i. Flutter

Tonight I listen for the flutter to go.
 Less than a hum, a low whistle,
less than a something, a key-shaped
 declivity in the ether, humbling clue.

It was another dream of sand set me to go.
 This one a test, the several questions,
fingering grains to conjure answer,
 & in the right order: Forgive. Understand. Reconcile.

And now the path, past my dreams,
 & every foolish hour. Came where I should,
in this graying dusk, & now to listen,
 now to watch, wait & watch, there--
A pink nose, glowing fur, parting through grass,
 a way not a way, just the flutter to go.

******

ii. By Way of Reply

Arrived here from so many hours & miles,
 I remember hard two. One is your greasy brow,
your sweaty face, playing a game you love
 but maybe not enough. You want to sing,
shape the air to your music, color exposed
 the cankers in your heart, if not fill
or efface them all. I watch from
 the sidelines, a backup reporter with
little interest until you collide into me
 & we collapse in pains & mud.

Years later, I dream we are talking
 on the phone, trying to explain
our lost friendship, understand the moment
 when mud becomes dust, understand
anything at all. A turn & I am in
 a vast coffeehouse in San Francisco,
several floors, rooms doored by old
 patchwork curtains, a couch the color
of badly dyed red hair, thin covers-less
 books of poetry heaped together between bricks.

I’m glad we moved here, I think, finally,
 after living so many other places.
San Francisco, I think gladly, at last.

When I wake, we’re not in or bound
 for San Francisco. And you are still
my friend, waking in your own home,
 with your loving wife like mine.

And I am in the Gate, still, too,
 & it reminds me that the old truism
about diminishing numbers of doors
 through the years is laziness worse
than lies. Look left, look right, mind
 & look ahead. They’re swinging every
which way, a shaggy spectral music at the ready.

******

iii. Empty Ballpark

The black kitten, so tiny in her long blue top hat,
 sleeps on a scrap of cardboard I found,
or sometimes on the edge of my hand.
 We cannot decide if she is my dream,
either of us, but she remains close in my hours.

I’m trying to understand what any of this is,
 as I always have, did. I saw clouds in the
skies, when a child, as frames to mysteries
 embedded in the blue. The ways lamps
reflected on windows, in my first heartbreak,
 & the next, seemed a secret warm pattern to things.

Faces in crowds befuddled me, each one dry
 & no hint of the tinder within. Perhaps something
when wrapped in a book, or a letter. I watched lamps
 deeper into reflections, listened. Watched lover
after lover sleep in my bed, gentle as demised.
 The black kitten came, then the blue top hat.

Or the other way. I travelled the last carriage
 out of town, walked & walked, found
an empty ballpark. A scrap of cardboard.
 Or the edge of my hand. Sleeping without answer,
 or question. A trust in me. I step from the ground,
finally, balancing her as my all.

******

iv. Big Dreams

I awake. Really alone. You’re both gone.
 I have nothing left but the Gate.
I don’t know what this means but
 it’s my only way on now. This great bed,
that large table, the plain table & chair.

The last time I saw you, the last time
 we curled half-nude, watching TV,
you relaxed, you smiled with me.
 You had translucent shades on your windows,
to let the stars & streetlights in,
 but obscurely. I was not your lover.

We formed a circle, you & me & him,
 we tendered each other, I was not your lover,
nor his, we were sugar water on
 each other’s tongues, colluding flames
in each other’s hearts. I joined you, & you,
 I stayed, & then remained, & then no more.

There is light on the water outside,
 I struggle to think dawn or dusk.
Those mountains are always white-capped
 so I do not know the season. Those evergreens
tell little more, but I am a man &
 so yearn to know. I am a man &
knowing is a hole I try to fill. I am a man &
 I miss you for all your cruelties,
you final lies, your lingering tenderness.

I was not your lover that last long night
 when we finally all twisted into bed,
when we made each other come new stars
 into the hours & skies. I was not your lover
when the juices of our bodies commingled
 & no god could tell us apart. I was not your lover
but I am a man & I am still trying to fill
 that hole, see through your translucent shades
into your heart, hearts, three, two, one,
 & I am awake. Really alone. You’re gone.

******

v. Guerilla

It came upon me with no name &
 it is beautiful & I can’t describe it
but I’ll try. There were streets then,
 closer to the water, the salt & water,
& the glare of trollies, & the fire. I was mad,
 several times over, I walked & walked.

It came upon me with a beautiful push
 to say, to sing, & I can only think of hands,
so many hands, come & gone, watched
 & come & gone. Parks full of scrawny green,
the moon hardly a thumb’s print above.
 I walk & I walk. Your ass remains poised

before me, your eyes so dark, so fuzzy with want
 & challenge. Like a good fuck can clear
away your heart’s trash. The trollies pass
 in pairs by the open window, one hither,
the other yon, I laugh. I should have laughed.
 The beautiful thing, nameless, nods with me.

Calmer now, unsated, we sit together
 under your room’s single window.
Its view to bricks imprinted red & gold,
 it comes upon us both now, sitting
together, our hands twined, coming,
 going, I notice your ankles are discolored.

“My shoes,” you explain. The beautiful thing
 is nudging me again, pulling now.
Have to hurry. I kiss your bare shoulder &
 stand finally. Your look is plain,
the timeless one when love leaves too soon
 & no counter. I turn. Walk & walk.

Till the years pass, greener parks,
 other hands. I can’t describe it all
but I’ll try. You dream you’re with a friend,
 another one lost one way or another,
& sitting together, there is relief. Time
 didn’t take you, I never let you go,
this beautiful thing pounds with every beat
 in my chest, a music that never quits.

******

vi. Burning Man

The flutter to go came years ago,
 came upon me here, this table,
this courtyard, a night kissed soft
 with lights & air as these, it came,
in a flutter, rightly music? So I chose,
 & chose to go, chose to follow.

Dreaming, dreaming, perhaps, & I still wonder
 at it, how I let a flutter make a world,
I loved the four trees in this courtyard,
 the old bricked floor, the clack & laughter
of chess pieces nearby, we might all have
 grown old together, I have might have written

here every year from then to now. But I didn’t.
 Not here. A preacher, one night, there
on the street, crying, “Your world’s mud’s
 becoming dust! Behold it everywhere!
Your world’s mud is becoming dust!” I stood.
 The clatter of lights in the cafe, its later hours,

its mediocre foods. The flutter to go &
 I stood up. I was from other years.

There were too many ancient buildings
 as I walked, too much tribute to old gods
& aged learning. The park I found was young
 with green, I tried to stay, tried to kneel
& believe. On a bench, a scrap of cardboard
 I pocketed, flutter, flutter, go.

Those around me didn’t know theirs
 was half some world becoming half
some other, they were figures in an equation,
 waving spectres in a long long wind, I could not
warn them, could not long lie among them,
 their views translucent when young &

muddier & muddier. I walked on, came finally
 to a tall fire in the desert where all
could go. They danced around it, cried &
 cheered. What a beautiful thing, to flutter,
flutter, & finally go! The years had eaten
 my hands, my art, I thought I had nothing left

yet I did not burn. I could not burn.
 A man of dreams does not burn.

I hold my uncharred scrap of cardboard tonight.
 The courtyard trees above me burst with
springtime green, another softly kissed night.
 The mediocre foods, the knock of chessboards.
What comes, & will not go. Where I must return.
 What beauties the night will not cede.

******

vii. A Man of Dreams

 A man of dreams does not burn.
 Am I man of dreams? Seems so.
Many dreams? Seems so.

I still wake. I still walk by day’s light.
 My lover nestles me in the crimson shades
of our chamber. Our bed alights with moans & cries.

But dreaming, I sit here in this familiar
 courtyard & feel it close, as the worn bricks
under my feet, the green green leaves above.

Not all is one or the other, my cane
 is both, oaken, carved instructions
I cannot read when awake, called a hekk.

My coat, this long leather thing, another
 that had crossed the Dreaming &
keeps me close. A singing in my ears.

I am trying to know this. Nobody can
 tell. The summer wind, the blue glare
of gaseous street lamps. Taxis & cruisers
 on the street. What is waking?
What is dreaming? Do I come here from
 elsewhere & what is that place?

A woman’s sweet ass in denim reminds
 me of another. The chess players
nearby chat of multiple realities
 between moves. I feel the lust,
live & remembered both. Their ideas
 seem reasonable, a guitar starts up.

The music is a signal, a nudge,
 a something, catch a hold its thread,
follow as a clue. Remember some things.
 It’s what I struggle to do. I do not burn.
I close my eyes, over the fence of details
 & into the music. Cool darkness,
flowing, floating, water the temperature
 of skin. A bare shoulder in a cluster
of glares, a reedy voice. To find her again,
 to remember some things. The Dreaming
nudges me back from its far edges &
 I wake. A bare shoulder. Nothing burns.

******

viii. A Chair is Like a Stump

There was a situation. They dress me
 & send me into the night, kind,
dear, I’d struggled. They listened close.
 Fed me pieces of fruit, & much water,
walked me in the garden many times
 where the striped white tiger with
electric blue eyes roams. But now
 I am dressed & sent into the night,
to a club, to continue my healing, &
 travel on. It’s the next stage.

The club is dark & the music growls
 from a fractured stage. I count
ten lights upon it & nothing clearly
 in view. It’s wrong, maybe others
notice too. I stand & look at the girl
 sitting with me, her red hair, electric
blue eyes, dressed in feathers & leaves,
 more vines & stones a crown on her head,
she smiles toward something & points.
 She says, “It’s a language of metaphors
& displacement.” I nod.

I reply, eyeing her shoulder soft in lights,
 her cheek softer in shadows,
“a person is a house of rooms. And we
 go from one room to the next,
clearing the cobwebs, but then
 the rooms we’re not in fill up with
more & more & we keep moving.”
 I am shaking, this matters.
I grasp her shoulder, grip it,
 pull her to me. “A chair is like a stump.”

We go. We will travel together.
 You will show me. You are not her
but you will show me. At night
 you are warm water, floating in
darkness. Music tugging me &
 I follow. Your touch is moonlight
in deep woods, a push, a pull, a tremble
 to press me on in these obscure matters.

******

ix. Take Back Your Mind

It was a far Western city. Winter blooms
 outside the window that morning. Now night.
That morning I’d read the sad letter &
 it’s sent me along my day’s path. The longer
I stayed in Dreamland, the more it became
 something else. The rest of it. What explained
our encasement in time & space, on earth,
 breathing, beating. Slaves to genetic
programming. To let go all was to fall, to fail,
 to die. So we rigged choice behind eyelids,
behind bars of sleep, there to blow, to exhaust.

But it was a sad letter, there is that
 too. And the blooms come before spring.
And I left you sleeping, covered you to
 chill & light. The letter warned you
of me, wondered at all your years
 tending my music. It was a letter
letting you go, knowing you wouldn’t,
 knowing you believed, you loved,
you waited & knew. Your face peaceful,
 your ever-light sleep mercifully unbroken.

I walked far to find my friends in
 their paintless old church, its many rooms
a refuge. Looking further, I found them
 in the cemetery with its clusters
of embedded stone markers. Their crowd
 of the poor, the half bidden, a few ex-priests,
none of it mattered, I walked on, she
 wasn’t in this city, the rain was icy.

As I returned to you by dusk,
 all was ice, impossibly iced,
our street now a long climb, my doing
 maybe. I find a phone in my hand
to call you, its cord runs to a set of
 dark boulders outside our door.

I call & call. The horizon now careens
 with wild sheets of light, ripping &
mending, ripping & mending, this is how
 worlds end here, nothing learned
but that losing solid ground below
 us, flying past days & miles,
would relieve us of nothing dearest,
 the touch as it passes, the breath expires,
& to choose again, & to choose again.

******

x. There Were Birds

There were birds, there were birds, there were birds,
 & at first they were out my window &
they were filling my dreams so they were
 out my window but filling my dreams too.
They crossed over, with their singing,
 their chuckling, crossed over until eventually
they formed my dreams, bigger & bigger,
 their singing became my dreams, my dreams
became their singing, more & more,
 & still they were out my window singing.

You remained. You slept more & more.
You slept deeper into your covers, your pillow.
You were no longer there by sun, by day.
You were leaving with the birds, leaving
 with the birds, leaving with the birds.
You were now neither by sun nor moon
 but you were some strange remain.
Close to me still, a shadowy sticky something
 now, the first sweetness life will take
 & leave only open hands to remind.

******

xi. Some Strange Remain

The ships have always been overhead.
 And yet, not just overhead. For you see,
we are on those ships, as we walk around,
 down here, we are on those ships overhead.

I wonder over all this as your hand half-asleep
 roams me, trembling for another tussle.
I let your hand, miss, miss again, slide away
 into sleep. You don’t want me that much.

It could have been you or either of the other two,
 in truth. I just needed one of you to keep me
until this rolling restaurant reaches
 the next city. You were the youngest,
least likely to hit or gag. Easiest to please
 with a few licks & a slow smile.

The restaurant has rooms in the back,
 a few to rent, & I need your wallet too.
When you’re out I use your coins for
 the black & white TV, smoke & watch a film
about a woman captured & brought to a cell.
 She powerfully remembers her youth & friends,
but they seem like boys she’d seen on TV.

You stir. I consider. I’m from those ships overhead;
 knowing this would you still have fucked me?
Now I’m sitting on the parapet outside our room,
 watching dark flat lands roll by,
looking up, missing gaps of time & intent.
 Light on the horizon, a thin smear
of pink & yellow. Here, there, up there.
 Did you really look down my body in
your bleary, gleeful rush? I’ve had a few
 over the years. Tits small but firm,
tummy flat, decent legs. Finish smoking, decide.

You’re lying splayed out, where I left you,
 easy to lick up hard & mount again.
You groan wanting, carnal & drugged both.
 You’re another of my practice runs but I’m reminded
I don’t need that much. I ride you, squeeze you,
 hurt you a little, you squeal pleasure.

Morning. I’ve stayed in the city as
 that restaurant rolled through. A stretch
among men not as young or as pretty
 as you were. Have to put a little more mileage
on this body. Some bruising for my purpose.
 I bring you with me, in a memory,
your eyes wide, spasming, & again,
 & why your empty bed, not the others?
Because they wouldn’t think to ask.

******

xii. Happiness

Quiet months. Left my room only at dawn,
 grew & gathered at the local park to keep
this body extant. Watched my black & white TV,
 I’d kept it. Sometimes had to make a friend
to get some coins to watch. Hurt him
 but only if he wouldn’t go.

The new ones upstairs, they began coming
 through my window, look around,
take things. There wasn’t much, but
 they’d play it as their due, climb
through the window, take things. Eventually
 I went a floor below, for his company,
& because he heard them too. Taking things.

I’d smoke & watch him careen his days.
 Come home from hurting people in an office,
fucking women with single names. Living days
 that were all edges. He’d lay with me
like a surrender. We’d give up sometimes &
 watch my TV. Better than upstairs.

But then he would visit his niece & smile.
 Smile & play & bring gifts, dance her around
in the rain. All would fall away. All the edges.
 He was happy & that was good. Nothing for most
in this world but to find someone or something
 to be happy with. What other choice to this?

******

xiii. Big Canvas, Empty

I guess you could say that love will warp
 your path, one way or another. So your
best angle on the thing is to make sure
 you love as well as you possibly can, because
your path will warp, one way or another.
 Nothing wrong in that. It’s a good thing.

They said it was a big canvas, empty,
 that’s what I think they said. Mine to fill
while I was here, before my task was ready.
 The window started showing me more
than my TV. I watched this story unfold.

The boy & girl there are in a house with
 many floors. There’s an elevator that runs
from one floor to the next. They’re trying
 to get together, to be close, it’s not working.
They end up always on different floors.
 I smoke & watch this tussle, is it years?

The seasons come & go, it seems
 a lot of time passes, & yet they
never grow old, they never leave the house.
 At one point they find each other in
the elevator, & for a moment they’re close,
 happy, makes sense, things cohere,
& then something. And then something else.
 As I watch they’re on different floors
again, but it’s different, now they remember.

The remembering is what changes things
 because if they have, they will again.
I watch as they near from one obstacle
 to the next, sometimes an interior obstacle,
worst kind. And then, finally, many floors up,
 there he is, there she is, they’re together,
it’s a sweet story. I’ve watched it so long.
 I close the window & pull the curtain closed.

Some warps in the path can be as beautiful
 as you can possibly imagine. But remember:
it’s all warps in the end.

******

xiv. Wilderdays

Were they dreams when I first watched you
 dance? Were they what drew me to you?
Others saw you dancing on the raked
 dancing grounds, how you’d make the sand
& pebbles scatter. How you would lithe & blind
 move near the large rocks, roll over them,
bend back to them, never a word, no sound
 but the scrapes & scatterings.

I knew all this from within me,
 my years, my dreams too, at least
some of them, conjured from the books
 of patterns you’d study be evening,
patterns that would shape & form our dreams,
 how we reached each other then,
dreams that would return us our waking lives.

Were they prophecy? Did you prefer one stone
 over another? Did you want me then too?
Did you see the bushes & trees move with you,
 the secret fountain among them start to gush?
The black stone shaped like a star missing its point?
 The pink one like a slouched or failing heart?
The flowers by spring & winger? Were they dreams?

******

xv. What Isn’t Left

Wake up. No, wake up. In a warehouse,
 long steps, running. Light of day is gone.
They control the situation beyond
 all reason, it’s obvious. What am I here?

When they first came, it was as angels
 from God, His missionaries come to destroy
the foul Earth, pass judgment on all.
 People believed this. By the millions.

They submitted themselves to be judged
 & punished. It was that easy.

Wake up. No, wake up. It’s a vast camp,
 strange, I keep moving. Feeling like something
to be found, among these tents & trees
 & buildings. Something to help me find you.

I meet people wearing costumes promoting
 eternal life. It adheres to the body,
sucks out the years & the toxins. To wear
 this costume is to live forever.

I keep walking. Wake up. No, wake up.
 Need to find a place to rest. To dream.
You forget me sometimes. You forget
 I am coming to you. You dance
for him, & him, & it’s enough, it’s full
 in you. I cry out. This is not a hunger
that I chose. It consumes my path
 ever closer to you. I won’t wake up.

******

xvi. Cackling

They need to give me something.
 I grind & thrash for them to give
me something. When they do, it cackles.
 It’s an . . . imp in many colors.

Cackles & leads me away. This is play.
 Like my old friend & his niece. I’m led away
& I go, what else? What has gnashing
 my thighs for you done me? There is cackling.
There is play. All a game, all illusion.

I go, & there are many trees. Pale beneath
 the darker stars. The imp smoothes my listen,
learns me sniff twice, & again. The imp shows me there
 might be other friends, if I let. Let go, sniff, let go.

I am thus content to exhale until the night
 my imp goes all white, still cackling
but all colors gone. The bite is in me
 again, oh feel it. Sand & stones scatter.
Feel it. I dream of you again, & all the while
 the imp is cackling. Her colors restored,
her eyes wide & wild. She is cackling,
 hurry, me go. Hurry, hurry, cackling,
hurry me go.

******

xvii. I Killed Someone

It was the worse part of it. I killed someone
 & I’m running, but I have no chance.
They know & are following. I remember
 it like a cloudy sky in my mind. Who
did I kill? Why?

It’s night, I’m in these strange woods.
 They retreat for the moment. It’s like
they think what’s here will do their intent
 better than they could. What do I think this?
Can I hear them talking from this far away?

The woods glow pale at night, below
 strangely dark stars in a cream sky.
I’m OK. Whatever this is, it can take me.
 I wait. It doesn’t. So I try remembering.

There was a room, where it happened,
 it was small, a basement, my means gone.
One man bound me so tight to him I thought
 we’d die together, watching each other’s
eyes go glassy. Another would save me when
 I wasn’t there for saving. He purchased me,
tried to bring me off.

I couldn’t. I had this goldfish, beautiful,
 in a glass vessel. I’d watch it swim as
they’d gag me, scorch my chest, weep &
 fuck me harder. Then there’s two. I’d thought
the other died, but no, good news.

They talk to me. Sometimes they aren’t
 even in the water. They sing to me,
so vulnerable, their bowl keeps getting
 jostled & breaking. Between me I
clean my body & their goldfish bowl.
 They let me know too hot or too cold.
We work together. As is right.

I let them see you in my mind,
 as I see you. They understand what
I mean, what I am doing. When he comes,
 the nice one, me purchased & to be taken
with him, I can’t. I won’t. They swim
 into my eyes as I kill him, we watch
together what I do, their bowl on his head,
 a jagged piece in his chest, again & again
until he won’t ever take us.

You’re still with me here, tonight,
 swimming in my eyes, not too hot
or too cold. I’ll bring you with me,
 to her. We’ll sing to her. We’ll go.
This woods won’t harm us tonight,
 or ever. It’s morning. And now we go.

******

xviii. I Follow

Along came the Traveling Troubadour,
 long dead, but loved by many
in the places we travel. I find myself
 in his company, happily, as many times
before, none the how or the why.
 What is real? What isn’t? Not yet?

He laughs & bids me sing for the crowds.
 He’s told me often to grasp them
by their eyes, see the music their
 hearts yearn, sing it, sing it.
The snapping fires, the low moon lighting
 trees around us, this is easy
& they dance. Learn something, something else,
 & dance more. He laughs & nods me more.

Between towns & crowds, I show him
 my puzzle. I have a blue sheet to write upon
but seem to have trouble. I wish to fill it
 with my  fragments which, when assembled,
form a whole, show me path on to her.
 He nods, sees my dilemma.

“None, one, & many,” he laughs, almost cackles.
 Yes, indeed, I nod. None, one, & many.
He lifts his instrument, strikes a perfect note,
 smiles a happy smile, & is gone again
until the next time around.

******

xix. Come the Island

Come the Island, come the doubt.
Come me there, I hesitated, protected.
Lived on the beach, sleeped under branches
 leaned against a tree.
Laid out nude on the beach to burn,
 to feel myself want the relief of
  your touch. Hesitated, protected.

I watched the full moon with my matching skin
 & saw a face in the moon & the face
seemed to talk to me alone & it said
 click-click! noise-noise! click-click! noise-noise!
in a gnattering tongue I felt I’d once known.

The next night my skin still troubled me
 & it looked like the tiny imp in the moon
returned to distract me from pain & sleeplessness,
 gnattering wildly, high & low, urge me too.

The third night I could not keep awake
 as my skin no longer ached & I crawled
among my branches leaned against the tree.
Up in the sky, the moon too waning
 for me to see the imp again. But she pressed
me along to you. She loved me, she cackled,
she pressed me wake & go.

******

xx. Nearer to You

Our first time not in a bed or on grass,
 or by woods, but in the Royal Temple.
My dress housed undergarments trimmed for entry,
 for pleasure. He hid me there before light
& came when his morning business was done.
 Came alone, among the pieces to one & another,
for general gossip to assemble, that he drew nearer
 the old gods as war closed in. All respected
his hours of prayer alone in the Temple.

I knelt between his thighs & roused
 his member swiftly. Then he motioned
& I sat on his lap, facing him, his hands
 sliding in through the hidden flaps
in my blouse, the rest of him sliding
 in me down below.

He was strong but guided me gently
 our first time, taught me to moan
through our clasped fingers, to keep my eyes
 shut & see him through our quicking beats
& breaths, & faster, & a nebulous climax
 he led me in & out of until our hands
exploded in cry, until our bones shook &
 muscles relaxed.

I was let in early in the morning,
 let out late at night, I did not know by who,
but I’d seen you dance already, I knew
 I’d found you. When he finally moved me
to a private chamber to keep me more
 elaborately, it didn’t matter. The goldfish
in my eyes swam peaceful, the imp in the moon
 cackled with good new play, I would crumple
 the King your father as I neared you &
 neared you, & sweat him & this world away
from this skin of mine you would touch, you would possess.

******

xxi. We Are Six

We are scattered, even enemy now,
 but once we came together, walked as one.
We six, raised & summoned from different lands
 & times, bound for the Island, many
years in the coagulation, all meant
 to bind us for this task, to answer for all
what if anything could be done to save men--

Could the Tangled Gate undo all the wrong
 we’d brought to ourselves & our world?

A fellowship they make the myths from,
 the one of the great Beast tricked
by his own dream into devouring his head,
 the one of the woman who bit off the cocks
of enchanted seamen until the night
 she broke her teeth & lost her tongue
devouring our brother’s image cut in stone.
 The later one of the man who walked in crown
& dragon’s robes, telling of his god’s every whim
 & judgment, until our brother sang him nude
into the Fountain’s cheering & clearing
 waters, to emerge soft & wide-eyed
with every crumb of the world now mine &
 yours & all’s to share.

A fellowship, broken on the Island,
 within the Tangled Gate. Not built by men,
not the stuff of this world. It tore us
from each other not because malevolent,
but because men can only undo men.
 We cannot undo the elemental forces
of this world. Submit, thrash, burn, heal.

This pond I stay is calm at twilight, chipping & whirring
 of its world at rest. I think about my brothers
& I wish we had another hour in the Gate.
 To submit to its powers, yes, but insist our fraternity.
Teach us to know our world, play it,
 sing it, heal it of us, we are ignorant
& rude of these things. But teach us not
 how to love one another, for though you
consume our bodies & minds, you cannot
 know our hearts, how a hand’s touch
stays forever in changing shapes of memory,
 how a soft word twists into blood & loins,
how the very air we breathed that morning
 as we arrived on the Island still fills
& empties our lungs, each of us, tonight,
 tomorrow, it’s cool, calm, we look around,
anchor the boat, glad we are near
 to one another, whatever comes, whatever comes.

******

xxii. Dreamwalker

I was sometimes called the Dreamwalker
 because I could step in & out of them
like other men a field of lilies & grass,
 & I could squeeze them & shape them
to a chunk of wisdom, a word, a message
 from what knows this world & blows
 best through its ways.

My brothers would tend me when I woke,
 sweating, sometimes injured from my travels
in Dreamland. Wash my body, clean
 its wounds, kissing touch & caress.
Later dressed, supped, I would sit with them
 & tell what I could. Some things would not
carry over. Would crumble in the waking,
 or the telling, or in their eyes as they
watched me, needed me to tell.

As days neared us toward the Island
 & the Tangled Gate, my dreams went numb
of picture, word, advice. My brothers
 found nothing in my face. Only one image:
a spread of fresh warm blood on a log,
 a huge axe from the sky chopping it twine.

We tried something at my begging upon
 reaching the Island, its shoreless rocky
edge. From my pouch the herbs & powders
 to set me into waking sleep. I followed
with the others in two places at once,
 trying first to see doubly, then singly.
In dream I was alone, on an Island
 come alive, coated in fur & teeth,
angry, uncalmable, not enough to consume
 me or us whole, but to efface us,
like we never were in this world.

I cry out. A face. A man’s sad face
 but not sad. Furious. The Island,
its body of the Beast, its face of a man,
 I cry out again, & fall down forever.
My brothers all return to me from
 their explorings. Gather close to me,
each a hand on my trembling form.
 We are one again, o world’s dreaming
heart! why couldn’t the Island have
 consumed us then as one than
spew us like spittle in all directions
 thereafter? I feel you still, all of you,
my brothers, tending me, waiting
 my words, even when the only ones
I had left, finally, were I’m sorry.

******

xxiii. Lovers

They knew me as he, they knew me
 as she, we lay together in couples
& groups, the road was too long for questions
 that no longer mattered. You held those with you,
you loved them, they were lorn. You loved them.

As a girl I waited for the men to find me,
 I waited, veiled, ruffled, impatient,
the universe made my body to play,
 to think & play, to think & love & play,
to figure it all out among hands & eyes
 & thighs & words part prayer, part lies.

The men found me & I let them chase,
 let them breathe my scent & sleep alone,
let them make canvases by my vague smile,
 let them caterwaul music from their hard loins.
The men found me & I let a few with
 a secret smile, moved them to build
& to destroy & to calm the fuck down &
 to raise back the fuck up.

The years passed & I needed to know
 better, to feel it hard entering me,
feel that driving thing of empires,
 gird it soft, feel it raised helplessly
by blush & a thigh, need to possess
 something, have it, fuck it, fuck it,
rest. Rest softly. Year upon year.

Eventually, what difference? I knew
 it mattered, knew it, then less so.
All flesh is lorn, all flesh needs love.
 Me to help make it so. My brothers,
when the Beast pulled me down to light,
 I felt the why for it all, remembered
again. We’re here for the friction, we’re here
 for the lorn. We’re how the world
makes its music, what it plays, what it burns.

******

xxiv. Dreams the Island

Before I was King, do you remember?
 I washed my shirt carefully every day.
I slept among the legs & hands & dirty mouths
 of my own brothers, the ones blood told me
were brothers. Before I learned my path
 needed dearer ones to me.

There was no King then, just groups of men
 keeping each to its piece. Peace but
when a woman got restless for a new face.
 We were too tired working fields for politics.

But there were dreams I could not bury between
 randy maidens’ thighs. More to this world
than working it over like a prize fight.
 I asked the old men of the tribe,
a tooth among them, & they laughed.

Eventually it was the women, full moonlight,
 the tall fires, I made them share me
the drinks neither wine nor water. The hours
 showing me years ago, the Island,
out there on the horizon, something there,
a Gate? They couldn’t tell me. They squabbled my cock.

Knowing something I tried to tell. Maybe
 something more to this world than dirty hands.
The men shook me off for easier lessons
 of drink & sleeping the hours hard off.
I needed new brothers to teach me how
  listen, teach me how see. New brothers
to travel that Island’s dream & bring its seers home.

******

xxv. So High

It was in the sea-water we first
 touched you, by then we were yours.
The day preternaturally bright, the kind
 quickly dries the lips. I’d said you’d come kind,
fast & slower, like a woman’s smiling eyes
 as you followed her hips, like faint water
trickling you into a dream. The sea-water
 as it touched our ankles & knees,
as we pulled our small boats to shore.

Then it was the air, it felt like remembering,
 it felt like private, impossibly private,
things to each one of us. A touch, a word.
 A private smell with its private smile.
The air of the Island curled around us
 in waves that slowly consumed. But a finger
on the lips to me, not a word to any
 or the magic’s gone. And it’s just a lonely island.
Shh. Finger on the lips. Not a word.

We camped that night on the beach,
 subdued, none of our songs matched
those strange patterns of stars, the colors
 they seemed to imply. Our bonfire roared,
we six about it, a mile from one set of warming
 hands to the next. I wondered for a word
& felt I should, always the others had
 nodded to me & my plants & potions.

I closed my eyes. I called the Island
 to me, humbly, I bid it near as I
could abide. I presented myself for
 protection of my brothers, let me flow
through them tonight & always, I pray
 I flow through & protect you one & all.

They look me close over. A few smile.
 “The place will fell more of us in the end.”
Nod. Laugh. (Finger on the lips. Not a word.
 Or the magic’s gone.)

******

xxvi. Unexplainable Spasm

I was told first, given my task when
 I had none, when I was nothing.
Another face among leaves & trees. Too many
 years chasing good ass & then whatever ass.
Too many explanations. Too much time.

The voice in my head, I was hungry,
 lightheaded, pills for meals, pills for sleep.
The voice, a young boy’s or a girl’s, humming
 at first, draw me in lure my mind. Look about,
city crowds, we exist to each other by news
 only our skins & sniffs know. Nothing. The voice
sang louder, moved me from brownstones &
 cobblestones to a park, a bench without light.

“Would you like to do something beautiful?
 Would you like to save the world?
Would you like to feel like the stones,
 the streams, the wind among nameless things?”

I nodded to this madness, or open door.
 Nodded & was led back in time, my own times,
my canvases, unfinished, I saw them now,
 saw what they should be, painted & painted,
the voice singing, singing, its light, my path,
 on & on, it would have been enough,
I ate bread & cheese again, scattered happy kisses.

“Would you like to do something beautiful?
 Would you like to save the world?”
I nodded & knew there had to be more.

The canvases became other, developed
 a within, a toward, faces, singly
at first but then I saw how they were a group,
 the tall windows of my chamber let in stars
& moons & something between them, madness
 or open door, I nodded, the same faces,
canvas after canvas, woods, pale woods,
 the sea, knowing, near, the Island,
of course the Island. Always the Island.
 Always the Gate.

“Would you like to do something beautiful?
 Would you like to save the world?”
I nodded, & drew us together, at last.
 Each found the canvas I made for him,
in his time & place, studied it, dreamed it
 day & night until known better than
the common light, better than brain,
 body, beat, breath, knew it & stepped through.

There we were together, our ship, the sea
 & more sea. Morning. Waking in a cluster,
a herd, a batch of wondering faces. What next?
 Time to do something beautiful. Time to save the world.

They knew, these found brothers, that I
 had brought them here. Called me
the Magician but I shook it off. Urged me
 paint our path, our enemies, beautiful women
to find & dance with. Shook it off
 worse. There is only the Island. There is only
the Gate. My sole canvas aboard that ship
 showed not the what nor where of our task
but how it would bind us better, break us finally.
 They gathered. Laughed. Then less. New vows.

I made us curl together, again, the night
 before we arrive the Island. Every man
another’s hand to his lips, his breast.
 Someone laughed. Another shushed.
We sailed unknown seas of stars, & songs
 of boys & girls wished & washed our minds.
Night passed. Coming home, coming home.

We ranged the Island for days,
 the stories don’t tell this, it wasn’t
a single day’s conquest, we were brave,
 we were less so, the Gate humbled us
before it would be found. Farther & farther
 from the world, lost in mystic pale woods
until I listened, begged a little, & listened,
 & led us the remaining way.

The Gate is not of this world & our skills
 & tricks & strong hands did us no good.
The paths walled by vines & stones hurried
 & pushed us, no pause, no food, never quite
night to rest. We came, straggled, crowded
 before the cave of the Beast. Words gone
as each of us entered the cave, & was consumed.

Consumed us, singly, & then in all, & I felt
 the stones, I felt the promised streams,
I let go, & more, & all, & now the wind
 among nameless things. I nodded, smiled,
did not return, my brothers, now I am
 become the canvas upon which you will
do something beautiful. I grant you this music,
 burden you this song. I don’t know if you can,
but you will try & save the world.

******

xxvii. The Gypsy Girl

Among the adventures the one we never spoke,
 the girl in the graveyard & she was possibly dead,
but we each had of her & were less & more.

We had sailed toward the Island for years
 without discovering sight of it. The books read,
the shamans drunk with, the myth held no live bones.

A tavern to loose it, put down the weapons &
 too many maps. We ranged to different new
companions & pursuits. New smells in the nose.

“You’re the Dreamwalker,” she said to me,
 young, pretty, but a scar, but a limp,
scarves of many sigils, cards on her table, a crystal.

I nod. Briefly imagine licking her scar, her everywhere,
 then take my drink. My friend’s new brew.
“The Island’s a dreamer. It dreams the world.”

We walk outside, I don’t tell my brothers.
 She sniffs of blue fire, too too blue, &
leads me to a graveyard. We lay among effaced stones.

I don’t reach for her as I ought, or might,
 but she gazes the stars & sings me a song.
I sleep. Dream of warm blood on a fallen tree.

I find her while looking for the Dreamwalker.
 She smiles, & I tense. Bids me sit with her
among a cluster of stones. Some say only “from.” Some only “to.”

“You lay with men & women both?” I nod.
 She curls into me, her hands soft,
curious, benign. “The chasm won’t be breached.”

The painter joins us, remarks the moonlight,
 the shadows. She slips from her scarves & skirts
& bids him portray her, portray us together.

We twine for my friend & he draws with
 a shaky hand, shakes his head, cannot
render, & goes. She seems to follow, without her clothes.

My brothers are scattered & here is a naked woman
 in a graveyard. She is scared, limps, scarred
but beautiful. I cover her with my cloak.

Now on an ancient bench near the graveyard’s gate,
 she calms, pushes my cloak plainly aside.
Urges my hands upon her. “There is no time.”

I turn from my games of pegs & chance
 & find only our youngest brother remains.
“They’ve gone with the gypsy,” he says, thin-voiced.

But she’s where she’s been all night, at her table,
 her cards, her crystal. Bids me sit. I nod.
“My cards know more than your plants,” she says.

“That may be true. But my plants don’t lie.”
 Her smile rings & rings of power, enough
to dance in partner, enough to burn worlds.

Our youngest brother goes to look for the rest
 & I watch her follow. He’d drunk what I’d given
him first. No time for lies. So many beautiful truths.

I find each of us disarrayed as though
 strong, fine, dirty sex but strangely no sate.
We gather ourselves finally before morning’s first light.

Nobody knew of the gypsy at the tavern
 that morning, the scarves & skirts we found
in the graveyard were colorless scraps.

Our ship a refuge from that night & what
 it told us. We could search for the Island perpetually,
or sacrifice all, finally, each other, & it would reveal.

******

xxviii. Builds the Kingdom (Part 1)

We lay twined abed, as we have from
 our first night, & you press me again,
smiling blue stars in the velvet space between us,
 what brought me back, & with my bond
of strong brothers, how was it so?

You’d known your own fate from a child.
 First a girl bleeds she is chosen by one
or another. They fight, they trade,
 one beds me after they drink & hug,
maybe they share me that night
 as a mark of friendship. Each vying
to make me moan more helplessly,
 cry & beg.

So your sister had told you, & aunts,
 & your own mother with not enough words,
& tears. “It’s hard on them, this life.
 They need to be brutal to us. It compensates.”
She knew such words & their ideas too,
 but died like none of it mattered.
Just the hairy bit between her legs &
 his need for compensation.

“Then you came.” I smile. I’d almost forgotten
 the scattered tribes of this region. We came
on a clue of the Island. But people knew me.
 They remembered me. “And everyone thought
I’d come with a mission of union. My brothers
 liked it better than I did. They convinced me.”

“No. I did.” I smack her ass. I could find
 this flesh candy in the silence of the seas.
“Tell me.” “I dreamed you.” “Dreamed?”
 “It seemed of no consequence, a man’s
yearn who’s smelled other men’s loins
 too close too long.” “It wasn’t.” “No.”

Our first night’s camp was near where
 I’d been a boy. Some remembered, welcomed
me, us, but some didn’t. I saw you at camp
 & I’d never seen such terror in a girl’s eyes.
Such hopelessness. “I told my brothers
 to keep the men busy, all night, drink
& fight them, again & again.”

“You wouldn’t tell me.” “ I had no words.
 This is what men do. This is what girls are.”
“But still you feared. Your heart fought it.”
 “What woman would not choose which man
beds her? By a tribal rule? Or by her own fired loins & heart?”

“I didn’t intend to take you.” “You’d sniffed me
 close the first time we passed. I’d already chosen you.
I just didn’t think it would happen. So his
 small cock would have your handsome face.”
I laugh. You taught me the heaviness & lightness
 of a woman’s wants, of her needs.

“You made me King.” “Your brothers had already
 decided that. Just lacking was the kingdom.”
“When they beheld you my Queen, I now had
 worth to kneel for!”

She shifts impatiently. Strokes my cock
 thoughtfully, if that’s possible. Moves
about in my arms, then leaps back
 from my known moves. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what? You feel my hardness.
 Shall I beg again?” She laughs. Then stops.

“Why were you here? You didn’t come
 to free & unite us. Not originally.”
“Why say you?” “Because girls like me
 are the spoils of the last standing.
You hesitated. Gave me choice.”

“I’m not a brute.”
“No. And it takes one to ride into settled lands
 & claim them. Fell the men there or worse
let them live servants thereon. Tell me.” I marvel her again &
 wonder my silence.

“You sought something. Or someone?”
Silence.
“Should I fear you begged another her treats,
 & she lives still in your heart?”
“No. We rode as brothers looking for a home.
 We’d bonded by chance, accident, &
vowed to settle. We were ready. Too many
 limps among us. Low fires in the heart.
We were tired.”

You didn’t quite believe me. You knew
 among us six no longer spoken words,
wishes, remained. You chose, after all,
 to love what I could give. Love, loving,
kindness. An especial cruel hand to any man
 who’d have a girl like a tankard. To be drained,
bussed by another. I ruled by your lights,
 & why you were taken from me is all
keeping me alive.

******

xxviii. Builds the Kingdom (Part 2)

The ancient women have not forgotten
 me as I visit their dwelling alone.
They gather around me in their furs
 & feathers & finery. The manacle each
wears on her left wrist, as reminder.
 “Tell me. We don’t visit for sentiment.”

“There are stranger strengths in this
 world than most reckon. Hidden paths
among dreams, & truck even between
 life & death.” “Tell me.”

The oldest, three hideous bones of a woman,
 eyes me. “Why did you return?”
“I won’t lie. It was chance.” “What were
 you seeking?” I look at the manacle
on her ancient crust of a wrist &
 try to think of her, girl in new stained
white panties, led off for consumption.

I sigh. “We sought the Tangled Gate,
 a bond of men gathered to save the world.
But it was vain. Why gather us & not
 reveal the thing? They were despairing.
Becoming saviors to my old homeland
 saved them, saved all of us.”
“Now you despair.”
“Yes. And you have help?”

These old crones then spend the last of
 their blood bone & magick to answer me.
A bed the size of my brothers’ boat,
 fires & stars where ceiling’d stolid stood,
& them too many to count & ferocious
 again in their flesh, mouths to be
kissed & sucked, breasts to be squeezed
 & bitten, shoulders & stomachs & buttocks
to be licked, chewed, tendered, hips
 & maidenhair to be released in happy
moans, laughing howls, & in that night
 they showed me, each a witchly piece
to the whole, the route to the Island,
 & thus the Gate. Thus the Gate.

I woke by sun, chewed, well chewed
 & battered in dust. Of course they were
gone, as though never been. But I knew
 the way now. It was no noble task
for us, some great work of obligation.
 We’d been wrong. We’d come to save the world
now because we had so much to lose
 by its passing.  Love fights for its right,
love sacrifices when it must, but love most
 seeks to learn best how to live & shows others how.

******

xxx. Falling Free

There is no time. That’s what we six learned.
 What we know still. There is no time.
We travel rootless paths. Cling to their scenery.
 We mold to sense impressions, helplessly,
& layer upon layer our seeming knowledge.

Our bodies mature like fruit, to new shapes,
 to deeper withins. The path to others sometimes
farther, more volatile. Do the lights of the sky
 understand? Do other creatures of the earth?
Can our want flare to knowing, stay?

We accumulated, entering the Cave,
 filled our bond more & more, seeming,
then a falling back, a rupture. A loss.

So many years to find this Island,
 come to its shores. With the wishes
of our kingdom, its worries we be well.

We’d intended no kingdom & yet it now stood,
 & those who had raised it were now leaving,
a voyage for all humanity, twas said, & though
 the world seemed prosperous & at its ease,
they sailed without further word.

The King now knew the way, he’d summoned
 us & said. His great hall, its great communal
meal table, where we ate with all of our
 kinsmen, was emptied but for one map.

His eye, his finger on one place, seeming
 in the open sea. “There.” We looked.
“In the morning.” “How do we land on water?”
 “It will be there.” “How will we know?”

He stopped us with a fist upon the table.
 “It’s there. It’s what we seek. Guarded,
but we will be let in.” Then he turned & left,
 didn’t take his map. Didn’t need it.

It was our fellowship that allowed us
 passage. The King traded our love for it.
For him, twas no longer save mankind or the world.
 Save her. Bring her back. Her unknown illness.
Lack of funeral. No gravesite. We sailed.

Other stories tell of our arrival, the dreams,
 the dark portents. None tell the rest.
There is no time.

The Island that was not there came into
 view the third morning out, & we landed
its shoreless rocky edge. Woods, it was covered
 in a unnavigable pale Woods!

But the King had negotiated our passage.
 He gathered us the next morning,
upon an unliked night of sleep there,
 closed his eyes, & began to sing.
Sing & climb from the rocks & on into
 the Woods. We followed him, weapons
but no foe. A silent Woods to enter,
 save for the King’s crooning.

Helpless we followed. Our King blindly
 sang & moved forward, not a stumble,
unlike the rest of us. He sang us along
 a seeming invisible path for hours
& impossible to say it led, & yet did.

It should have been night when we came out,
 & beheld the Tangled Gate. Should have,
wasn’t. It was taller than a castle
 & seeming ageless. Was ageless. There is no time.
We’d yet to learn.

We remarked its legend above us:
 “For those lost.” Were we? We passed through.
There a Fountain, carved fanatically
 beyond the mortal skills. Its waters
an invitation. The King gestured us drink.
 There seemed no choice.

The passage through the Gate was only
 partly physical. It’s this the myths
cannot convey. There were no days or nights
 in the Gate. There is no time.

We did not come to the Cave of the Beast
 by a path, or several. It was arrival
without intention. Were there even
 the paths told of, made of vines & stones?
Had we left the Fountain, or the entrance,
 or had we even left the shoreless
rocky lip of the Island?

The King roused us. As a group we’d been
 slumped. “This is why we were brought
together. To come here & enter this Cave.
 We’re here to save the world by our
worth as men. Our willingness to enter
 this Cave.”

I entered & found myself of a sudden
 by the shore of a pond at twilight.
The pond was covered in water lilies,
 & the insect hum rose to my ears.
I sat & did not know. There was no
 way back. This is what was intended for me.

I entered next, seeing my brother in the far
 distance, by a place he’d mentioned having seen
once, called it a living painting. I could not
 retrieve him, & despaired, when I felt
many arms embrace me, touch my face,
 join my beating, my breath, my brothers--

And I came, though what separated one
 from another of us I could less & less tell.
I did not need aid to sleep & wake both
 for here in the Gate it was this forever,
it was source, before sunshine, before soil,
 all was music, all was flow. I smiled.

I came to know & saw the living canvas
 of my brothers & how I’d come to paint it
& I yearned my place! Please let me
 consume in the this canvas finally
& know more than painter & subject,
 let all be one, let all be one.

My King I came last before you &
 something in this welcoming goo
was wrong. I loved my brothers so much
 but I was trained by Creatures
far wiser than we men to sniff
 & know. As I entered the Cave
I sniffed to know & the pain seemed
 to rip me wide. I sniffed again &
again, to calm. My brothers were not
 in that Cave. Not dead but gone.

When I came out you shrieked wordless
 at me. You ran past me into the Cave
& remained within for three days.
 I was compelled to stay vigil, no more.

When you came out, that third morning,
 you were not as I had known.
We returned to our ship, unhindered,
 no path needed. You told me only one thing,
“There’s no need to mourn them. We know
 there is no time. So there can be no death.”

All I felt was the falling back,
 the rupture, the loss. I wondered the Gate,
then the Island, then the sense
 of everything.

I broke with you, my King, when I sunk
 to my knees one night & cried for help.
Cried for help a man could conceive
 & use. A Savior, to comfort, to explain.
A Savior, whether he had ever existed,
 could now exist. Could comfort & explain
hereon. Could bring me along with the rest.
 Where you, my King, my brother, had denied
when you willing sacrificed us all in the Gate.

The emptiness possesses me, even now,
 as I saw you divide from your kingdom,
as I saw you reach back to the Island,
 as I saw you come to believe
there was something there after all
 to save men, a bargain to be made
with whatever Eternals had built that Gate.

I arrayed against you, my King,
 that others would not follow you,
across the waters, on the path
 that had taken our brothers from us.
A path you had designed because
 there is no time & she had not died
& you could save her even now. You could
 still save her & our brothers. The Gate
could save us all. The Gate could save the world.

******

xxxi. Sleepers

Now each of you is shown the origin of
 the world, its source in Emandia,
& how arrives the Gate to the Island.
 Now each of you is given practice
to devote to your art, time to feel
 how real it seems through the Dreaming.

Was not always so. We lost many,
 in mind or entirely, early on,
thinking it would be quick, we knew
 so much, the Hum that signaled
the Gate through time, the juice
 created to pursue it, piece together the fall.

We believed it was a series of acts,
 a finite number, they could be shifted,
like levers, like Time itself a great calculating
 machine we could tinker to a better end.
We would find these acts, in space & time,
 & settle one of our sleepers near each one.

But tell it otherwise, no, what happened
 was that the Hum shifted. The Gate
eluded us & we could not use its power
 to repair our history. We found ourselves
at war with the Gate, losing men & women,
 helpless to know how to prevent our collapse.

I sought our answer dream within dream
 within dream. Eschewed the Sleeping Capsule,
the potion of my own hand I trebled,
 in strength. Did not wake & would
have died but for a friend. My old mutt retriever
 would not be so long kept from me in
my Tower offices. He found me & licked me
 & nudged me & dragged me back to him.

I held him despairing. His quick breaths,
 his swift beat. How he tended me close
& how in other times I had tended
 his wounds & ills. And then I realized
what should have been simple. Not a machine
 with levers. History is the stuff of of
blood & bone. Save its body. But more.

The Gate is history’s heartbeat.
 It could not save the flesh within which
it lives. We had to learn what had been
 broken & by what manner to heal it.
This would be our way going forward:
 bind the wounds, tend the wounds, heal the wounds.

The days & weeks & months & years tired me,
 as I saw human history heal but not recover.
It was not enough, the world was failing
 to sustain us for our countless ruining hands.
I wondered if there was something else,
 a potenter magic to be seduced.

I began seeing the Hum as something else.
 A thread. A thread through an impossible
way I needed to travel, through Time itself,
 past it, what Emandia was, what we are.
I would go myself, if needed, as sacrifice
 or Hero. We could not fail.

******

xxxii. Sing the Island

Is it silence or is it song when
 it begins? The world, the next one,
the countless next one, blue-green,
 another ocean planet, waiting to fire,
waiting to bloom, waiting to burst.

But then the Hum, the arrival,
 just barely not silence itself, & yet,
& yet. Low singing, so low, searching music,
 searching this new watery planet, sniffing
like a Creature for the place to arrive,
 the place will sing to be the Tangled Gate.

Arrives the Island, a Beast covered
 in trees, arrives & sings the Island,
sings it soft, sings it promise, sings it lure,
 accept the Gate, accept the Gate,
accept the Gate. The Island will growl,
 demur, beckon, let a little, let a little more.

Sing the Island a vision, a vision of what to be,
 what will emerge this union from new & old dreams,
sing the Island a vision honest of old despair,
 what has failed before, whyfore this new song.
Sing the Island till the Island pleases no more,
 & love fires this universe once & future again.

Now comes the Gate, comes the Gate,
 comes the Gate now full & hard,
sings unto the Island, arriving,
 arriving, mating, binding, let a little,
let a little more. Grasping, binding, joy.

Now a conjugal song, happy wedded Hum.
 The Gate grafted to the beauties of this Island,
to the new truths of this world.
 The Gate crafted to sing through time,
love every last Creature of this world. Every last one.

******

xxxiii. And the Creatures

What found on the Island,
 who came to the Island, how the dreams
of men fired through it all.

Always the Creatures, on every world
 Emandia sought new home. Always
were the Creatures there, half-found
 in what the Island itself grew, but more.

It was agreed she would come first
 & if needed lead them all away again.
She was arted for this purpose, & so first.

It was the quirk in her animated nature
 that caused them be. Committed to this new world,
unremembering any other, these would be her clue.

Given her kind’s yearn, their love of music,
 these Creatures would live in the caverns
beneath the Tangled Gate, at the beginning.

What found on the Island,
 who cam to the Island, now the dreams
of men fired through it all?

These Creatures would also leave the Island,
 scatter through history among the world’s
homegrown men & women, clues, like their dreams.

If you slept with a Creature in your arms
 when small, dreamed the untellable,
woke wildly, the night big & silent, you were close.

As you grew, & made your ways through
 the mysteries of want, & men’s answers,
you were further away. Rightly yearned those
 wild, silent nights. Yes, there was unseen music.

When you no longer wondered their fate,
 long given to attract to taller icons
& thicker books, they continued too.

What found on the Island,
 who came to the Island, how the dreams
of men fired through it all.

When the world began to run down,
 it would be again Creatures to your console,
in one form or another, loving you, leaving you this time.

For she would summon them back to her,
 from all places & times, remembered some things,
& time to move along, little Creatures, time again.

So the Architect taught the Sleepers,
 find the Creatures if you can,
remember which ones you knew when
 small & the feeling the wild, silent
nights, the unseen music, find them when you can.
 When you are near, it helps to hum,
it helps to sing, it helps to smile.
 Be ready to dance as they are.

******

xxxiv. The One Who Disappeared

There was only one. She should not have
 been sent. She knew everything.
How it begins & how it all ends.
 She thought it was funny, like a game.

A very old man had told her when
 she was small, “If you can stay awake
in your dreams, & begin to look around,
 you will learn strange things.”

She told nobody, it was funnier
 that way. She found her Creatures
in dreams, of course, & they welcomed
 her, of course, with a dance & a song.

Her first lover, chosen more by whim
 than thought, let her down,
unable to sleep awake in their tangle
 of blankets & candlelight.

Her next lover seemed to know,
 to touch her keys & make a better music,
but shied off her harder harmonies,
 liked her to moan his night but
not caterwaul for all creation. Alas.

She came to the Sleepers with big eyes,
 a little smarts, a show of tit, a little wit.
Among the first group sent across the Dreaming,
 hers was the least hard task. Thus
easiest to elude when she did not return.

She pulled herself whole through the Dreaming,
 no potion had brought her to. Taking the smallest
form seemed best plan for her travels & games
 to come. A simple dress, big smile, laughing eyes.
Laughing, perhaps call it like a cackling too.

******

xxxv. Preparing for the Dreaming

I was the first to cross the Dreaming.
 I’d done so years before anyone else,
had created a loose network of knowledge
 & contacts before the rest knew, as they
still leaned on leaders & the learned
 to stop the crash. I was busy.

There had to be powerful Sleep Capsules,
 hundreds of them, constructed in a deep
cavern, below leaders & the wars they
 reluctantly tried to slow. The capsules
would gleam white in the lamps upon them,
 stoned mined in the high mountains
where the workmen labor up single file
 with heavy coils on their shoulders.
It would ride in slabs down steep tracks
 to where I would ferry it along.

There had to be allies who knew
 we were coming, & why, who had already
traced on to our dilemma from their seeds,
 some of many, & would give us both
shelter & cover to operate. I found Travelers
 in many places & times, beautiful sober faced
men, eager-thighed women, these would tender
 & teach us too.

Crossing the Dreaming was exhausting,
 double since landing was usually in the sea.
I caused the building of a simple Pensionne
 with doors from many directions. I caused
its gardens raised up, rooted it all in
 many centuries & places, open to all,
but especially our Dreaming kind.

I did not cause or coax the White Tiger
 to come. But when he came I knew
we weren’t alone, & my efforts not so desparate.
 I knew further by stories of a Tramp
met at the Threshold of the Dreaming,
 a tattered man with secret advice.

There was one I regretted leaving behind,
 one Sleeper I felt an oddness for,
she never mentioned the Tramp.
 When I decided to leave, I weakened
into her arms the night before.
 I wanted her to take over, her to protect
them, comfort them if I failed.
 She was a woman with even scanter
trinkets than the rest, but a single white shell.
 She’d listen to it for hours. These are my
only regets.

******

xxxvi. Single White Shell

I listened to the sea. I listened
 to the sea. I listened to the sea.
I’d curl into the blue & crimson blankets
 of my Sleeping Capsule, nude with my candles
again, & listen to my single white shell.

They would listen too, from afar, they’d
 quickly learned for times when I was
not visiting. They listened to the sea.
 They listened to the sea. They would tend
my scars & sighs, & listen to the sea.

When you left I knew. You were too gentle
 with me, tasted & possessed me to remember,
to say goodbye, like a bloom left obscure
 in my heart’s chambers, to discover later,
words you didn’t have, or refused to give me.

I loved for you to listen to sea
 as I slowly descended your beautiful torso,
kiss by kiss by kiss, you closed your eyes
 & listened to the single white shell as I moved
your thighs apart, as I sipped your sweat,

As I licked & teased, as you listened to the sea,
 its long ancient roar, its deeper hum
than all, o you listened to the sea
 as I drank your seed deep into my
throat & then licked my way back to you,

to your parched mouth, your closed eyes,
 I kept a part of your seed to drink
with me, drink with me, drink with me,
 we drink & we listen to the sea,
together drink your seed back & forth
 between us, listen to the sea,
drink your seed, goodbye my love,
 listen to the seed, drink your sea,
goodbye my love, goodbye, goodbye.

******

xxxvii. Next Door

You’d not given me the key or clue
 to what I knew was there, not
even that last night in my arms,
 not a word. I had to find it myself.

So many lives, I sorted through them
 for one. Not sweet, I needed an edge.
The dream juice I pressed harder in doses,
 in dangering herbs, pressing myself in.

Found myself with too much heat to bear
 & a skinny young torso to wield.
I moved from the sloppy groping romances
 of boys to the charging careens of men.

Edging them close to it, jewel my body,
 but don’t touch it, & burn. Clothe me close,
clothe me tight, burn by my hand in yours.
 Burn hard, harder. Nothing. Lust. Nothing.

Then one, he saw me, laughed, leaned back,
 sang in a cracked voice of time,
o dear sweet old dirty time leaving
 all the old men sad & splayed
in a young girl’s careless smile.

He didn’t give me a necklace to light
 the breasts he sought to bite.
He didn’t clothe me to tease his cynical
 old cock with hints of my slender hips.
He didn’t just try to make me burst of sweet
 words spoke in a flaming virgin’s ear.

He gave me a lavender candle & a furry
 little friend to go my way. “You have
no within yet for yourself, why would
 you want a hand or a cock in there too?”

I woke. Lit the candle & let my
 friend sniff & lead the way.
We were next door to the Creatures
 all along, but thousands years
apart, my friend sniffed twice,
 again & again, we went together,
I carried my single white shell, my
 best within, the gift I would have
given him, maybe given them all,
 if only I was just a girl.

******

xxxviii. There Is No Demon

They listen to the sea in my
 single white shell, & I want to
say how, give it all words, so
 they will know me true, &
this something will release me.

“It was on the beach of the Island,
 that first morning I came.
I’d been swimming for hours when
 I washed with the tide ashore.”

They gather, listen, sniff. White Bunny,
 several bears, many giraffes,
I shiver & want to say. Two blue-eyed
 kittees. More sniff & near, I wonder
if the Imp will cackle up.

“I found this shell in my hand.
 There weren’t any others. It was
too rocky, inhospitable, yet this shell.
 I listened. I lay in tidal waters,
  listening to sea.”

The Tenders among them emerge
 to sniff me. I am agitated. I talk.
Talking pushes the something away a bit,
 undoes my panic, I talk.

“Was I her? Was I the demon of the old stories?
 I did not know as I followed her path,
followed her days, from living on the beach,
 burning with the sun & moon,
to my approach to the Castle, Dancing Grounds,
 the King, his temple. The Princess.”

I am convulsing they put the shell
 to my ear, I feel my body
blowing itself out, they put the
 shell to my ear. They begin to hum,
a brown bear with great brown eyes
 leads them, humming to calm me.

“I follow her down the hall, my other,
 my path, all that has led me
here, all I have done. She turns back,
  sees me. I see her with my eyes,
then see me with hers. Then both.
 We cry out, & it’s over. I’m awake.”

I raise up & look about this cavern,
 so impossibly tall, a great tree
reaching to its heights, look at these
 gathered Creatures. “I was back in
the sea, where I came from, &
 I lived in silence thousands years.”

“Until?” one asks.
“I don’t know. I closed my eyes & let it all
 go. Drifted upward from the depths
I’d been. Landed ashore. Not the Island.
 No Island.”

The something hardly at all in me now,
 I’d spoken my question & been heard.
There were no answers. I was the demon,
 that’s what they’d called me, the one
who’d destroyed the King & his Island
 Kingdom.

“There is no demon,” they say. I resist.
“No,” they insist.
I return to the Sleepers cavern, thousands
 years later, to my capsule, its crimson
& purple blankets. The Creatures are always
 with me now. We listen together
to the single white shell, & often hum, to sing.

******

xxxix. The Tramp

I had a friend, he was a small exotic,
 never knew a word he said. I’d visit
his desert shack, we’d sit on two small stools.
 He’d cluck away for hours on end.
We were happy old friends. I’d visit
 when I could. Then a day his shack
was empty & he no more.

I tell you this because crossing
 the Dreaming is how I felt that
morning, coming to see my friend
 at his desert shack. Shack locked.
No stools. Nothing. Crossing the Dreaming,
 you will bind, you will be broken,
you will be bereft. You’ll return home,
 if you can.

Maybe you’ll come back. You’ll try again.
 You want to save the world, it matters,
nothing else is as important to you.
 You’ll leave family, sweethearts,
the bleak sadness of your end-times.
 You’ll see me again, nod, pass, we’ll
have fewer words. What more could I say?

I could tell you my story, how I
 became the Tramp who greets
Sleepers crossing the Dreaming.
 I could tell you that once we
didn’t need potions & Sleep Capsules
 to cross. I could tell you I remained
when the rest turned away toward spikes
 to mark the earth, map it, name it,
burn its trees, siphon its fluids, black
 its skies, poison its waters. I could
tell you that what you try to save
 is what the force of mankind has
been destroying all along.

Or I could tell you that since my friend
 has been gone, my step has grown
more & more heavy. I am the Tramp.
 I could compel you feel how I walk,
& test your own by it. As you pass
 me each time, a nod, a brief word,
a world to save, I could tell you
 that what you left behind is what
miracle this world has left to give
 you. And the rest are just heavier
steps on your path.

I could tell you this. But I just nod,
 think of my friend, maybe I’m wrong of it all.

******

xl. My Tangled Gate

No more musics for now.
The air is still as I breathe in & out.
The stars dark, the woods bright.
I am dreaming. I am awake.
I love the stories, whatever they mean.
I miss the boy I was years ago.
I live on because men are hopeful
 for tomorrow, whatever odds or proof
  stand before them.

******

xli. Sacral

Wakes. She wakes. The pain in her back
 grabs her breath & she wilds for air
among covers. A snatch, another,
 there. A noise outside, which world
this time? Oh. Dogs barking. Oh.

Lies back. That dream. The Island.
 A breath not hers. A man’s shoulder,
his bare chest. Still sleeping. Quicks her
 query.

Closes her eyes, mostly, feels it out.
 A taste on her tongue. His? No spilled
seed tastes like this. It tingles. It . . . listens?

There is the softest hmmm on her skin,
 in her breath, in the air. Her nose
twitches, twitches? & sniffs something potent,
 mysterious, important. The man sudden
harasses his covers. She sniffs again. Just his scent,
 on him, lingering on her.

Shuts her eyes more, dares. That dream.
 Its barest remain. A question she tugged
from it, maybe a thread back in. How?
 What rhymes with the moon?
 What rhymes with the moon?

She relaxes, tries to gentle into this body,
 its pale-rose, bone contoured heat.
The man is here for its pleasures, perhaps
 nothing more.

And her? Something to do with the Hummm
 in the air. He’d led her closer somehow,
his voice, that instrument in the corner
 of the room, among their tangled clothes.

Remembers. Oh. The pain that’d awaked her was her own
 making, her alarum, the Hummm plainest
in early morning, when the lights from windows
 & those within have not fully reassembled
this world’s architecture from its dream bolts & limbs.

******

xlii. Iris

Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
 The beginnings of a new knowing? More colors?
Wilder music. No questions. No destiny. No why.

None else but to sing true. Singing,
 the air soft, biteless, the full moon
teasing a hint like always. She dances.

Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
 Her head full of the cavern spring she’d found
that day, how following it had excited her,
 how she felt it would come to somewhere,
bring her somewhere, follow, follow,
 bring me home. Bring me home.

I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what to expect.

Come to the great field, the tall costumes
 of pirates & panda bears, the mocking shouts
about human-hacked worlds & what so much
 left, how much the rest? Sun slithered
away, eventide, full moon coming on
 like a virgin getting her fine due at last
& carry on now, carry hours on.

Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
 This universe a myth, a bite, a shiver.
She follows through decoration & bonfire
 to the music, the drums, yes, the shouts,
yes. The guitars, there, yes. Closer she comes,
more it’s her body they strum.

I don’t know who I am this time. My body
 is finding someone to explain.

I find you playing more animal than mind
 & I near, & I near you. You strum your
instrument & there are words but
 I displease deep into your mind, touch
there, & there, listen to this in your ear,
 now hum. Hummmmmm. Yes. There.

Whatever I am, I call down the moon
 upon you, & the clearing is empty but us.

You stop strumming & smile. Kneel before me.
 A few magical earthy nuggets to feed me,
a drink of water to wash me down.

Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
I don’t know who I am this time.
“I am thousands of years old,” I say
 in your embrace, “but you will hum & explain.”

Somewhere, someone, who & who in
 the world by light. Dream of the
cavern’s running water releases her
 to his soft hand on her breast, tender,
her thighs sore by hard play. “You don’t
 taste a thousand years old,” he growls.

I thrash for your guitar to give bones
 the night’s dreams. “Play.” “Sing?”
“Hum.” He strums simply man-hard
 at first, her fine ass, biting her tits
to hear her cry. But then I move atween
 your thighs & begin to play you with
my fingers & tongue. My turn to scratch
 & bite, my turn to squeeze & listen,
squeeze harder & listen.

But you’re the musician, you’ve fucked
 many a girl with a strange idea.
Playing with me upon your prick
 is a game, & I like it, like it
more, & my playing thickens, yowls
 to the stretching cock veins in your
laps, my hummm summons dragonflies
 & mountain lions, finally I melt
into knowinglessness, release to
 the wordless cream of being.

She drinks him in, & in, dry & drier,
 empty & shriveled, all nerves smiling
& gone.
The cavern. My friends.
The Island. The Gate. Why am I here?

You were not a girl. You were a thousand
 years old. I don’t know what you are.

I embraced it all. I let it all go.
 No questions. No destiny. No why.
I am & I sing true always now,
 & just for you.

******

xliii. Disenthrall

I know nothing. I am nobody.
 There is no answer. There is sadness &
morning light. The Hum always &
 it is beautiful, & it tells me nothing.

I startle & awake. The musician
 is gone yet searches for me.
I hear his music still, hear it deepen,
 hear it sadden. Less becoming art,
or appeal, more a simple burning warmth
 for lonely hearts open to it, light
to show them their path on. But he
 never stays. He searches.

The cavern. My friends.
The Island. The Gate. Why am I here?
Why can’t I be there with you?

One morning I walk out into this world
 & there is dirty snow piled against
the streets, & birds twittering & chuckling
 the air, & I look into faces as they pass,
& I listen in a little, to each’s bright tangle.
 Look down at my own hands. Clench, unclench.

I sniff the trees scattered through
 the city, they are ill, they languish.
I sniff deeper. They despair especially of me.

I kneel & beg for more but nothing.

A soft hand on my shoulder. Two bright
 tangled faces. “Are you alright, Miss?”
“Oh. Yes. Thank you.”

They offer me water & nuts. Help me
 to a bench, look me over close,
do not sniff but nearly so.

We begin to travel together. It’s what
 they do. Their knapsacks & walking sticks,
water pouches & good eyes for camping
 & not too long. They sleep in one blanket
& gift me the other. Feed me. Tend me.

Then I dream of the Musician. He has
 followed me to the caverns, my friends.
Stands looking at me.

“I can’t love you. It’s not what
 I am for. Understand.”
He strums. My friends come closer,
 the White Bunny, turtle that isn’t
a turtle. Even the combustible imp
 stills a little, listens. He strums more.

“No.”
“You can’t get there alone. It’s not how
 it works. You need my song. I will keep
playing for you. Keep listening.”

I know nothing. I am nobody.
I awake to sadness & morning light.
These Travelers cannot help me.
They feed me. They tend me.

It happens unhappily on morning
 at market. Their kind gesture to the son
of the wrong man. He strikes & kills one
 of the Travelers without pause. Would kill
the other but my hand goes out. He disappears.
 His song cries out, & I relent. But I cannot
bring the dead one back.

Kneeling over the dead Traveler,
 I realize the Hum has left him.
The crying of the other, the fear of
 the gathered crowd. The son
huddled close his returned father.
 The father panting, eyeing me, waiting.

Music. I hear the Musician strumming.
 Strumming a path away, it lights
& waits too. I want to bring
 the other Traveler, help bury her friend,
mourn with her.

No. The music compels me separate.
 “It’s their peace to make. It’s yours
to go now.”

I don’t understand but sniff.
The path he plays is true & true
 as any Creature. I walk it,
slowly, leading away from the city
 streets & their trees.

But this: the trees less despairing
 now as I walk it.

******

xliv. Errata

Would you save this world,
you will suffer this world.

Would you love this world,
you will suffer this world.

Would you know this world,
you will suffer this world.

She wakes. It always begins
 with the Creatures.

Looks at me. “Why?”
I say nothing. These White Woods
 are quiet, still, but murky, unsettled.
The trees are tall. There is no path. We walk.

You listen, stop, listen more urgently.
There it is . . . the Hummm . . . always the Hummm . . .

“The Creatures?”
“No. It’s the Gate.”
Nods. You are smaller than me. Still,
 shaped like a girl. I am tall & clumsy.
Waits my eyes return to hers, smiles.
“The Creatures?”

I nod. Take you hand. “They protect
 as they can. They are often small &
vulnerable, so they attract our touch,
 our slow breath to care, to sing.
To protect. Tell secrets to. Cry with.”

I think. “They came with you from
 Emandia. You came here, one of many,
to many worlds, & you survived,
 you & the other.”

She nods. We sit together, against
 a white trunk, the light is murky
but the air calm. Not not telling.

“Is this helping you?” I ask.
“Is it helping you?” she replies, sharply,
 still smiling.

I close my eyes, try to breathe my best
 & make it words. Scribble, speak.
“Would you save this world, you will
 suffer this world. Would you love
this world, you will suffer this world.
 Would you know this world, you will
suffer this world.

“It has to mark you, before & after
 you decide. You have to travel
its places & years. Feel immortal
 some moments, worse than despair
others. You have to grow green.
 You have to be a predator of a
thousand kinds. You have to be prey.
 The kind that escapes & the kind
that doesn’t, or somewhat doesn’t.”

She is listening. I’m nowhere yet
 but trying.

I think. Draw deep into my mind’s pen.
 “The myth does not end with you choosing
to stay. It continues. It’s open-ended.
 You’re committed.”

“So what do I do?”

I pause, think. The skies above now
 powerfully starred. That’s good.
That’s something.

I hold out my hand. Nod. Again. Insist.

There is a soft cackle. Another.

The black & white imp sudden in my hand.
Crazy eyes. The Princess stares.

I hold out the imp for show. She
 gnaws my palm, waiting.

“Is she from Emandia?”
She looks at me. Nods. Shakes her head.
“Exactly. You brought something here
 to this world, made somewhere else,
but grown here.” Pause. Give a little
 shake to dis-jaw. “Talk!”

She looks at me, crazy wide-eyed.
 “Eh?” A dead old lady. A mock.
“Talk!”

She cackles, high & low, click-clicks
 & noise-noises for extra pepper,
scans lazily for escape routes.

“Just one word. And you can go.”

She stares upon me, a thousand feet &
 an inch tall. Nods, I think. Blows me
a kiss, a spark, “fire,” all light,
 all dark, & she’s gone.

I nod. The Princess breathes hard.
 “OK. But when then?”
“To be here is to be vulnerable,
 to feel alone. To age. To regret.
To die, or feel like it.”

My abilities gone.
Yes.
Mortal.
Yes.
Can I die?
Yes. And no.

I don’t think it’s that straight. Once
 you occupy a body, even when it dies,
it bleeds & dusts back to earth,
 its years awl the world, its breathing,
its being, changes the world.

Nothing is truly gone, and yet forms
 rise & fall. We mourn their passing,
fear our own. We don’t find enough
 comfort in memories or markers or songs.
We try, but the years corner us,
 again, & again, take & do not return
by our will.

“Creatures,” you say again.
I nod. “Creatures.”
She stands up. Helps me up too.
She grasps me close for a moment,
 giving me more than I ask because
I try. And she’s gone.

[For a moment I let Creatures
 near me, more & more of them.
The White Bunny. Her hedgehog companion.
The little black bear who hummms.
The purple furry Creature, dancing
 with ribbons & bows. Not a word.

[They all sniff me twice, as more
 come into view. Bloo-eyed Kittees.
A number of bears. The giraffes, of course.

[Look at each other, as though sniffs
 being compared. As though necessary.

[The White Bunny hops up to my shin,
 a raised pink nose & I lift her up. I do.

[Leans into my ear. With a paw’s gesture
 & a soft word. “Scribble Scribble Scribble.”
By way of advice. By way of mojo.
 By way of command too.]

I nod. “Help me. Please.”
They nod. I sit among them &
 we sniff far, find the Princess
as she undresses, as she sleeps.
 Lets the breathing blanket that is
her body arrive completely. Dreams.
 Dreams good.

******

xlv. Prince of Nothing

He was the prince, of nothing at all.
 A great shouldered black man,
with long blonde hair, who I met
as I was leaving the White Woods.
Kneeling hunched over a dead fire,
 staring hard into nothing at all,
as though, just gone, it had been a better world.

I sniffed twice, & joined him in kneeling.
 He turned to me after awhile, after dark,
& I felt like his compensation for what
 he’d just seen, just lost. We buried
that dead fire, buried it good, & became
 the lightest, laughingest, of lovers.
Whatever I am, whatever I was.

We long traveled & there were nights
 when I made him love me so that
I could remember. Our hips would slip
 & grind, I’d gnash him deeper, till it hurt,
& I would see. My childly bedroom wall.
 Me dreaming. Its gaping passage in.
He would hold me aloft till crying
 sweat & then bellow all the night
into me, that better world, new just gone.

We had to part. High surf just outside
 our door, an abandoned inn but for
its many hallways of sparkling ghosts. We had
 to part. Standing the inmost
hall, a great glass tribute to a drowned
 whale, the hands of long gone guests
impressed into the glass’s surface.
 We had to part. “I’ll come again.”
His leaving smile. “You always do.”

He was my prince, of nothing at all.
 A great shouldered black man,
with long blonde hair, who I met
 as I was leaving the White Woods.
Kneeling hunched over a dead fire,
 staring hard into nothing at all,
as though, just gone, there was a better world.

The time in walking silence, holding my limbs
 at night alone. Eventually the new tastes of food.
A long morning shower. A brush through my hair.

Now come to this city, a green city on the sea,
 & the remaining loneliness to find who I need,
& the remembrance of his love to believe that I can.

******

xlvi. The Head & the Tail

My childly bedroom. Me dreaming.
 Into the tunnels. Into the cavern.
Great cavern with its great tree,
 heightless height. Me breathing lighter
than ever. Please don’t let it end.

Wake. I wake & wild for air among
 my covers. The pain in my back I need
& cannot anyway rid. A snatch. Another.
 There. A noise outside. Which world
again this time? Dogs barking. Oh.

Wait, that. A jangling song still. On my
 bedstand a pink radio shaped like a cat.
I’d seen it in a store of old things. I sympathize.
 I am an old thing too. Wearing by day
the long dresses & crushed scents of girls,
 who wonder to know their single, brief lives.
Mortal, too, like them. Not really.

On the floor of my room, schoolbooks.
 This is what the young do. They excitedly culture
their minds with the political & godly myths
 of their land & time. I read it, & so little
of it makes sense. They cut off the head &
 the tail of history’s snake & study its remaining
length like an answer.

I am lonely. No White Bunny. No turtle
 not a turtle. No giraffes. No tiny imp.

But not not them either. For however
 my days are, call the mud of the streets
truths, brightest stars in the skies, lying to be
 among them, my nights are for the cavern,
for its truer truths, what lost, what remembered.
 The great tree. Heightless height.

I am lonely. Go to taverns with the other
 students. Drink the poisons they all
smiling down. Sloppily crash pathways
 to their own honest feelings. They are lonely.
It feels good to dance & sing. It feels good
 to fuck.

Men hardly more than boys sniff me
 & I remind myself I look barely more
than a girl. They sniff this slender body
 but not its mind thousand thousand
years old. They smile, shyly approach.

I try to love them like the Prince,
 the Musician before him, but they cry,
they bleed, they break. Only once,
 hands tied, legs bound apart,
a blindfold & gag for focus. You shudder
 so hard inside me. Ahhhhhh.
Someone there. Breathing softly. Behind the wall.

Soon none of the students will drink
 with me or fuck me. A little lost.
I close my curtains, close my door.
 Dream in my bed always. Unwilling the no.

Hurling my slight childly dream body
  against the wall, again, again.
Aches, breaks. Again, again.

“Princess.”
I pause, heaving.
“Princess!”
“Yes! You’re there.”
“I am. Please stop.”
“I’m in & shut out both. Why? What that
 useless waking life?”
“I think . . . it’s not enough to suffer.”
“What else?”
“You have to confess what you believe,
 who you believe in, stand by them
  while the world disdains.”
“What do I do?”
“I’ll see you.” I wake. Pain. Shit.
 Clock radio. Schoolbooks.

I knew you in the store right away.
 A toy. Yet my friend. Turtle not a turtle.
I carried you home like the whole world
 now had a gape to remembered light.
I smiled to nobody’s know, I listened.

The professor talks of evolution. Life from
 a sparked speck in the sea. I look at you
in my bag, knowing the beginning, how it ended
 last time, what I am doing now.
Confess what I believe.

“This world is not alone among worlds.
 This universe is a blooming garden.
Seeds landed here, & took.” Someone laughs.
 Maybe someone else listens. The Professor
frowns & warns me of science learned
 from television, between the ads
for sweets & beer.

I raise mine eyes to you, really, lay mine eyes
 upon you. Let you have my clothes,
let them undress you into my grasp,
 will you into my breathing, kiss you
into my insist, let you feed my breast
 feeding you, my love, my stupid mortal
love, ah, now within me you see,
 not the girl who would fuck & be consumed
by you, no, a star, oh what a fucking
 supernova burst in your mind, a moment,
just a moment. A garden. Seeds landed. Took.
 You shudder like a woman. Just. Like.

Tonight I sleep smiling with you in
 my arms, & in the morning wake
to you studying my face.

“What rhymes with the moon?”
I smile. Boop your little nose.
“I don’t know either.”

******

xlvii. The World a Myth, a Light, a Shimmer

This world sexes up soft & close for a story,
 where the bones & chaos & blood
might be aligned, dance a friendly tune,
 & so I mull what I am trying to do
& how to make my need into a pleasing myth.

We find a typing machine in that old shop,
 & Boop dresses my hair long with flowers.
I undress to write, offer myself plain
 to the Imp in the Moon, help me to tell it,
help me to sing it, make them heed.

We begin in the local park, where some
 sleep & others grow vegetables. Boop
will not have me go naked for the weather,
 but I will make their men listen with little
more in dress. I hold my sheaf in the cold
 sunlight, & begin to read the words.

“There is a cavern, far below the earth,
 many tunnels lead to it, & we find
ourselves watching as many Creatures
 gather, sniff twice, wonder what music,
what games this time?” I read words of these things
 I know in my heart, stronger, summoning.

“There is on the surface high above this cavern
 an Island, & within that Island a Woods,
a Castle, a Tower, a Dancing Grounds, & a
 Gate. A Tangled Gate.” They listen,
they gather. I have hardly begun to tell
 & yet more of them. Some for my breasts,
loose among veils. Some because the words
 remember in them something. I read &
read again what I have brought until Boop
 pulls me to rest in my chamber.

“They believe books, Princess. As much
 as you in that park.”
I nod. Let there be books. In them
 I tell all of the stories I remember,
describe every small friend I’ve loved &
 now miss.

They believe. Many of them. Would me
 tell many more stories. But something
about it. Cruelty, dirt, war. Each sweeps
 his own front step. Someone paid
tends the park where I still read.
 Many who listen still have no home.
The Way of the Creatures is, to these devotees,
 a sweet candied dream.

I withdraw again. It matters. It doesn’t.
 I have no more place among them to tend good
anymore than their legends of suffering
 supermen & body-loathing gurus.

“You despair, Princess.”
“I am angry and helpless. We do nothing
 here. I’ve changed little with my hands,
my voice, my beliefs.”

I sleep, days, dreamless, until again
 the full moon, its delighted Imp.

Boop & I drink a tea of earth creatures,
 found in the park, I let my body
accelerate by them, I take Boop’s paw,
 him too, we travel the distance,
the light soft & solid beneath our feet
 as we climb, to arrive, to arrive.

A mile & an inch high before us,
 a delighted, mocking smile at our visit,
waiting, not waiting.

“Give me a useful word, imp,” I command, ask.
“Eh?” her look unknowing the world below
 & its words.
“Just one,” I say softly. Lift her in my hand,
 palm up, for her to snap & bite at.

“Nothing saves the world, this time
 or any other. Dreams are the salve
for this.”

Wait. What? She is staring at me, said
 these words? Turn palm down to dis-jaw.
She cackles, high & low. Click-clicks &
 noise-noises. A face in my mind now,
as she’s shooing us away. Dreams the salve
 for failure. This man’s face.
I will not accept this as enough.

******

xlviii. Orphans

Water, cold. Salt water, splashing.
 Choking to the surface, flailing.
Another. There is another. We are
 together yet we can’t help each other,
except to begin to drown together.

A net. Tangled & dragged & choking
 suddenly both air & water & strong hands
on us both, I feel her hand in mine
 for a moment. Squeeze. We are saved.
Then we fall apart again as they take a look.

We are guised as girl children & they
 remember to cover us up. That look
of wonder & loathing remains with me.
 From curiosity to greed as we are reckoned
the King’s prize. A reward. Other considerations.
 But two? They study us in our wet
blankets & I find her hand again.
 She’s more terrified than me. I breathe us
  together calm. Breathe, sister. Breathe.

We’re bundled off to separate places
 on this old fishing boat. Another docks
along side it that night. You were taken.
 You were terrified & taken from me.
I am so sorry. I remember now.

I being to wake, to cry out, but Boop
 nuzzles me close, Hmmms deep into
my grasp, draws me back in. These
 earth creatures are telling what
I should know. There’s more.

Eventually I am clothes in more than
 a wet blanket & the sniffs of me
remain no more. The King will have
 his prize unmarked & we will have
our reward. Paltry compared to the
 Travelers’ gift, but his protection is more.

The ship lands on the Island as I have
 been thrust into a small windowless room
to clean from a pot & dress in cut-down
 clothes. I am transferred from one
tall set of weathered hands to smoother,
 gentler ones. Still, the same wonder,
the same loathing. It is night when we
 arrive & so I see little of where I’ve
come, where I shall long be.

At last, a room. A bedchamber. The door
 closed behind me. There are soft clothes
on the bed but I push them aside &
 simply strip down. I feel the salt water
still, deeper than bathing. I feel my sister’s
 hand. Her terror. I sit on this soft bed
& look about me at the shapes of a
 princess’s bedroom.

“I’m not a Princess,” I say softly.

Toward dawn exhaustion softly takes
 me under & I feel myself slipping back
deep into the waters, this time willing,
 this time I know she’s there.
We will go together.

A movement in the room. I withdraw
 from waters & see there is something
about the wall opposite my bed.
 I crawl, stumble toward it. A . . . hole?

An odd-shaped hole in the wall, big
 enough to let me crawl through.
I do. Nude & unknowing as I am
 of all this, I crawl through that
hold to the first of many tunnels.

The White Bunny. The many giraffes & bears.
 The crazy imp. The turtle not a turtle.
“Boop!”
“Yes, Princess?”
“How does this help us? I’ll wake soon
 & all this long gone. How are the
earth creatures helping?”
“They brought me.”

I start & look. A big, heavy, bald-headed
 man. Leather covered in ink decorations & jewelry.
Now I am not in the cavern & tunnels.
 Just this room. Schoolbooks. Pink cat radio.

He eyes me but not as a man. Humor,
 not wonder & loathing. “I’m Benny
Big Dreams.”

Keeping held together, “I’m Iris.”
“You’re the Princess.”
“Yes. And no.”
He laughs, good & fleshed out for a
 dream figure. “I’ll help you as I can.”

A sudden pound at the door. “Keep the sex noises
 down to a dull roar! Note everybody’s
getting some!” I still my Hmmm,
 music to thank the earth creatures
their gifts. My sister. My path.

******

xlix. Crossing New Worlds, Part 1

I don’t see Benny Big Dreams again soon.
 My days are quiet. I go out again
to the park, tending vegetables, my hands
 greedy to rake into the good cold soil.
There are earth creatures nearby &
 this calms me too. They know this world
well & remain cheerful despite all.

Sometimes men approach me. Lonely.
 Sad. Mostly, wanting. Looking at me &
wanting more than I have or know to give.
 Moments, when they are deep inside me,
I am able to do a little something. Heal a bit.
 Undo some of the fray. They pull out of me,
wondering, sometimes scared. Measuring
 their cocks for possible loss.

It gets colder. I am not doing well.
 My body is worn from sadness,
from the casual harm some men do me.
 I stop going out again.

“Princess.”
We are under all of our blankets.
 A thick brown one especially, covered
in bear faces. Protecting us as they can.

“Princess!”
“We have to find Benny.”

Boop makes us a tea, brewed from the rest
 of the earth creatures we have, &
he makes us both drink of them & chew them down.

“You’re not well,” says softly, breaking love.
“We’ll ask Benny,” I say & hug him.

Benny likes us to find each other as though
 by chance in one tunnel or another.
Annoyed but I look. This time he makes
 it harder.

“Benny! Benny Big Dreams!” My dream body
 & voice are fine & full & intimidating.
He emerges, as though from rock. Bows,
 mocking. Wondering at what he is
would lead me wondering what I am.
 I simply talk instead.

“I need your help.”
He eyes me. “You’re stalled.”
“Worse.”
Nods. “What are you trying to do?”
I start. Think. “The world is going to die
 again. I can’t let it.”
He laughs. “Can’t you just save it again?
 A twitch of your comely nose?”
“Yes. No. I’m not sure.”
Now he’s serious. “You need to become sure.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He stares me bluntly. “The world loses something
 in the saving. It’s a little weaker after.
You can’t save it perpetually, even if you wanted.”

He speaks softly now. “You lose something
 in the saving too.”
“Just tell me, Benny.” I feel Boop stiffen
 beside me, but say nothing.
“What did the imp say to you?”
“That the world can’t be saved. That dreams
 salve this failure.”
I weaken a little & he holds me, lightly but
 protecting. “You don’t believe her.” I shake
my head. “I can’t. There must be something.”

“Tell the stories again, Iris. But tell
 new ones, of a good place. Make it real
as dreams are. Make it safe, for Creatures
 new & old.
“Creatures? But they live here, in these
 caves & tunnels.”
He nods. “Yes, & in this new place you will create.”
“Will I live there?”
“Do you wish it?”
“No. I can’t. I can only live near. With Boop.”
“There’s more.” His voice so gentle I am ready
 to cry aloud.
I nod.
“You’ll let go living in this world for that
 one. Your powers will spend there to create
but depart here.” 
“Will it help?”
He cackles softly, in reply.

******

l. Crossing New Worlds, Part 2

I hesitate. I let days pass by.
 There’s more to do before letting go
the world. There must be.

I am feeling a little better. Warmer days.
 Boop has found me more earth creatures &
medicine. I don’t ask what. And it’s only
 to keep me going for awhile. While I decide.

Then I find him, a new friend. He is a . . .
 little beagle puppy. I am asked to find him
& take care of him.

“Where, Princess? Who is asking?” Boop’s look
 is obvious.
I think. “She came to me in a dream.
 She said ‘find him & take care of him
while I am gone.’” Boop nods, sighs.
 Together we dress me in my old earth
creatures shirt & dress, he flowers my hair
 like old, & we go out. Him not in my
knapsack, though. I carry him in my arms,
 despite his worry.

We walk down to the park. A few
 of those living there remember my stories
still. Smile at me. Would protect me if need be.
 I gave them something to keep.

Then on to the markets. To the toy store
 where I found Boop himself.

There. On an empty shelf. It’s him.
“‘Algernon,’ she told me he’s called,” I say
 to Boop. “But she calls him Sonnyboy.”

We return to our room. He is new
 & scared but he feels among friends
now. He calms.

Delaying, feeling stronger. I find a job.
 I begin to tend my battered body.
It’s hard to do & I do not heal fully,
 but there are a few months, I remember,
even now, when we three lived together
 in that room.

We lived together & I would go to my job
 every day. I would leave Boop & Algernon
in the window to watch the day &
 wait for my return. I would return
in the evening, cook food, & they would
 tell me what they saw. The light
passing differently on sunny & stormy
 days. Loud games in the street. The scents
of wild berries & car exhaust. Tired faces,
distracted & worried. They watched.

On Saturdays I would heap them into
 my knapsack, & go to the cinema.
I would sneak Boop & Algernon into my lap &
 eat my chocolate & little sack of popcorn.
For awhile, not a Princess nor a Saviour.
 Just three good friends.

After a few weekly visits, it seemed
 like it was the same film every week,
which was strange. Stranger too is
 that the story advanced each time.

It was called RemoteLand. It began,
 sometimes, with a car crash, sometimes
in reverse. Then it got stranger.
 The story shifted to an Island. A Kingdom.
A tall Castle, a Tower, Dancing Grounds.

Then one week, a Gate. Telling my story
 though strangely with others peopling it.
“Benny,” I growled.

He would not confess the film his doing.
 Just his usual nudgings for me to act.
“Soon, Iris, soon.”

One day I did not go to work.
I could not get out of my bed.
Boop & Algernon clung to me with terror.

“OK, Benny,” I said aloud to the dark room,
 its dusty schoolbooks. Its long unplayed
pink radio shaped like a cat.

Benny came for Algernon to bring him
 to the new place when it was time.
“Trust me, Princess.” I had no choice as I let him go.

Boop & I huddled together, no force of dreams
 or nature would rent us. Earth creatures
now filled my room since I was ready,
 & did not have to drink or eat them.
We went together, letting go to make new,
 letting go to make new.

I will see my sister again. I will
 see Algernon again.

In this new place I create, I take
 a new name. I am Christina, sometimes
Chrisakah. The maker. The creator.
 The guardian of another new land.
Crissy, for short.

We leave that room behind & come
 to this new place, where Boop & I
will dwell alone all of our days,
 friends to & guardians of this other new place.

Our new home is green & hilly. The air is cool
 & lovely. I wish my friends from the park
could live here in peace. But I have left them
 with my trace & no further. Benny will gentle
their dreams sometimes, he promised me.

“There should be a Castle, Princess.”
I shake my head. “I’m not a Princess.
I never was.”

Boop stares me down despite his shortness
 to my own. “A castle we will build
together. It can be . . . fun.”

“Fun?” I smile. Remember how.
“Like your stories. Rooms that come & go.
 & visitors too.”
“From where?”
“From the new place you will help
 to create.”

I nod. A Guardian who is
 a Princess living in a Castle.
Boop will be my servant though I beg
 him not to be. He is sure. This will work.

I am not alone as the days pass.
I live with Boop in our Castle.
No dancing grounds. No Gate.
It’s all Gate now. Benny cackles. The imp nods.

And so my story, from pieces I sometimes
 remember & so this picture to view.
I call my new home Imagianna perhaps
 with more hope that I have.

One fine day, the finest, the beagle
 comes to the new land I have helped
to create. I learn it is called Bags End.
 I think of the Red Bags & nod.
One day them too.

He doesn’t remember me. Only who
 I took care of him for. His long-lost
Mommy Beagle.

But he likes me & likes when I tell him
 stories. Likes it so much I arrange for
my old typing machine to find its way
 into Bags End so that he can tell
that place’s new stories.

My bedchamber is the same as it was
 on the Island long ago. Boop sleeps
in my grasp, as always.

Sometimes I let us dream & find
 the old hole in the wall, & return
again to the tunnels & cavern below
 the Tangled Gate. But it’s only dreams,
I know. Imagianna is where we are now.

[Benny nods. Keeps his distance mostly.
It’s for the best. Nothing’s gone. Nothing goes away.
Nothing returns. He does not see in time,
then & now & hence. All points connect.
Not yet for Crissy to remember this.

[But he knows her sister is still looking
for her. Her sister has forgotten nothing.
Her sister is nearing Imagianna
all the time, no time, every time. Soon.]

******

li. Yesterday is Everything

“To dwell is to leave a trace.”
--Jorie Graham

Once. Twice. Breathe. Relax.
Let history’s testament fall to sand.
Let the trail of old blood diminish away.
Let deepest love cup, not contain, & thus
 learn by release. Breath. Relax.

A dream. My brother & I building a wall,
 a construction in words, languages old
like frail, warm skin; others newer, glowing
 with seed, humming, partway back to stars.
I pause my work, larving up syllables &
 stones, look up, see your laughing face,
the many of you I’ve known. Common despair.

Once. Twice. Breathe. Relax.
Let the stars between dull hours be more to guide.
Let our humility sup on every beast & bug
 & vine & stone & new song we aren’t.
Let the gorgeous rubble of dream become
 more the tale we yearn to tell.

We begin to travel along this wall,
 find crevasses to hold to as more time
passes than ought, years for days, centuries,
 we cling to this wall as it drives furiously
through history. It’s an ugly wall to fast
 to, colored like old blood, & its path goes
jagged & uncertain. Loses faith, as old things
 do. My brother won’t let go me, the path,
till I make him do. Let me go.

Once. Twice. Breathe. Relax.
Let the kind hours explain the world to you.
Twining fingers, silver falls of leaves,
 meals desperate & late & fine.
There was an hour when you could’ve flown,
 did.
I’ll keep singing this.

When I let go of the wall, I wake
 to my chamber. I’m alone. Shoulder aches.
The brother of my dream is the mutt suddenly
 at my door. His ragged fur, sloppy tongue,
excited breathing in my face. “I want
 to tell us both this story, if you’ll listen.”
His tail wags, a yes, or maybe he just
 loves me.

******

lii. Dreaming Coming Stars

“Cease the tide by cursing the moon?
Crush the drum heads, men will pound their
 stones, twice harder!
Bind a woman’s fire & she will lay dreaming
 coming stars!”

Everyone laughs. The King in good spirits.
A fairly calm sea. The Island near or
 soon will be.

I pet your shaggy head. My brilliant fool.
You enjoy being a dog, permission to feel
 everything in a moment. Piss freely.

“What his crew didn’t know was that
 the King had contacted my brother,
Benny. Traveler in dreams. You. I think.”

Or some kind of you. An herb he drank
 later that night, kind of a poison,
but if survived enough, a deeper entry
 to Dreamland. Passage, movement.

He bid his brothers good night & they
 drank on till very late. His mood
gave them hope.

You’d had none till the last meeting with
 the Travelers before setting off. Convinced
you’d only find your beloved via dreamways,
 you’d promised them a more honored
place in your future kingdom. The Island
 would ever welcome Travelers. For the herb.

Now I writhe in my bed, poison drunk
 in my belly, a cloth stuffed in my
mouth so none may hear my cries. I have
 to survive death, alone, uncomforted,
& the door will open. Strange, there
 are two. I choose the one to dreams
this time.

You begin to doze, lazy, know this tale,
  both, either. “It was you allowed him
 his grief, his absolute despair. She saw, finally,
  understood, that yours was to find the Island,
find the Tangled Gate. Yours was to save
 the world.” I shake my head, seeing again
mutt where I saw my King. I’d served
 no man till I knew you. None since.
Knowing your grief better than you did, why it so,
 it carved my heart a groove close by yours.

“There will be two,” you told me that night,
 when he let us alone, King & his Queen
 together a last time. “Give all to the one
 who comes to you first by the sea.
Having done so, the second will come to you,
 & you may grow old finally.” Kissed him last as wife.

You tire of my Tower & want to run.
 I let you chase from my offices outdoors,
my day & night without end, my gift from her.

I walk more stiffly than I once did,
 the Architect grows old too, eventually.
But each time you visit, Benny, each time
 I am able to form you mutt at least,
when I cannot form a man, I reck your
 sacrifice anew, that it was you who must keep her
till the last, you who salved & broke the King’s heart,
 finally, so he would let go, & save the world.

******

liii. Between the Night & Day

Between the night & day without end
 that you gifted me, a dusk, a dawn,
where I love you still.

What leaves last, if leaves at all,
 are the smaller things, cooler moments
when we simply shared space.

When you studied the Tangled Gate through
 my Tower office telescope, you wouldn’t
breathe. I’d listen from across the shadowy
 spectres of the room. Not a breath.
You’d move the glass, inch by inch,
 study the maps, move some more,
testing what you saw with what you
 encountered in Dreamland. A sudden connection,
now a breath. Knowing it wouldn’t be
 in that spot next time, knowing it,
the Gate was like that. Still.

You left little scent those many years.
 Any man would have sniffed after you, the King’s
ripening daughter, but little to compare
 with girls who vied in your shadow, it’s like
you disappeared in your departures. Remained
 in more obscure ways.

It was your passion to know your own
 truths that rivens through me even now.
How did I come to know what you were,
 when were you more than beautiful, lonely
& too intelligent Princess to me? Was it
 before or after I let you escape the Island?

I had chased across centuries to find
 a way to save the world. And it was you.
I believed you were from another place,
 had come here, & the world of men aborn.

And then I learned my own story too.
 I was from that far place, from Emandia,
as well. We had been landed on far ends
 of the story. Yours to grow with the world,
find its beauties, mine to review its finale.

I love you still. We were both contrived
 for our task, however different.
An attraction set along our border
 to assure we’d find each other,
the eros between us the sparkling fuel
 by which we’d know the right world
true, & no others, & move on bloodless otherwise.

My mutt won’t come near me when
 my dusky walk emits like this one.
Contrivances aren’t suppose to love
 each other. Why do these dusks & dawns
disturb me more? What is missing?

I love you still. I sit in my office,
 now, tonight, & I look over to my old
telescope, perpetually pointed to the Gate,
 whatever world. I see you there, now,
tonight, breathless, studying, studying,
 & I am breathless too, I was then,
& you are so close, I’ve come the world
 & its centuries to be in this room with you.
Why can’t I stand? Why can’t I approach you,
 to explain what I know, what I don’t,
& present myself to your womanly gaze,
 for your womanly assessment, & perhaps
a shy smile, & again a breath, scent of aster.

******

liv. Scent of Aster (Other Beauties)

We came from Emandia via deeper dreaming
 through the Red Bags. You & I were
one man, brother, Benjamin, Benny, compelled
 from one trunk to two branches, two men.
I to the building, what they sneering called
 architecting of the world of men. Sneering
because despair, because too many failed
 worlds. Because only madness builds
again & again, same hands, same tools,
 same materials, & smiling expects
a novel result. You were the but, Benny,
 the wild card in me extracted to run free.

You laughed, you raced us up hills,
 climbed the tallest trees, led the songs
wherever we traveled & invited to a meal
 & a fire. Your shoulders strong, your body
as broad & dense as mine lanky, divided
 between even your deep shouts & love of
open woods & my retreat to murk & thick books.
 You didn’t know we were twain for purpose,
by day, by night, by sun, by moon, by waking,
 by sleep. We receded from each other slowly,
a breath, an untwined finger at a time.

Perhaps it began with your discontent
 with lovers. No matter how she approached,
shy, brusk, a girl for the gentle slow taking
 or one to bind or be bound by leather rags,
heated with claws or serrated blade, you fretted
 & hurried too soon from her. Flaws, always flaws
you saw in each girl or woman. The shade
 of a cheek, the roundness of a breast,
the want to be solely, wildly possessed, the growl
 for you & a dozen other heavy-cocked men
in their turn. Flaws, always flaws.

You dreamed more. We ceased our travels
 because you liked the strange pale woods
we had come. “There are other beauties
 than the ones we have known,” you’d say
to me, often, like a prayer, like a tic.
 Kept me near for when you woke,
witness to your half-mumbled visions,
  convinced there was an inner space
shared by all, a perfect world, a Dreamland,
 did you contrive it yourself? Did it contrive
you? I would try to tell you what we were
 but you smiled like it didn’t matter.
I asked you, “What other beauties?” &
 you said, “Come with me, brother,
let’s make them together, forever!”

And then you were gone. Gone to Dreamland,
 become Dreamland. I was alone in your
pale woods. I could no more find you
 while asleep than awake. What did this
mean? Our trunk was reft.

Eventually I mourned & let you go.
 I stopped looking for you in my dreams
& began shaping tools there to bring back,
 building tools, tools to fix the flaws
in the world. A world demur enough
 to make men want to defend & protect
her every breath & bloom. A world
 growling powerful enough to twist their greed,
to conquer & tame, twist it crying in
 their minds, come for me now, come for me,
your miracle world, its every beauty,
 & release. Come again, & release.

It was near the end of the world when
 you finally let us meet again. I was come
in Dreamland to an old memory of
 our pale woods, where I lost you.
I was leaving in the morning to travel
 back the years to the Island, Tangled Gate,
find & fix the flaws. Hopeless, a woman’s scent
 in my mind still. Tired, her embrace
easy cost to let this next imperfect world go.

Came bounding up to me, barking,
 joyous, wet-tongued, ugly beautiful
mutt & you, you, Benny! Barks, licks,
 pants, what you could give me
to hold of you, so I would not ask your
 help mending the flaws, so if I failed
I did with your love & no more.
 I held you, hugged you, worried to your
glory long fingernails in your shaggy
 fur. Woke with your scent in my nose,
my cheeks drying from your many kisses.

I left for the Island, the Gate,
 & willing forgot you until later,
until I was retired here, day & night
 forever, & when we met it was
in waking this time. I had nothing
 left to ask of you. You still came as mutt,
& neither of us pressed man from you.

Perhaps where my discontent. Perhaps
 I want you man not mutt in my arms?
Perhaps begin our travels anew,
 having saved this world, flaws & all,
our turn together again? You sniff,
 you bark, you lick. Pee & roll happily in shit.
I want other beauties than these, brother,
 scent of aster in my mind. Your old laughter too.

******

lv. Deeper Creature Time (i)

“Deeper Creature time,” he writes,
 finding his old notes ledger &
resuming a fresh page. “Looking for
 a gape in my world, I keep thinking
about this, about how little I know
 about it.

“They weren’t from Emandia as we were.
 They were native to this world, the Island,
its White Woods. Endless, pathless White Woods.”

Pauses. Looks around the nearly ageless
 dank of his office. Its books piled high,
containers of herbs & potions, trinkets
 from the many places & times he’d
travelled. Smells of decay dried to dust.
 His desk really a great table,
covered too but for the area before him,
 cleared away periodically.

Himself dressed in soft rags, noone to show
 for, shine for, bother about. His body
nearly immortal but old with patina,
 time & sadness.

Resumes. Struggles. “Or maybe it should
 be called Deeper Creature timelessness.
For they do not live with awareness
 of time. Shackled to its passing &
finitude. For the, there is no time.

Nods. “Theirs is an existence outside time’s
 passing, like my own, but that they
aren’t even aware of time. I am.
 I am made by hands, yet I am a man.”

Picks up his ledger & on a whim brings
 it to the Tower office’s front window,
near to his great spy-glass & thick maps
 of the Tangled Gate. Where she’d sat.
He sniffs, can’t help himself. Just memories.

Table not a quarter the size of his own,
 he moves things around, settles in.
Dust, displaced, stays displaced, awake
 again, wondering.

And, there below, the Gate? This still
 the Island? & that yet the Gate?

He mulls. This discontent won’t salve itself,
 nor will sitting in this office do any better.
The Gate?

Nothing to lose but his loneliness.
 Stands, looks around, finds his long
unworn overcoat. Feels odd,
 like he won’t be back here a long while,
like it’s time. For me, there is time.
 At least for now.

******

lvi. Deeper Creature Time (ii)

The Gate never changes. So massively
 tall, & its legend where its scrollwork peaks:
“For those lost.”

I enter & there is the Fountain,
 perpetually crumbling yet ever gushing,
insisting a drink. A drink, & a choice.
 I briefly consider declining but
realize I need the Gate’s help.
 Whatever that might be, I need it.

So I take my two-handed scoop of
 the cold, tingling water, music to taste,
water to listen to? Drink it down deep,
 & move past the Fountain.

They knew me once. We became friends
 & together helped the Princess succeed.
How do I reach them now? Remember
 my old advice to her, tap my head once,
my heart once, sniff twice, & begin to
 follow somewhat seeming random
paths of vines & stones. Sky above
 a murky grey. My breath slows nicely,
I feel my body in a less heavy way.

But eventually I slow, frustrated.
It is possible to fail & exit the Gate
 a failure? Why this quick to quit in me?

Come on. “Come on!” I begin to call,
 wordlessly, call & call, I cry &
howl, moan unto hmmmmmm, summon
 all the hope & hopeful purpose I have.
Come on. “Come on!”

Softly, at first, then again a little louder,
 something echoes through the air &
through my mind, a cackle, another,
 many cackles! Swooping & swirling
around me, ringing, echoing, echoing,
 then echoing the echoes, it cannot be but
my old friend the wee Imp! Can it be?
 It must.

******

lvii. Deeper Creature Time (iii)

The cackles continue their echoing
 play, & I follow. Follow, & yet no
closer. I must faster. I must play.

I think of old times, the White Bunny,
 & I try. Long ears, glowing fur, pink nose,
nothing. Nothing. Still man-shaped.

Man . . . shaped. Not thinking at all,
 this is my body’s turn to do. I sleek
down, not quite a bunny, or an imp,
 but a creaturely form all my own,
what I might have been I now am,
 for this little while. Listen close, I speed.

The cackles triple with delight, this
 is their Architect come for play!
They direct me, a long tunnel of dancing
 cackles, & I follow, I speed like
no man has, man I am, man I’m not.

Speed till I slow, slow sudden
 to stop. A cave. This cave.
I know it. The Beast long lived here.

The cackles are urging me on in,
 but I remain still. The Beast is
of forces deeper than my knowledge or skill.
 The Beast is this world itself, given
a body to roam it, a mind to reck
 itself & all dwelling on it.

I kneel. I kneel very low toward
 the Cave & its possible inhabitant.
I speak quietly, scrub a man’s natural
 arrogance before his world, his hand’s
& eye’s & mind’s & throat’s raw power,
 & I speak from my long loneliness
& yearning.

“My friend brought me here. She
 urges me to pass. She is a Creature,
& travels to her home. I am a man,
 of a kind, & wish to visit, with my
questions. I ask your leave for
 safe passage. Perhaps there is still
good in me to do others.”

Upon my last words, & only these,
 a breath, a stirring, the sounds
of something unearthed from dug &
 tossed rock. Something emits the Cave.

I stand. Approach. No. Yes. Tis. The blue bag
 I gave the Princess long ago. Whole &
handled still. The Cave says nothing more
 but I sniff twice & feel my entry allowed.
Realize myself still in Creaturely form as
 I make to pick up the bag with swift
but clumsy paws. Regret, but reform.

About to revisit its contents, curious
 what remains, but the cackles sudden
everywhere, high & low, they practically
 push me into the Cave, carrying
my old bag unopened for now. Well.

Man again, I move at my own swift
 speed now. I feel more myself as this
latter-day adventure continues, uncertain
 but burbling. Thinking me ready for
anything.

No. And not. I come of a sudden into
 the too bright central cavern of these
caves & tunnels, & for a lingering moment
 as I stop, crouch, choke my breath
& beat still, I hear the scraping stones,
 bare feet upon stones, bare feet dancing,
dancing, a lithe body conjuring song from
 patterns & dreams. My heart stops. I fall away.

******

lviii. Deeper Creature Time (iv)

When I come to, I am aloft, but back
 in the tunnel I emerged from. My form
changed to, ah, I am again Hummingbird
 like when I first met her along paths of
the Gate!

I’m afraid. She dances happily with
 the Creatures, she’s found her content.
She gifted me my Tower, day & night
 without ending, & I’ve balked.
Dissatisfy with retiring quietly to a drawer,
 a man-shaped tool plied, & done.

I flit, flit some more, find myself falling
 into these pleasures. Remember
to listen with ears & there are still
 cackles around me, waiting,
now nudging a little, come along,
 Hummingbird! New play! New play!

Enter the great cavern again, inured
 to its bright light now, & see
the Princess has concluded her
 solitary dance & now every Creature
big & small joins in her frolic.

Many of the major Bears in
 this number, little ones too,
even wee ones & their oddest of noises
 make me think of the Imp somehow.
Several Giraffes, a grey Hedgehog,
 the White Bunny! So many more.

I join. Before I can think to think,
 or choose to choose, I join in &
dance. Flitter high & low, feel out
 the song they sing too, find my voice
among the many others, & join
 in too. Like I belong. I belong.

My form shifts unknowing to me,
 slowly, I become less Hummingbird
& more the Creaturely form I’d chose
 to chase the cackles, swift & sleek,
but then less this than a man’s form,
 my form, still dancing, still singing. 
Still smiling among all these old friends.

When the singing crescendos to its slow close,
 I feel crowds of Creatures dividing in twain before me
as I half intentioned, nudged & nudged
 by cackles, by clicks-clicks & noise-noises too
now, I arrive, fully formed man,
  the dance & song finished, I arrive
to the shocked, smiling, beautiful face
 of my long-beloved Princess. Oh my.

******

lix. Deeper Creature Time: Grand Production

“We are and are not.”
--Heraclitus

Your smile holds me from falling,
 keeps me from fleeing. Your hair as red
as always, as long, your eyes still
 a faerie blue, but nothing to your smile
as you slow me enough to rest, not pause,
 in my place. Your smile the sum
of what all these years have not been.
 Your smile sups upon me until I am
well-chewed, swallowed, expelled back
 to myself as this calm reunion’s moment.

“You came.”
“You . . . called?”
She nods, steps forward, & grasps
 my hand. “It was time.”

I feel something wordless, something
 I do not know, good or bad? I don’t
know. Look down. Our hands, as
 they keep grasping, meld to one.

I gasp. Begin to laugh. Still holding her,
 our hand, I lean over & laugh loud.

“What is it?”
I hold up our hand. “This! I think
 this is what got lost along the way.
We let go each other’s hand, & then came
 history. All of it.”

She nods. I please her. She leads me by
 our hand somewhere, woods, White Woods?
No Creatures follow us. All is quiet.

I want to say & say & say.
“I do too. It’s OK.”
Calm. A beat. A breath. OK.
“Where are we going?”
“Where I was bound already. I waited for you.”

We come through the Woods to a clearing,
 a long one, & I see at the far end
a platform, stop which sits a grand stage.
 The Princess smiles ever more so at me,
I feel as though our limbs are twining
 amongst each other in her excitement.
Ahh. Many Creatures now join us in the clearing.

We have no special place to stand or sit
 among our friends here, although I notice
 the White Bunny, the turtle who is not a
turtle, yes, the crazy gnattering Imp
 all nuzzle up near to us. They know me,
 sniff twice familiarly. My heart shines,
& falls free.

“Tis a Grand Production!”
I nod. “There is no time.”
She laughs. Points.

A white-furred  bear wearing a long
 Scotch-styled scarf is waving a long paw
& crying “On . . . with . . . the . . . Show!”

There is a deep-black bear who
 comes out to dance, tells a few jokes,
juggles a few, then more, then countless
 balls, then executes an impossible tumble
into the crowd, returning before left.

There is the black & white bear who
 slides onto the stage, dancing high
& low, tapping his paws artfully to music
 I wonder must be the Traveling Troubadour’s,
& brings out the black bear & others to
 leap & fall to the audience’s delight.

Our friend the White Bunny on stage
 performs many dazzling long-eared
hops, impossibly high & fast!

There is a comical dalmatian & his
 daffy quips. There is a purple-furred
dancing Creature, long ribbons in
 dizzying flourish. There is the tumbling
brown monkey who jumps seeming miles
 high. Many, many others come & go.

I forget who I am & am smiling
 the Princess’s smile, laughing
her laugh, feeling her long deep
 warmth with these friends.
This is who I am when the world
 isn’t in peril, or when we let each
other be.

There is the handsome bumblebee gliding
 over us, & atop his furred back is
a small melancholy-faced pup, & they
 fly together not like steed & ride but
like their paws too are one, like
 there is no other way to be, stars
above, earth below, we too are one,
 we too are one.

I wake. Cry out. “Shhh.” Look around.
 Oh. Creatures cavern. They are
clustered all around us, still dozing.

She smiles down at me, I panic, but
 feel our hand still warmly one.
Relax a moment. Let her arms around
 me possess me all. So close. Release. So close.

“Yes. And no.” We recede a little. Just a little.
“There’s more. There’s else.”
“Not every Creature lives safely here.”
“Nor most of the world. Shaped like men,
  Creatures. Trees. Everything.”
“It’s why I called you. Why you brought
 my blue bag.”
I nod. I’m ready.

******

lx. Deeper Creature Time: Leaving Off

“Nothing remains still.”
--Heraclitus

Sitting side by side, we unclasp the blue bag
 & open its cover. A soft floral scarf
covers its contents.

She removes a dearly known item to me.
 The braided Threads, hands them to me,
these are still powerful for our task.
 I nod.

Then she takes out two small red balls,
 blue striped. Three more, orange these.
She nods this time. I put them aside
 me with the Braided Thread.

The Creatures stir & wake around us,
 sniff twice, know change & gather,
gather close.

We each touch the Creature near to hand,
 the Princess her White Tiger, me his kind-eyed
bullfrog companion.

I feel each Creature touching to each,
 one to many to all, paws, nuzzles,
we too are one, we too are one.

“You’re doing this to teach me.
You know this already. You always did.”

The Princess smiles at me, her smile
 like shine, like wash, lets me close
to her, her skin, her hair, allows me
 rove across her cheek, touch her lips,
smooth to her neck, ‘cross her shoulders,
 upon her breasts, of them in them,
on them, pleases me man, pleases
 me soul, becomes my tongue sliding
across her body, taste you tasting me,
 let flesh meld & light, let flesh twain
& delight to chase, release, chase,
 release, we too are one & two & one
  & two & one too.

She lays the colored balls, the Creatures
 know them as Treasures, in a pattern
to broadcast us where we will.
 Twined one to another, the Princess
allowing the girl’s form in her for my
 pleasure, touched by every Creature
as they doze near us, & later to dancing,
 & later to exploring cavern & Gate
above alike, we begin to sing
 pathways into the world, touch
& teach others how.

Remember some things. It took thick
 books of why & walls of fear against
beasts of the world & unknown men’s
 faces to shock you into following
obeying silence. It took centuries of
 contrived sufferings to convince you
that this world is to be suffered.

It took great iron cities built
 gouging & burning from the earth
to convince you that the world
  does not easily provide to all.
Caterwauling leaders to scare you from
 each other too close, & let the
suffering men & women in the streets lie,
 & let them suffer.

You had to tame. You had to conquer.
 You had to cage. You had to own.
You had to celebrate dominance with
 feast. Cry & fuck. Cry & fuck some more.

There is no time. Especially in dreams.
 As we sing into the world, a low hmmmmmm
you will not yet hear, tis because it began
 in your dreams, what we sang you
as we held you close, travelled you
 by cosmos & microbe to see in all
we too are one, we too are one.

Travel you to the Tangled Gate,
 source of your world, secret you
can enter & learn to know. Just a drink
 from the Fountain, still lingering
on the Gate’s legend “For those lost.” Yes.
 You were. You’ll find your way now.

In the Gate, down its many tall pathways
 of vines & stones, we’ll follow you now.
There is the Hummingbird & its tale
 of men & women remembering their first song
& flying away, awakening & flying away.

Perhaps you will lead to Cloverdale,
 its dank first room, its room of mirrors,
its desert & there a small shack.
 Will you meet the small exotic
or the Tramp his grieving friend?
 Where will you lead us next?

Maybe, freely going now, you will find
 the hekk stick in your hands & thus
decide easily where this dream next,
 lead us on or let us go, part the Gate
itself, or else a smile, & deeper in.

If Cloverdale, you might come to
 the Carnival Room if you can, learn
to sing how &, entering its marvels,
 for you a long-limbed fiddler, for you a great
buck barking you to knee? Will you carriage
 with us to the far end of the world,
behold the Sleepers, join them awhile
 in their Sleeping Capsules, drink the juice
to cross the Dreaming, or show them how
 without Capsule, without juice?

Will you choose to travel with us
 many dreams like these, learn
what we are, Architect & Princess, &
 behold the Island outside the Gate,
live with us its story, how we came
 to be, what we learned to know,
what mysteries we cannot reck, wild cards
 to our equations, our songs, our histories,
our loves?

As we sit here now with you, in this
 warm cavern, these friendly Creatures
all around, some dozing, all partners
 in the Hmmmmmm, we invite you
to wake when you will, how you will,
 make of this dream & its like whatever
you wish, but return whenever you
 wish to as well. The Braided Thread
we leave, ever weaving through your
 dreams. Yours to grasp or leave lie.

[And when she at last came, & took
 your other hand, & when he came & took my other,
something was now complete, now told of what was
 & what passes on to be. I did not let go,
I am a man & I both hope & fear, but I willed
 my heart open wider to all, to every
& all, we too are one, we too are one,
 together we will architect this world.
Together we will architect this beautiful world.]

******

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