All the Animals in the Smoke

All the animals in the smoke
live inside each other,
romp like samba dancers,
disturb this world's night.
They are hairy beasts that swallow hearts whole,
until
you, like them, are gone.
They are an ethical menagerie
bound by no creed, freed
to step from the lines of day.

Their fears cannot be replaced.
They are feathers and long teeth.
They drift upward.

I do not imagine
this damp base of twigs will jump to flame.
However, there is a tower of gray.
Though I cannot carve it,
there is an order.
Few understand the face of the bear,
the fish, and the raven.
Or know there are more.

Anemophily

On a street without light, in a place I would not leave,

I left the windows open to hear the drone of cars

on the highway three winding miles below.

Two miles down in the other direction

the bell from a gray, stone church tolled each hour.

At noon its congested hymn struggled to uplift me.

When I moved to the valley the sound did not carry.

I no longer measured time with the tools and percussion

of drum, hammer, anvil, or stirrup.

I measured it with stamen, pistil, bees, and wind,

then closed the windows; these  difficult, temporal imbalances

could not survive the valley of their making. * 

I See Myself in the Sea

I see myself in the sea, the jagged mirror

of the sea. Behind the shards of me

     is the moving mass of water, the feint fins

     of the big fish swirling the undertow,

     the liquid calligraphy of sound within sound,

     the ghosts of a creature who would consume
me whole.

I see myself in the sea.  The jagged mirror

of the sea underneath the shards of me

     contains the terror of the fact that
     the sea is the soul, gargantuan and entire,

     the liquid calligraphy of me within me, palpably

     unfathomable, except for the tides that keep

time all its own.

The Truth

As in the sea — the sea both hiding

and revealing the rubble below, bits

of shell, seaweed — or, as in more often

the wind — the wind-as-indifference

we learn to accept, finally, in nature —

despite some lucid reflection we hope

the water hurls back as we wade

in the shallows, shy almost, reluctant

or just returning from full

immersion, though as we stood there

it would seem no different . . .

I know, the waves no longer whisper,

I know what you've always been . . . no shame,

no need to confess . . .

*

Soon we were dry — half awake, half naked —

in the sand. Now the crest and momentum

toward us the shore, the roar and glide

beyond which there is no regret, as

the thinning sprawl of sea barely visible now,

now vanishing, leaving only the sand,

slightly darker than the rest, the rest

of the innocent shore . . .

*

And then we stood, as if in surrender . . .

We walked toward where the sea would meet us.

Abstract Art

abstract art

yesterday at the national gallery

some kids said of a frankenthaler

it reminded them of mario kart

the numeral seven rainbows

by the sea a row of taffy thrown

off a float in a parade a bloody nose

spring came and everything

was possible the possibilities

seemed endless you fag

I whisper when he calls

newman’s stations of the cross

fabulous black boughs shorn

of bark charred tibia telephone

poles in a morning fog you fag

he says when I disappear

into the jasper johns

as if it were some shrubbery

a child could hide in

a changeless symbol taut skin

a silent drum delectable

it’s true

I want

to tell

the children

if you

lick it

art will

kil you

Ads in the Heart of a Ferryman

Ads in the Heart of a Ferryman

The silver paper, silver like cigarette wrappings

kept behind glass at bowling alleys and dispensed with

the pinball mechanism of dowel and handle,

falls. In the touch of foil and fingers

I taste giandojòt, Portmarnock’s beach and the Irish coast.

Harbour ghosts stretch banners, celebratory and immaterial,

ads in the heart of a ferryman.

The ocean stretches.

A thousand Smiths bring forth their saving work

with all the strength of dandelions.

Over moon barren, moon besotted hills

the darkness of Jericho, the darkness of New Canaan

falls the same.

Cold clarifies the brain.

Butter burns in a pan.

She says she has forgotten herself.

For dinner, poulet de Bresse and a storm.

Fictions flit upon the soul and on the ground bats’ false shadows.

The short pulse she expected to go on did not. There is escape, the quiet loss of summer heat.

The orchid in the room has Victorian leaves,

a fracture, oblique, blood peppered blooms.

It is how we stamp the land:

cut and letter pressed, split and spread eagled,

black and white.

The night traces the plane; the earth lopes the map.

Advent falls. Lent Falls.

Fee-fi-fo-fum, I am tethered,

a man with confidence,

both coasts in sight.

Failed Experiments

Darwin never said, “survival of the fittest,” Sagan never said, “billions and billions,” and Marie Antoinette actually said,  “Let them eat brioche.” You taught me this, among other things.


In your absence Lady MacBeth damns me to a spot. As lead virus she rules your kingdom of stray viruses searching for new hosts to highjack. These fawning parasites, whom you bread and buttered, are still asking for more.


In the role of Black Swan, is a revenant, her animated corpse performs a reverence to your disembodied face. As she inserts her tiny frame center stage, we're forced to raise our arms in an awkward salute to her in front of you.


As ugly duckling or Cinderella, I inventory folder after folder, search page after page for your script, my hands so dried by debris I wash them several times a day. In a windowless room I type words I’ve never heard: Intercellular Parisitism, Methanebacillias Omlianski, Luminescents Dinoflagellates.


And suddenly the relief of Borges,


"Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; 
it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; 
it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire,”


burned kingdom after toxic kingdom away.

Triduum

So, since we are divinity school alums, I thought I'd post this liturgical poem. I recited it in chapel this past Wednesday at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. And, you know, since it's Good Friday and all....


I.  The earth groans

In the garden—
amid the grappling
with anguish and silence
—a sound of sounds arising
as if from earth itself
scorning the tumult of the city.
Discern the sounds: mountain
goat bleating her birth—thump
of wild ass and ox—futile beating
of outstretched ostrich wings—
fierce laugh—“Aa-ha!”—
of war-horse—young
eagles sucking blood . . . .
Grief and praise intermingle
here, unworded, in this absence
present in the wind, this garden
of sound. But only he
heard the wild, pleading
synchronicity.

The sleep of the three
was too deep to be
broken by groaning.

II.  The earth receives

Then?  He liked to liken himself
to the wheat seed as he
walked the ripened fields,
plucking the tops of stalks
and popping the kernels
into his mouth. They gave
his breath a starchy sweetness
as he pulled the circle
close to whisper secrets,
mysteries, and signs.
Now?  The two are carrying
his corpse, ruddy flesh
spotted maroon, brown
primordial clay mottled
with drying blood still wet.
The grinding mash
of leathered feet against gravel
mimics memories of the crunch
of kernels between his teeth.

Receive him, O earth, to rest in peace
as you would a grain of wheat
dropped into the ground to die.



III.  The earth rests

The dawn broke silently
and noon is calm.
The day is quiet, exhausted
from labor of death.
The day is sabbath, resting
from work, the making
of things, doing and undoing.
This earth and her people
lie dormant with hearts
emptied by grief.
The dusk will lie like an infant
asleep on a bed of mountains.
Nothing is left to be done.
After all, what is left to do
but sleep when the one who is
life—who was our life—
is dead and buried,
shut up with a seal of stone?—
sleep being to dissolve

into the awaiting rhythms,
the patience of time in place,
the memory of tomorrow.

Requests

Does anyone care if I link this to Facebook? What say thee fellow bards? Also, please suggest any good poems or books you've read recently or are reading.

The New Cupcake

Some days I am a saracen
sipping milk with cinnamon
from a blue glass

growing fat
off English muffins spread with marmalade

singing myself
limp-wristed lullabies
in some courageous Durango
of the dream-drenched movie mind

where victory is
spit shine
and clean sweep
some contemplated
property to flip.

Today poets everywhere
will write tidy odes
to over-the-counter
sleep aides

a failure to account
for the red velvet macaroons
sold in Union Square
under the moniker
**the new cupcake**