This--Somewhat After Williams

 

This--

            ---Somewhat After Williams 

(It was restful, learning nothing necessary.

                                    Gwendolyn Brooks)

This

        is just to say:     boats

                    whose bows are

                            mounted

                        in the cove

                            grass and still

                                    aimed out

        at the mouth

        will rise with

                    every tide will fall, will

                                empty of

                                    everything

                                            but night

                                                sky, still

                                                    float and take you on

(forgive me)

                                    any wave 

                                            you care or care not to

                                                                           crest

Of Palimpsests

 

Of Palimpsests

(considering Wyeth's "Winter")

Of course I judge a book

by its cover of course I do

by its weight of paper

or skin or rag picked linen

I'm telling you its good news

to know this: it takes

three hundred lambs

to make one Guttenberg

Bible.  I'm saying lambs--I mean

sheep but I want you to

know the word is worth

what's been given up

as flesh to bear it.  Tell me--

when you touch the daily

news and let it give you your quick

open-port fix and then let it

lie: compost: hearth: cat-

litter lining, it's not the same

as taking into your mouth 

the words you're touching 

like you want

a lover to

touch you:

hover

above the spine and thumb-run

it top to coccyx and spread

broad as split birds rendering

their song when you open

their cage of bones

and, hammer and felt, tune

each pore to sing

the good news to celebrate

the talent it takes to make

every listener rise up 

whites of eyes alive 

and shudder long long long 

beyond the song's obvious

remorse.  Of course.  Of course

I judge a book

by its cover, lover.  And too

her paper or otherwise

made pages: pulp of once mulberry

(and oh, those silk worms 

have their own spin on this

metaphor) or once pulp

of Sherwood, or relic shroud

of Saints, or, and dear this will

cost you: lambs, secretly 

undressed and caressed, care-

                                            ssed

so tenderly the raw is

what's rubbed down rubbed clean so

the only thing it can bear

the only thing it can bare

the only thing it can bair

is the word... 

only when then you double the e

and only then when you double

the e

so climbing the stairs I tell myself

i'm no good

at word games and play

at being unafraid

in my own 

house and i say things

like Crusoe

wants to be (i can't see

letters in my head and that

will be painfully

obvious when this is

finished) rescue

an almost anagram

but it's missing the crucial

O (and it needs its e

doubled) 

could be it all comes

to the one moment

before being

surprised how looking down

long enough means to miss

the ship sailing by

and you're left to

it for another 30 aught,

ought? you, scanning 

the blank horizon

 a vail alive 

consider:

consider:

after Wyeth's "Widow's Walk"

We have begun to say good bye

To each other

and cannot say it

                                    George Oppen

                                    Anniversary Poem

consider:

maybe the thing you love

you love because someone you love

loves it

consider:

cloud cover how the behind of

is visible to the insides

of the sky

consider:

the rope yearns for your nude

and naked palm the pouchy

closure of your hanging on

consider:

rudi nureyev had an agreement

with gravity: sir he said. 

sire Gravity said, bowing first

consider

allowing to be found is a way

of seeing: a kind

of integrity

consider

refusing to overdramatize or

exaggerate you don't need to

defend experience

consider

allowing life

to stand

for itself

consider

meaning to be

an honest record of not

wanting to forget

consider this:

distilled from memories

the meaning (it's worth

considering the meaning)

consider! it is

of life it is meaning

a life.

                            found words: Jeffrey Yang: Intro Meaning

                                                        A Life: Mary Oppen

used

Used

 If you are wise you step through the darkness

only one foot at a time.

                                        Colum McCann

                                        Dancer

Of course buying it used

you're wondering who's

fingers have turned those

pages before you 

and before you choose

them probably through

this particular story on view

and what each stain's got to lose

being beneath sometimes through

this particular: "An exuberant

flag" (underwear) and if it's true

was pinched and, dipped, blew

his lips her lips whose?

left sitting this cup's view

(round as a saucer's held brew)

And all along bleeding bruised

Nureyev and his way of cruising

through the two

prongs of the elusive

and invisible tuning

fork air conduction you 

know and bone conduction you

know but do you

fingers to tongue to the flue

of your eyes and nose and muse?

Being Unreliable

Being Unreliable: Before Her Final

Overdose

 ...in any case, in talking

about the past we lie with every breath we draw.

William Maxwell

So Long, See You Tomorrow

I missed the final setting of your moon like it was

what I intended all along, brash that tomorrow

would be offered up with the same come as

you  may faith as any yesterday reclaimed

and it was only later I would bring my tongue

with its licked- clean- the- bowl- I- did- yes-

I- did the broken bowl you know the one

the one in the cupboard you slid into the dust

of the decade and didn't consider it

again until there was tea in it tea just

the way you like it the way you always

liked it (two salada two sugars two teaspoons

of canned milk) (steep three to five

minutes) and this time you couldn't

complain at the pale tint or the unmelted

grains you simply let me stir and stir

and lift it to your lips and a dribble here

and there and the odd drop onto the sheet

would maybe please you on seeing it there

like its own little moon and depending

on the rumple it could be entirely 

full of itself  or not as I pulled it up 

and them simply over your wiped clean chin.

toss

 

toss

Which would be better, what sticks or what falls through?

Or does the choice itself create the value?

                                                                Seamus Heaney

                                                                The Riddle

maybe not every day but most days

or it's

the length of time spent tying the fly 

to that of it being 

lit, bit, tricked

or it's

maybe she wouldn't have been there after

all and wasn't.  maybe it was just

his breath and blood in the tunnel

or it's

an echo

chamber sounding like running off

in the dark

or it's

opening you and

your jacket keeps slipping

down your spine

or it's

hoisting it that

means I can finally

touch...

or it's

your bones, each

strung to the next by human

sinew up to the nape of your neck to the beneath...

or it's

your skull

to the bottom most

tip of your coccyx

or it's 

the lift of something of you that's rested

all these years

or it's

a suspension in water-

glass like a wintering

egg laid in November and eaten in spring

vignettes

 

vignettes

--how ice cracks having

tasted  the Jamieson's  

and lets itself out

to breathe

--how two days gone

into autumn and the sun is still

coming on strong, stronger

knowing the inevitable

loss

--how maybe what you saw

was a culmination toward

the denouement and was sent

falling falls still

inside of you

--how you bend to

see the majesty

and the allegation

of the debris

--how trained to scan

for curls of smoke coming up

through the vast canopies

one look away is 

decapitation

--how sometimes

its best to read things in order

of their arrival and other times

in order to survive

--how to be close to you

i took Klimpt's women

to my lips and sipped what was

--(and how

warm, how soon cooled 

as I closed my mouth

on you

on Capturing Nureyev

 

On Capturing Nureyev

consider:

maybe the thing you love

you love because someone you love

loves it and so by virtue...

:

cloud cover, how the behind

is visible to the backsides

of the side

:

the rope wants your nude

and naked (oh both!

you know the difference)

palm, the pouchy closure

of your grip before the warp 

the fire!  of trying to let go

:

Rudi Nureyev had a brief

agreement with Gravity.  Sir, he said.  Sir,

Gravity said.  Who bowed first?

bookmark: shelf life

 bookmark: shelf life

who knew even the least

of these would be, in the humidor

of the poetry

of Seamus Heaney, his piece

about the haw

lantern and the one wandering

diogenes wanting, of wont

one honest or just (held up

to the light from 

the dark) woman or man

in the carapace of its own

singular vault. 

Anticipating "The Artifice of Blue Light"

Anticipating "The Artifice of Blue Light"

lupine seeds for a book

mark i leave off just as

they are leaving off

and by all intents

and purposes it will be

for the long time 

that forever is and never

become, as those two

folks go to bed together

and make children, 

children that come up

from the bare desert 

of the womb that's sung

the blues all these years

running.  ironic, if you

want, or some might

say it's just

coincidence, having 

a packet of seeds handy

to make of them a staying

place for the vernacular.  maybe this is

the only season I've got

left to get them into

their reward,

plunge them back 

into their caul

of dark and predict

a miracle will arrive by

way of my front gate.  at home

the lupines

make their own wild way

and they jut their peppery stuff

up from the salt and smoke

and take to the land

the way only the scattered

and finally planted have to

if they want

a say in anything about them,

how they are seen and leaned

into, how they pluck

or brush by elbows &

chests, and feel

the sweet hurt 

at the mercy of something other

than their fingertips un

-zipping their husks finally

to come undone: by birds

by curious kids, by

meticulous women skinning

them for their pent-up pink

or white or lavender sal-

utations at being and continuing

with being a being.

*title of a catalogue collection 

of henriette wyeth's still lifes.

steadfastness, after choosing

 

steadfastness, after choosing

 

remember when the choice you made

was the smallest of them all

and you clutched it in your pocket

and dug in your heals

and rode all the way home moving it

to be its own beating against your chest

which was also beating 

and it washed your face and hands

in its own surplice of benediction?

everything he's been waiting for

everything he's been waiting for

the puppy, wanting the nuzzle

of the love coming from

the leavened and whiskered

muzzle of his mother, nudges

again and again toward 

the drip of milk his litter

mates kick and scratch and lift

him from.  the one 

festering, level-with-his-jaw-

and along his neck, puncture

wound after the true 

air-is-new, out-of-the-womb

and to keep free of the hush

dug tombs, the boy comes empty

but for his forefront coverage:

the mud from the puddles 

coming up like geysers, the rush

to the runt and the cuddle to 

the stew of his chest-sweat

and wool: the rump

stuffed into the ripped designer

pocket the brand Levi

stuck to the fold like a collar

like a name, now that he's saved,

everything he's been waiting for.