need,
no fuss but being alive, & the compulsion
to build, to house, to create, to continue.
Hungry for nurture & worship, you
release your garments to one side
here you are, a test, a study, a star,
& me less to possess your body
than to share your spirit, to learn
you like water, like music, like sunshine.
Our afternoon dwindles as we
approach notes low & high, as
we knit more complexly & kiss
more familiar, as we twine a cry
to the clouds, a heavy breath to the
earth, as I hold you, still, days later, you smile & nod.
******
xxxv. Music for Leni
Evening. Time of blue fancies & risen growls.
All is vulnerable., wasp & nectar alike, & who
wakens only now kneels before nothing. She does not bid
for attention. She glows blondely. She summons
the moon for word of a new rampage, the ancient
gleam. An emphatic way. Dream beyond death.
To awaken still dead. To walk as one has
many times before but with a difference.
To kneel before nothing. She carries her
baskets of stars throughout the night.
One perceives her as hungry but sating
laughter. Servants assembling round the righteous.
Heartbeat amplified through hope. Just listen.
It's here. Princess of dark passages.
Muse of endless silent nights. Mistress
to those who long to shape sound with
their fingers. For those who long to,
even more for those who know how—
Evening. Time of bluer fantasies & driven
prowls. All exudes more utterly,
star-bright hopelessness. Then a silence.
Then another note, & another, & she
returns again, she really does, this time
blondely, it seems, chalice of light, feathers of shadow.
To begin again, by any means, fire,
forgetfulness, freedom's seeming sacrifice,
to begin again, now, but with a difference.
To look toward her, estimate into
her trailing hues, the exciting strums of
her possibilities. Servants eager to clear the land.
Heartbeat amplified through hope. She moves
newly danceful,, accumulating, deepening,
blonde music learn to listen, watch
it teaching itself, her glance draws
impressions across my heart, my world—
she leaves words, & gashes, & a familiar touch—
Evening. Longing to jitter the blue hues,
to mingle in amber & blonde. What
will prove dangerous are the moments
on high shelves, the gusts, snapping spray,
the moments of blonde imperiousness &
fatalism. Impish, too, kittens & critters galore.
To awaken, to begin, gather the curves
& summon the notes, utter the several
blondest words known, & hope, & more, & hope,
Receiving her dew-makings, her sunrise
hurryings, & then she slows, panics, then
learns to flow, blonde mullings,
Heartbeat delighted, daisies, silly delirium,
giving to something that which is something's,
what matters is how she holds the pitcher of water,
arranges the lillies, what she may be thinking,
smiling, adjusting the curtains, fussing, then
returning to bed, to embrace, to one moment's lingering safety
******
For Someone. Anyone.
xxxvi.
Embrace it all. Let it go. See what
remains. The beginnings of a new
freedom? More colors? Wilder music?
Full moon. Disintegration. Fuller heart.
Emptier hands. Spring arriving,
unplanned as ever, crown of wasted
speculations by godds & men.
This universe a myth, a bite, a shiver.
Morning mist astride an unknown
cheek. A dozen spoken words. The tide
remarked. A moment of green clarity
as her hands troll for a cigarette,
then matches, none, jitter—
Embrace it all. Let it go. See
what preaches on. Watch who listens
& how. Do the old eyes mock? Do the
younger ones mull?
Desire is resumed perpetually, yet observe
the fearful attraction of hands, contact
forever a new being, arisen. To bring
even this moment I played you
butterflies from fire, & wondered toward
when this would no longer be enough—
You await simply for me to play one true
note. Tumble the castle. Trippin' scriptures.
Keep breathing while nothing happens.
Keep breathin. Something always happens.
Embrace it all. Let it go. Does
anything at all remain?
There were pink blooms in the humming
winter light. What remains?
Love the pathless road treks remembrance
ever moment, every stone, comets
among the weeds—butterflies from fire—
Tonight the release from constrictions &
liberty. I don't know who I am. I don't
know what to expect. Love has unbraided
tonight, guided by glimmers of erotic
full moon, trembles & tendrils, a rhythm
flowing unto tonight, this teardrop pool.
Disintegration, the music toward which
sadness moves, speaks across the night's
hours, tappings toward renewal,
strummings toward a what-if when
I am discovered brushing your strands
of light with a brush part granite,
part onyx. Your neck insists a kiss.
Embrace it all. Let it go. Everything
remains. Kisses of light, kisses of water,
kisses of sound. Of stone. Of gone.
Soon beyond moon as rhapsody toward news
of a different kind.
Toward neural firings that leap the
gap, pangs & hues of what lays near
the breach. Submissions. Twinings
Another time. Another field of blues.
Another girl. Every time.
Embrace it all. Let it go. See what
remains. Full moons & new rhapsodies.
Good news every night. Begin to believe now. Continue.