A Requiem

 

A  Requiem

Remoteness is its own secret.

                                W. S. Merwin

                                "The Wilderness"

A requiem is a sung elegy, it

is a refrain, and so

because it is song 

it is a way

of staying somehow relevant

at this exact circumstance

like tide does, for hours if you're watching 

or even

if you're not and how that kind

of song or some release of it at least 

seems deepest at being

repeated or feinting away

after the whole of life of all it was 

offered and tentative or not 

there was some reach some

temptation before saying no but

not wanting to and come away an octave

lower though not always keener

if you can forgive under the light

of it, the finally coming undone of it.

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.