1.
The grey king
fisher king
John the Baptist
waiting, early
for the King of kings
in full flower
the year bends forward
from the alloy of his
knees, he comes and prays
and so he must be early.
The body of the year
waits to receive its soul,
among this great variety of things
the same two or three
or even one.
Or zero.
The monks in charge of summer
see what the sentence wants to say.
Stretch out your hands
and wait.
Be like the crickets,
there is no conjure without complaint.
Baptism in these lowest waters.
2.
The Histories are symbolic,
an everlasting interior,
Indo-europeans bearing gold and silver
ivory, monkeys, peacocks
to the Levant of
faithful transcription.
There is a record of everything.
Even this.
Get it down and walk it
to the library – scrolls
in the beehived mud walls
that coil in, as the sun coils
red below the horizon.
The gates clang shut
and we saddle the camels
to be on our way. Our day.
Instructions for an elevator.
3.
Into the silence
evening fairies slam their doors.
For this good stew
the mind refuses to yield–
the poem is written anyway
and what comes forward,
reticent, motions back
deep into them hills.
Queen Maeve has not forgiven me
that is what this night means,
the outskirts of their revels.
Glowworms mock me
lights through the trees
let me say something else
just once slip into the automobiles
cruising on their spiral streets
where the leaves all stand still.
With the rest of the guests
they comb my beard
but no one leads me into church
passion of the goat
sweet thistle, mint,
the names of angels
growing outside the door.
Lay there with me,
in Love nothing is made of.
4.
On St John’s eve
pick mugwort
from across the road.
In one eye Mars the
other Saturn. Put the sun
on your hair, caterpillars
asleep on the leaves.
Sacred decadence,
the arousal to prayer
clouds whirring
where we call ourselves the sky
run my fingers across
and into Chesapeake Bay
watch again as she jumps
over the fire,
another excuse to see:
to where the rains live.
The skies, thighs, part.
The page arrives
as finally our pens go dry.
5.
after Ada Langworthy Collier
The poem is an animal on human feet
Lilith on her tiptoes as I pass close
her white hand that nearly
reaches out
within the dead’s embrace
we call out their names
brush against the rose.
The roses that surround her
I brushed, the mistake of being
anyone.
I banished her.
Unfolding
point, star, speech
between the paradise
of empty bodies.
Any book
can only pretend to begin
embarrassed by the surprise
of paper coming close, contact
and for the scratch of an instant
before the letter
when you read askance
see how the pen moved through silence
how to love without myself
what must always have been you.
6.
After H.D.’s Hippolytus Temporizes
This is the beach–
fireflies hovering in the ditch
the wood’s edge, Hyppolitus
pestering from a thousand shrines
the full moon, Artemis
there’s so much we yearn for
these many of me,
the size of the goddess
they pull down from her sleep.
This is the beach–
slow lights drag
and vanish from into night
and piece by piece
one’s person is endangered
under control
hears her intoxicant rimes
incest
death
the blossoming rod
that lives in the mist
that is only ever bare.
I worship the greatest first–
(the white feet white of the dead
that live, an intoxicant moon
her dark magic draws from
herself, that paints us white).
I worship first the great–
(goddess leers uptempo death
where the lovers die and dance
beyond death’s Question.
Where the little lily grows)
I worship the greatest first–
and the altar seeds
the arms of the arbutus
lash white lily flowers
the queen must eat
ah, the sky must eat
the lovers here and there
must repeat themselves
to cauterize our wounds.
7.
Imagination sinks
heavy and cold
the queen of winter
casting from her hill
radiance, geometric
the first mark of the State
from the fire purified
at the pyramid’s tip
too perfect to be seen.
The bird to fly more quickly
shuts its wings
through barriers of trees
reclaims his senses
the serpents who chant our names
gradually grow louder.
The poem cannot escape
ritual.
Trestle-boards
on the viewscape.
Dawn to dawn
noon is midnight,
witches climb the hill
splendid Thomas Cole
sleek beautiful black cat
the dancers high-step round the throne
Thomas Cole invisible
the fire’s seeds among us.
8.
The jaguar
so little fact in me
to see it with,
breathing sweetly
in the underbrush
white moths
dapple its coat.
The facts come to taste
Heaven’s secret honey
the days of the week
array themselves, swing open.
The priests in a circle
swing open.
Walls are doors.
Fact is sacrifice
we take off our clothes
your name your father’s name
the name Ismael
read the book to the beginning.
Whirlpool or mountaintop
from which the sweet breath
slowly leaks.
9.
Birds defy today–
ever defines them
“let the crows into your poem”
that deal in all that shines
like gold and fate
the names of kings.
The next morning will be loud
with chicks in the post office
being mailed out,
the world manages
almost to be poetry.
But in this empire
nothing needs doing.
Beware the sunrise.
All action is magic.
10.
Unlike the moon
that changes positions around the sky
every time you look for it (so you claim)
the gods shake their heads
in the center
of our negotiations.
Listen to the paper,
the machines hidden everywhere
wood, steel, the whine of AC
everything wants it turn to speak
the sea roosts
in every direction
wave by wave.
11.
The earth identifies,
drags to itself
the other earth
inside of language
that we live on
drags the actual
into itself
St.Peter keep us
Saint Peter we draw
to get us home again.
I do not look forward
to the resurrection of the dead.
But the concession
of wave to wave,
the angelic chain
of each effect.
12.
Water runs down her body
this woman in a shower
what’s the heat waiting for
who’s it bringing forward
as it waits to break?
The scarlet woman
tanlined, red, painful
lets the water run
in ritual heat
eyes the sky
sits on porches.
Under Her.
Prepositions rule us.
The horseshoes fall short
and I almost know what it means.
13.
Summer in the caverns
of someone else
emulate,
cool off,
be like rock
and let water
seep
the smell of emerald,
recorded sounds.
Watch the fan spin
every angle packed
with roses, calligraphs
of the rampant eye
each image is written on.
The lord of sight
writes within the cave
the word of words.
The rock allows.
Animals, ochre men,
scars from vaccinations
All are walking towards her
just try to stand still.
14.
Something to take home
shape of a tree
birds nest held
in the crook of your arm
these months
that’s all history is
being other
watching the myths fly
from your father’s arms
for no better reason than morning.
Such ordinary tools
sleep, sun, tree
equinox together
the end of days
the road
through the desert
that flowers on its way to us.
15.
We’re mesopotamians, like Abraham
whose capital, head, forces itself shut–
the door to emptiness.
Words let the emptiness out.
Our other head
that of Orpheus, where deer kneel, birds in flight
he does something
like sing
fluttering free from mouthes
empty as the sky
but no end to rain.
I call this scholarship
patter on the roof
of someone else’s mind.
Tell me what you hear.
16.
There’s only revision
and then, at last, an original.
This is monkey testicles speaking.
To meet anyone is free-love,
to add animals to yourself
friends, forests of yesterdays lunch
watch the hand hang
its crystal in your bedroom
lines my reckless legs must walk
unborn coincidence
the effect of tomorrow
put off till today.
17.
In the empty bowl of a valley
the chisel workers who will make forms
where are no forms yet
scherenscnitt
cut away
from the folded napkin
of the horizon
almost symmetrical patterns.
Entireties rebound.
We multiply.
Unto zero
the sun the scissors
rise again.
So we photographs think
drawings of the light
in undeveloped darkness
where words flash
a greenish light
just enough to go by.
18.
Fireworks continue,
the sizzle of suns
far off continue
I cross myself
a deer
curled up in the woods
crickets howling
from the swamp back home
the road, curled up
that continues
one day we’ll begin
walk backwards from Irkalla’s
house,
scraping off the mud
mud in our mouthes
feathered
the entered who may never leave
the majesty of death
with our buzzing stones.
You can hear still
like somewhere you need to go
the great anywhere continued
language pumps into the body.
19.
Leafy rhubarb
grateful as rain
to be left alone.
The leopard will not share his mirror
with the elephants in the jungle.
For moon does not shine
it distills,
across sheep
and river
the husbands do not share
until each at last is a door.
