From Work in Progress (Invocation)

III

Ho, the twilight! Ho, the curving
Of the last docks. The lights tarry
Like moons on the river's ceiling, luminaries turn
On the steel edge of memory's past.
Where am I walking, walking
Under cameos of moonlight? Echoes brood,
Breathe back upon my breath, echoes of the muse
Sprinkle crystal like the stretch
Of powder under feet:
Crunch and crunch, these are the sounds
Sharp by the lurking boats, hunches
Of the dockyard, these are eternity's sounds.

If I Knew a Charm to Spell Doom

If I knew a charm to spell doom,
And spread myself like lightning
Across tatters, I would harp it frugally;
And I would lie in the deep quick
Where close things beat,
And keep myself hidden
By rushes. But the cities are glazing,
And the long blades glisten and dry
In exorable heat; ice falls
From the dripping cows, and black
Is more than a slip can perfume. Things
Are a rushing center, foundering
Like a gelder rose. If axes knew the north,
Then bitter fruit, and rabid red:
Colors are eating me, life
Is on the wing -- I've lost the way,
And not a word to sing.

I Am (R1)

A cripple with a red cane,
Craning his neck for a snatch
Of dissipation;

A Molester of plums,
Crutch-kicker, and butcher
Of hobbling ladies.

I rob babies, jab
The ends of lollipops
Into their eyes.

Always with a sharp tooth for disaster,
I have supped on human blood,
Enjoyed the screams

Of fatal penetrations. I have pushed myself
On something hard, all dagger like,
And groaned. Pleasure

Is my only consort; I raise hell
To pay him. I cultivate abscesses
On my nose, and pick, and sing

The siren song of death.

Imagine Me an Evil Man

Imagine me an evil man,
Cripple with a red cane
Craning his neck for a snatch
Of dissipation;

Imagine how I hate my friends,
Eat their frozen plums,
Spray their hollyhocks with lye,
And burn down barns for fun;

Imagine...but I have done despicable things:
I have cheered at babes who stab their fathers,
Yearned to bear round brimming vats
Of blood like wine: my soul has supped
Always with a sharp tooth on disaster, and I enjoy
The scream of fatal penetrations.

I open the doors of my home
To thieves, debauchery, and gamblers;
I have pushed myself on something hard,
All dagger-like, and groaned. Pleasure

Is my only consort, but I'll raise high hell
To pay him. When, weary with my wounds,
I drag a whelping heart, then I'll urge
On siren death:

But don't think that I yearn for the abyss,
Or ape anticipation; my yawn is one long
Seedy grin, that plants the years with locust weeds,
And furrows them with homely deeds.

II (R2)

Memory built the Palaz of Hoon
From candid glass and brilliant marble
With pieces of the afternoon, and twilight soon
Thrown in for grace. The structure toppled
On its own foundations, leaning first toward obelisks
Of dawn, then dusk, then shivering like a mirage.
The marriage of fond thoughts conceived
Its columns in the sky;
Trappings of the bird made cages
Only western ceilings. It was all
Like a symphony; it clashed and made itself
The kind of edifice it was.
Inside I saw bright tears,
And speculating stars.

Work In Progress

I (R2)

Becalm the days and quiet nights
That, supple like the palm is supple,
Branch and thicken in the chill
Like bamboo branches out
And thickens in the twilight air:

Let me turn again to coasts
And blue meridians,
Lands of tigers sapling on the cast
Of preying shadows,
Blazing fur and eyes of leaf
Piling on august leaf,
'Til islands like quiet obsidian lie
Along their leaf-meal decadence
The ocean's calming rim,
Surrendering to barren rocks her breasts
For the suckling stillness of sands.

II (R1)

Memory built the Palaz of Hun
From candid glass and brilliant marble
With pieces of the noon, the twilit soon
Thrown in for grace. The structure toppled
On its own foundations, leaning first toward obelisks
Of dawn, then dusk, and shivering like a mirage.
The marriage of fond thoughts built columns in the sky;
Trappings of the bird made cages
Only western ceilings. It was all
Like a symphony; it clashed and made itself
The kind of edifice it was.
Inside I saw bright tears,
And speculating stars.

Miscellania

II (O)

Memory built the Palaz of Hun
From shining brass and brilliant marble
With pieces of the noon, the twilight symphony
Thrown in for grace. The structure toppled
On its own foundations, leaning first the one way
Then the other, like a mirage. The marriage
Of fond thoughts made columns in the sky,
Trappings of the bird made cages,
Only western ceilings. It was all
Like a symphony, it clashed and made itself
The kind of edifice it was.
Inside I saw bright palaces,
I saw stars, weeping.

Becalm the Days (R1)

Becalm the days and quiet nights
That supple like the palm is supple,
Branch and thicken in the cold
Like bamboo branches out
And thickens in the upper air:

Let me turn again to coasts
And blue meridians,
Lands of tiger saplings urging on the cast
Of predatory shadows,
Blazing fur and eyes the color of leaf
Piling on august sheaf,
Until islands like quiet obsidian lie
Leaf-meal in their decadence
Of ocean's calm, surrendering to barren rocks
Her breast, the suckling
Stillness of her sands.

Becalm the Days (O)

Becalm the days and quiet nights
That supple like the palm
Is supple, branch and thicken in the cold
Like bamboo branches out
And thickens in the upper air:

Let me turn again to coasts
And blue meridians,
Stripling lands of tigers,
Saplings, urging on the cast
Of predatory shadows,
Blazing fur and eyes
The color of the wanton leaf
Piling on august leaf, until islands
Like quiet obsidian lie
Their leaf-meal residence,
Where ocean's calm
Surrenders to the barren rocks
Her breast, the suckling stillness of her sands.

Indications of a Love Supreme

HI

The soul exists like a hard and cold
Wax imprint of our faith,
Which bares the changing mold
Of seasons and designs, until the mind
Effaces into varying degrees and shapes
Of satyrs or sublime supremacies
The blushes of our times’ disease.

EGO

The flame of my embraces is a whisper
Like the sound of thought, a temper
Of trembling faces by the grace
Of constant metamorphoses expressing
The beauty of a few laces flickering
Like streams of flame in the smoking breeze.
My ardor shapes me, true –
But I wear the searing shapes more truely
As the flame, translucent of my rainbow being.

Fall, Rome

"Quoniam quidem circumventus", inquit, "ab inimicis praeceps agor, incendium meum ruina restinguam.”

Fall, Rome. Let the corpse of Tityos,
Embroiled in his molten, sear-
Bronze edification of sin
Like a holocaust of erupting oak,
Shattering branches through spokes
Of the claustric sky in spores, exploding,
Tumble, cataclysm, crack
The shafting ground like smashing
Sheens of decimated glass.

A Poem that Sums and Summits

"Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter."

The poet doesn't find the poem, nor poem the poet:
Because the poem does not exist. These lines
Cake the snowy page, like swirling flakes
Of soot, marring whatever was. Meaning
Is only a mean of the invisible sea of atoms,
Some function of calamity, and swerve: precision
Blurs too closely and too far, the mountains are not
Anything but mountains. Let me refocus:
If I intend, my intent strikes like a scar across
The whatever blankness of the poets' minds,
Since I, the reader of the read, am reading still:
We write each other, just so and justless, the way
A rocking plow plunges into the sea
Of its own making. Nothing will ever be,
For nothing comes from nothing. My perfection
Is only one action in a series of actions, a chain
Stretching itself in curious ways, but construct
Of that train, an art of minimum application
Reapplied and going, absolutely, nowhere.

Ecce Homo

I'm outside the student union, pipping at my flute,
Trying to erect ancient song but, insofar as it is ancient,
Failing to master the working and works.

I've been expelled from the cultural center
By women who want to be women, saying,
"This is our day to be women, to wail
About our vaginas, explain
How everything different in life
Is really because we are women." Onstage

They'll cry vortexes of desire that their mothers
Were never quite the same after that day
And the snow and the brightly charred
Oven; they'll defame men or screech
Erotics of joy in a nibbling breast,
Or grip their bodies and twist
Amply and leer, "I am a sensual woman;
Look at all the pricks I've
Fucked." And they're probably right.

There's even a man who will grab his crotch:
"My vagina's a thick, six inch penis."

I don't have a vagina.
And I probably never will. I can still say
It makes it difficult for me trying to find a song,
When all these abrasive harpies are
Always angry about something.

I thought freedom was the intimate joy of being
Human, and that's all we could hope to become;
But there's always something stopping us,
Holding us back, pushing me out of the way.

All These Cackling Gods

I

If the pieces were falling...
A mind disjoint like a cut
Leg throbbing, swimming
Through the blue pools
Of narcolepsy: spasms,
Emerald bleeding spasms,
Something tensed off to infinity –
Where are all these bleeding dragons,
Mommy? The mother is not
Cropping limbs, but infernally
Frigid, cold. In the distance
Will the sunflowers
Melt? Demeter cut, slut the meat,
Slice, chunk, rut of a sea
Borne breeze,
And quiet gates.

II

I am not in the country of the found. The swollen intensity,
Oh my ankles, will my shoes gum up
Eventually? The sand is the color of green shut-up
Mermaids of umbrellaed intensity, flapping their inbred fins
Over the cool moss. Strokes of hair-delicate moss
And clam-shell eyes, does the sinuous curve of the sand
Mean it? I think I've collapsed on some state of paradise wounds
And the snow.

III

Coin. Mint. The machine goes glug-glug.
It was the passionate intensity of the machine in the
Coin. Mint. The machine goes glug-glug.
It was the whirr-a-gig of the joints joining
Coin. Mint. The machine goes glug-glug.
After awhile you grow dizzy
And faint.

IV

In the glades of the Sam Street paradise
A man is walking, walking
With a very tall cane, and the transfixed stare of the knob
Like a golden gate. Clack, clack. Each clatter on the back
Of the pavement clicks like a key through the rest
Of the pavement clattering, clacking: clack.

I Want My Work to Work (R1)

My poems, for instance, are not cream-filled confections
From France, meant to appease the sweet-toothed
Tip of the tongue with honeyed sway and the nibbling
Shine of a novel chorus, caramel faces, mint-wreathed
Every brow -- though I will take some of the bitter
Variety, licorice lozenge, wormwood, the absence
Of decorous iris and lily-root, amaranth and coquillage
To castigate your parasols, sea-purpled chocolates:

The past is not a buffet, we are not to feast
On the sorrows of women like scrumptious
Frogs' legs, shelled snails puffed up and stuffed
Into wounds -- and salted, deliberately savory
With tears, a cooked bounty's harvest
Of delicate gore; the great artist doesn't serve up
Our delicious and saucy fate, mirrored for all time
In glozing decanters of Lethe wine, so that the mind,
Inebriated with intoxication of a supreme
Being unjust, can vomit this fond extravagance
Up into the malnourished bowels of memory, whose poetry
Is sputum. Someday a doctor will come

And prescribe a ground diet of barely, chafed
Wheat, something hard and close to the rock
And its life-giving streams -- change tiramisu
For bee-dripping lees, a visionary sip
Of wine, the flesh and ascetic taste
Of pleasure. For books, like people, corrupt:
All the more gluttonous shame!
When Shakespeare roofs the human head
Of penury, I'll wrap my crown in loquacious
History, and squint wide-eyed at his glory.

I Want My Work to Work

My poems, for instance, are not cream-filled candies
From France, meant to appease the sweet-toothed
Tip of the tongue with honeyed sway and nibbling
Shine of a novel chorus, caramel faces, mint-wreathed
Every brow -- though I will take some of the bitter
Variety, licorice lozenges, wormwood, the absence
Of decorous iris and lily-root, amaranth and coquillage
To castigate your parasols and sea-purpled chocolates:

The past is not a buffet, we are not to feast
On the sorrows of women like scrumptious
Frogs' legs, shelled snails, puffed up and stuffed
With tears, salted and deliberately savory
With death, and wounds, a bounty's cooked harvest
Of gore; the greatest artist does not cook up
Our delicious and saucy fate, mirrored for all time
In diamond goblets of Lethe wine, so the mind,
Inebriated with the intoxications of a supreme
Being unjust, can vomit this fond extravagance
Up into the malnourished bowels of memory, whose poetry
Is sputum. Someday a doctor will come along

And prescribe a strict diet of barely, ground
Wheat, something hard and close to the land
And its life-giving streams; tiramisu gives way
To lightly honeyed cakes, a visionary sip
Of wine, the fresh and ascetic taste
Of virtue. Books, like people, can corrupt --
All the more gluttonous shameful!
When Shakespeare can put a roof on the head
Of human penury, then to loquacious history
I'll bow my crown, and sing his glory.

Voyages

Mad on the philtre of an unfined love
Refined into the nuances of the August moon
And found again in the translucent mirror of the lakes
That reflected her, a reflection of uncanny purity
Drowning in the cries of the gulls
Mirrored again in the passing silence,

I thought of wind chimes and blue umbrellas,
Transparencies drenched with moonlight, bathed
In the silver incandescence of the stars,
Untrusting black shine that overtakes the moon
In a singular howl, shapes of the black cliffs, of the black land
Bathed again in the singular shine. Like a ship

Gliding upstream, whose deck glistens
With sealed off water, and renouncing the visions
Of a fog-thick land, my mind drifted again
On silvery wings, and in the space of three whole days
And argent nights, three perspirations
Of moonlight matching and quenching the aspirations
Of the hollow sun, a single second or a moment
Was all that transpired in my wine-dark soul.

The Dead (R3)

When darkness churns in the aether
Like the thick soup of a swamp frothing
With the mulch of a clipped jaw's howl,
And the blue flames of the stars burn on
Beneath the eaves like a hag-faced
Simmering cauldron, and the solitude
Of a lonely thought reflects on the limns of the earth,

The dead creep, in slumbering hordes, unmasked
Amassing faces of life's grim fête: how hungry
Are the dead, ruining eyes that totter
After pulses in the blood-rimmed shade, fangs
Drooling for sap, greedy limbs that grasp
Like a child nibbling at juicy breasts. For juice

They pick through the blades of damp grass, pale
By the ache of the moon, to an unlit
Vastness of crumbling diamonds, alleys
Shrugging with broken glass, towers buckling
Under the gravity of fallen stars,
The ghettoes where they lived, searching
Like a hand that feels the dark for something it forgot.

Do the dead forget us? Can we remember these dead
Faces, rent wide as molten wax into a scream
Of pure void, brimmed with spilling brains, whose ingenuous pallor
Betrays a cold fear of the haunted air,
Shadows effervescent of the earth?

The Dead (R1)

When darkness churns in the aether
Like the thick soup of a swamp, boiling
With the mulch of a clipped jaw's howl,
And the blue flames of the stars burn on
Under the eve like a hag-faced
Simmering cauldron, and the solitude
Of a lonely thought reflects on the limns of the earth,

The dead creep, in slumbering hordes, unmasked
Amassing faces of life's grim fête: how hungry
Are the dead, ruining eyes that totter
After pulses in the blood-rimmed shade, fangs
Drooling for sap, greedy hands that grasp
Like a child nibbling on juicy breasts. For juice

They pick through the blades of damp grass, pale
By the cloak of the moon, to unlit
Ruins, streets of crumbling diamond, alleys
Of broken glass and fallen stars, empty bazaars,
The ghettoes where they lived, searching for a sign,
Like a hand that grasps after something it forgot.

Do the dead remember us? Can we forget these dead
Faces, ripped wide like molten wax into screams
Of pure void, the brim of spilling brains, ingenuous pallor
Betraying their fear of the haunted air,
And the clouds that surge from the earth?

The Dead (O)

When darkness churns through the aether
Like the thick soup of a swamp, boiling
With the mulch of clipped howls' fire
And the blue flames of the stars burn on
Under the eve, like a hag-faced
Simmering cauldron, and the solitude
Of a lonely thought paces the limns of the earth,

The dead creep, in stumbling hordes, unmasked,
Amassing faces of life's grim fête: how hungry
Are the dead, sunken eyes meant only to peer
Into oblique shadows for bleating food, their fangs
Drooling for blood, hands grasping like a child
Nibbling at the juicy breasts. For juice

They wander the spear-grass, damp, dumb, peering
Into the cloak of the moon; through unlit
Ruins of prosperous towns, their empty bazaars,
The houses they bought, searching for a sign,
Something to remember, or something they forgot.

Do the dead remember us? Do we forget the dead?
The faces, ripped into screams of pure void,
The brim of spilling brains, pallor of genius,
All betray the fear between the haunting aether,
And the wispy smoke of the earth.

Sunset Over the Pacific

So a sea climbs the Atlantic horizon
Into the wait and the burden. These peaks
Jab sharp on the joints of the sky,
And the sinking sun whines
Like a tea-kettle, or a squealing pig,
Or a squealing pig hissing hot tea.
The waves are dividing in furrows, hence
Pastures of fish. The dark asteroids
Look like streaks of white on painted
Plaster, and laughter charms like a faraway bell.
This is a sea-calm, this quiet of the night,
When life is a sloping, a continual lapping.

Shaxpur (R1)

I wish you'd been a masticated,
Live-chewn pup to a pulpy knob, ground
As flesh as the dirt, striated like strips
Of salt-beef spread for the wind to dry,
To stale in the sun; I wish

You only were a smattering of crusts
Pecked at by birds, a vat of noxious slime
Trod by the grimy feet of menstruating
Virgins, fouled in their pulpy brines
With anxious blood. If only your brain
Were a quivering mass of jelly,
Something alight in its fumes
Before it could ever exist...

Instead you, who seem to have cupped your strain
By Massic streams, intoxicate mens' minds
With bruit noise that terrifies even my
Peaceful heart. You howled with the bays
And the curs, probably fired-off and beer-frothed
A thousand folds of crafty verse, straining your neck
With every necessary step. Sheer humour
That you were a man and walked beside us, tragic
That you could exhale the sky and blot out the lucent
Way to death like a vengeful, unwilling god.

Shaxpur

I wish you were a masticated beast
Live-chewn to a pulpy knob, ground
As fresh as the dirt, striated like strips
Of salt beef spread for the wind to dry,
To stale in the sun: I wish

You were a smattering of crusts
Pecked at by birds, a vat of noxious slime
Trod by the grimy feet of menstruating
Virgins, fouled in the pulpy brine
With anxious blood. I wish your brain
Were a quivering mass of tottering, blathering
Jelly, something alight in smoke
Before it could ever exist.

Instead you seem to have cupped your strain
By Massic streams, intoxicate mens' minds
With bruits that terrify even my
Peaceful heart. You howled with the bays
And the curs, probably puffed up and beer-frothed
A thousand-fold of crafty verse, straining your neck
With every necessary step. The sheer comedy,
You were a man, and walked among us, tragic
That you could breathe the sky and blot out the lucent
Way to death like a vengeful and unwilling god.

I Will Have My Milk

I want to attack, I want to destroy, to push my fist
Through shattered glass like gloomy
Holden Caulfield, symbol of estrangement
Stranger than the rest. Let me loose on the battlefield:
No war? My aggression will pulp you, primp you up,
Then prick and pop you like a pimple. When we're done
Only your pus will remain. Raise the canon,
Standard and the method of attack, and fire into the masses
Of crazed, complicit zombies, carving up the flesh
Of devils, daemons, ghouls. I am the living, breathing pulse
Of this smog-choked world, my cry
Is central, not to be ignored -- like a child screaming,
Bursting his lungs with sweat and hot tears,
I will have my milk!

The Psychodynamic

Never this beauty, the logical operators
Eating their meanings, gasping gulps of
Scintillation! Anguish that the tale
Will have a tail, and that the telling
Rats:

They roll their beady eyes across the room,
Red as a blood-curdling wine, trailing
Amalgamations of the floor and ceiling,
Making all the things we should know
Indeterminate, elusive, fleeting.