ESTUARY
Let the servants show you
your nemesis’ cabbage patch
cover them with seamen
so he will be judged
and the judge be your son
seed logic, the story’s tendrils
joke along a little boat,
between the banks, the backs
a spine conjoins in water
white flux, white fox
peeping above the mind’s hands
her fluid license
sky sky desires
blank hands pull up
at our clothes you can feel
the desire from which things
contract, reach to reclaim you
but can only make more, fall
tragic tetractys
raspberry jam
on His fingers
ordo cisterciensis
the flash of sight
stretched
through which sound
becomes stone
the snowfall through which
the cathedral walks forward
enter into these bones
eat the moon
milk of amnesia
eat the edges off
seed-spine cycles back
into brain-sea, Typhon
hunting boars at night
stumbles over the body
of Osiris chops it up
dissipates the Nile
into the reservoir of mind
the red haired Neanderthal
mystery of the genome
spread the quiet doctrine
of the subconscious
into aeon’s aimless endless city
wide-smiling neolithic masks
that sidewinder through pointy buildings
Tamas dark slothful
whose yellow birds fly
impenetrable patterns through
the soft pink stuff of language
to eat the berries
around the altar
squeezing past my sternum
everyone can eat the moon
big berry two hands
to three mouthes
the count goes down
and arc sent out
through our animal sea
a white fox that hides
as the moon divides
one after another, count
until I’ve said everything
an audible horizon glimpsed
through the lumbering stones
who guard my stray spark
my extra road
no pal, nothing extra
there’s a second voice
I show you where to go
the trees tug
from beyond their leaves
put on my clothes
and tell me what you hear
a fox caught on the hill
awake another
Chinese poet
wet in moonlight
inheritance of Percival
Celtic Noh
vanishing castle
of the page
dissolution but for this
tiny sin, shadow
come from beast-land
to regrow me
each step the
soul must take
reforming slowly
through the root
poor Moses
poor us same few
no choice but to play
every role
the movement of the universe is
actuated not by one soul, but
perhaps by several, and certainly not
less than two, the spine’s push
from its own sides, the boat
to keep wet
poles jabbed in cosmographic waste,
each ear listens to Beethoven
to grow a plant
to grow a mask
lure out your friend
rising milky white ahead
a bell to ring
a new moon
where priests shout on the banks
of the Nile,
Osiris swaddled
in their earthy hands
to return the eye of Horus
Typhon poked out or ate
variations for the dance’s
sake unmoving
as water must be
its strange relief
lugged through
busy daylight
or devilry
jogging and kitchens
the elements at work
priests by the river
earth and water
an Osiris cookie
heaven and earth mud
the banks
unravel in time
a secondary river
the second voice in which
the first persists
Kabbalah of the weave
Templar Ogotemmeli
whatever it is making itself
obvious as rollerskates
dream-catcher of our
pale lunacy
light refracted through flesh
colors its clear pages,
geese crossing your hills
and nowhere yonder
every tree with its own moon
your next breath, white fox
the sight’s wife
informing itself
her eager priest
to baptize us
that might have been the salt
Mr. Rose took with him
to the chymmical wedding,
bread, salt, water,
hard to know what what means;
see who’s around
what they’re thinking
imagined affairs
interest, whatever
comes to mind,
the salt takes
one eyed hermit behind the dream
singleminded boat of a person
ushering you in
as the cool water slides past
each of me
the images drift
into the estuary
vile place, they call it, water
flow from a dead dog’s mouth
property of some other ocean,
your uncle Hades
family relations, sephiroth
the gates of the body
body shows us how to open
after all this practice
where images go
into the embrace
nameless long arms of things
warm and sturdy command
that understands me
me enough anyway
my poor vocabulary, your love
will let you go on
in whatever way not managing
manages like Bruno its finite figures
look at this picture
of Vishnu and Lakshmi
dressed in all the colors
I’ve colored with willy-nilly
colors are gods
pantheon of light
mother bent
through dark father-flesh
Bluebeard a sour taste in
his mouth dashes through the
closet doors, hasty castle we are
trying to find the stairs
something to do with you
sweet step you’ve brought me
through my thousand rooms
to the heart of our city
where the hidden tower
grows nimbler, more secure.
