In the World's Night

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I
I forget and then
remember rolling downhill
when the Sun was gone
II
We Stand Upon the Earth

Unsteady as
a hand crossing
the page, scratched
inkdark as evening turns
bluer still to swallow all
branching distinction
III

In the world’s night
a leaf unfurls toward me,
rough on the branch,
painted red, unstill, still
we know this night implies
the Sun, red, unstill
In the world’s night
we can only dance
around the matter & not
stand directly on it,
neither make it stand
alone before us, unconcealed
IV
Fountain
Amputate the question
Silence remains as an answer, yet
horrified we weakly turn
away from timeless porcelain
Clear waters flow & still
other waters flow across
feet and rivers, coinless,
your tongue has been
played with as you slept
dreaming of the untrained
hound of the last royal
family behind green wood
gate at interstice of gardens
Not “sit” not “stay” but “down”
All that remains to be
said is “down” “down” “down”
& downward further still
to the bare alabaster
basin of my cracked skull
V
Lung
Oven
Somewhere we are
mis-taken
(Have I finally become
 free from words? Yet not
 free from the need
 to ex-plain myself)
VI
Surrounded, we cannot turn
away without again turning
towards the gathered-before
VII
Harvest-up trees for the lightened
clearing into which we step and turn
towards the absent, now present
behind us as always, the clearing
that we have produced. It was already
there, and we went towards it
VIII
Walk now long with me
my shadow, I do so love
your proof that I am not
only glass, only crystal,
easily mistaken for that
which is not there
IX
Black eagle fly
upwards to free
sublunar world
from the vised
grips of veined
hands around
throats of pale
boys gasping for
your clean air,
black eagle! Fly
sweet & empty
realm below
the Sun above
dry land let go
to seed, to rot,
only growing
pensions, rents
dust, prostituted
futures, silicon
webs upon
dry, cracking
land between
oceans, walls
where history
must wait as if
before the Law
X
Sick you rave, imagining they breathe
with one-another, no man alone could hope
to achieve resumption of what ended by giving
birth to violets, thank you for this glittering
image of the next great reversal, blessing
you in advance of a fire made only for you
only by you, my oldest, coldest friend
The tearwashed hands of all ruin all
kindling we had saved for this purpose:
escalation of the festive offering, burnt,
smoke traveling upwards in a spiral
XI
Do you think me demon-
possessed, with laughter
upon seeing the face
of death, without solemnity,
rather gay? The water is
preparing to boil, for the strong
coffee rousing us from
slumber of atoms,
slumber of burnt offering
All that sand is being
blinked away, it falls into your cup
When all is poured, said, done
can you even taste it? Can you
remember what you dreamed?
The world impresses itself
upon you, waking to it, now breathe
deep the black shards
XII
Chemical agitation, then to sleep
Amongst all this chinoiserie, the examiner has
died in his sleep, without the hammer-
strike on tarnished bells, inheritance to his issue
Hammer-strike come down upon you,
tarnished bell, wake the dead-end
street abutted by the train-tracks
XIII
My neighbor has fallen
down a common flight
of stairs to the door
already cracked with longing
anticipation of an impact
that never arrives. Where
did she go, led by the dog?
Beyond, man. Beyond.
XIV
Tearsurf, glassvale
Water has been
Chilling all day
In a crystal, libation bears itself
Forward to the grim festivity
Head weighs
Sleeping down
On the thumb
Pressure of dreams
Penetrating
Gaps between
Teeth, dinner
Your shoulder &
Your sleeping head
The ocean
Peers
Out to me
Can I speak
Already said words to
You of broken hearts
Tears along shoulder
Tears along highway
Tears along social course
Of night of flock of chickens
& you were happiest playing
With the muscled dog
Beneath white cotton I will
Be alone forever
XV
Let me leave you
Be, in the other
Room for some
Time, leather-wrapped as witness
Speaks of argument,
Execution, whatever
Thoughts follow
XVI
Presented with the absolute
Recognizing me, I
Can only weep in
Your stomach, pray for
Sanction from all
Hoofed wisdoms
That will never
Leave me!
Forgive me!
I should have taken better
Care, sincerely
XVII
Bathed in yellow
Light and teeth
Disappear never to be
Found in the mirror.
Chlorine and memory fades
In an instant, leading
Me to hold nothing
Too close, ways the family
Has wronged you, but I am
Free to remember nothing
But love, distance, locked
Doors to the particular rooms
Where hot water runs, steam would
Condense over the looking
Glass effacing any blemish which
Is still surely there.
To me, I look pretty.
XVIII
From Lying Down
The metronome elicits
Fears of invasion.
Softly the machine
Cries or sings
& I would dance if
I could get up
Off the unforgiving floor.
Shiny, cold,
Hard is the wood.
The Sun falls low and I see it
Disappear through west-faced
Windows, as trees become one
With the wall, furniture, slivers of
Sky outside. First gray panoply
& then singular black.
Just another night in a mind
Palace where I am already
Dead.
Now sleep, and wake, and leave.
Static of the gainful
Employment fills
Up my cavernous skull, and leaves
No room for the sweet pastoral
Treasures I feel to be mine by
Birthright:
One tart black berry
Mixed with the clotted
Milk of distant cattle, expand
My stomach, emptied as I lay
Upon the hardwood floor, still
Watching yesterday’s descending
Sun, now fully gone and returned.
Could this be the same world?
The same folded towel?
The same tree through the same window?
I think not.
XIX
Doctor, how can it be
Without guilt such beauty
For the glassed-over
Eyes, your eyes, soft
Physician, do you hear
Now the call to heal
Yourself, under glass
There is something
Stuck in your eye, yet
I forgive you, for all
You wrote sticks between
My teeth like bread,
Oil, nothing more
For dinner is necessary.
Fetch my lozenge, boy,
My chest has grown
Tight, pained by a crumb
Lodged within my lung.
XX
O, suffering manifold we
crawl across your face, eyes
wet with tears, as appropriate
to horizons of total extinction.
All necks bend perpendicular
becoming parallel with ground
beneath our feet, we travel over
towards completely nothing-at-all
having forgotten the Sun only
to replace it with various forms
of newspaper, now lacking pulp,
sad hum of the massive battery
distributed in a web all across
you, O suffering manifold, we
have only amplified our heritage
and forgot the best thing in life:
Never to be born, oh, you know
the rest, I mean, you don’t know
rest, but if you could attend to all
things said before and abandon all
pretense, rather treat the pretense
as what it pretends to, say, a death
being a death and not necessarily
something to mine for [a word
I refuse to speak, especially here,
in a poem]. I’m busy reenchanting
the world, or if you prefer, clearing
away the haze of lies around us.
Hubris of material! Monstrous
self-regard of the answers given
for questions yet to be ventured,
yet to be risked at all! Go now, go
away from this place, leave me
to discern myself for myself. I
desire to walk ten miles all alone,
across the world looking upward.
XXI
Flutehollow
Bone remains of
Once-flown
Seabird, the boreal
Wind passes over & through
Calcite strings yielding
Violintones, purple music.
Martyrs dance, they were
Only asleep as all we see.
Dream of bees.
Dream of mothers.
Seabird, you never
Rest upon living water.
XXII
Bridgeport
To risk a venture for
chairs in imitation
lambskin, glistening steel
legs upturned within
my trunk that catch
the setting Sun to yield
illusions of passing
cars, I cannot see out
the wide window
that follows us, moving
at high speeds to fly
ashen fields, Connect-
icut, good bye! Early
roads empty but for red
leaves, or searing yellow,
falling in flocks as birds
fly above, here mountains,
here industrial smoke,
waste of a waste, here
November snow, here too
an eye turned deeply in,
here too a memory too
mighty to abandon, reveal
you as the caring one, summer
you as true believer in iron
age when no one cares no more,
all pretense is shown to be
itself only, that is, pretense for
hungry games of status lacking
written rules, there you thought
you were engaged in this
activity for its own sake,
its own self-sufficient
truth, but that is art,
my dear, and we must
cope among fat-fingered
philistines perverts! Fondling
squandered inheritances, yet
every once in a while,
victory is found at auction
houses housing the untold
riches of Roman leisure,
naive imperial art, old fabric
ladies stuffed & hanging
out false wooden windows
where no light passes.
Let us take our joys in stone,
bury them, and their saying
waits for the hearkening
time that has not come.
Meanwhile, we both become
hungry ourselves, so it is good
to stop, to eat perchance to drive
home as the Sun sets behind us,
reflecting on the purchased chairs.
XXIII
& where does the initiation begin
Cries for help emerging from
glass, brass and stainless steel.
The inner life presents it
self in disclosures of steam.
What unfolded before
eyes of the sensitive
Doctor studying a rose to see
truth—without us there would be none,
would be nothing, no things, no
witness to the overwhelming sway.
We are gathered here today
out of respect for a mystery
to accomplish violent acts,
disturb the earth and only then
inter a seed that holds its end.
The future is with us,
ecstatically, give thanks.
XXIV
Strife
holding
sway
over
place
of birth
of raising
of originary
leaving
Where am I now?
Nobody answers
Nobody can
answer
such question-
able questions
“AWAY WITH YOU”
The ink tonguebright
The sign corrugate
Memory carries that
object to this day
XXV
Drier sings the blues, so
well, or at least it plays
a syncopated beat from
the other room. Flowers
hanging in the window
crystallize with passing
Sun, passing time, etc.
They are beautiful, yet
in a different way, but,
already cut from earth,
there is no real change.
Dead thing is dead, still
as it dessicates it may
yet become an object of
desire, or perforce come
to be an object of scorn.
It was quite a ceremony,
rain held off, tears were
shed all around, I slipped
and fell onto the floor,
my head split clean open
and I was at peace. Now,
a gift has not been given,
and I cannot determine
what is appropriate, what
amount, what sum, what
does it even matter? Yes,
what are you, crazy? Yes,
quite, I have lost myself
behind a mask or series
of masks thereof, totally
lost and this procession
of loss reveals that truly,
there was perhaps nothing
there to begin with, only
an accretion of sensations
that briefly took a name,
first and last, with attendant
family ties and many other
relations, bonds and claims,
wet hands trying to take hold
upon an eddy in a river, now
gone with the flux of it all.
XXVI
Sway of Nature
With vertigo, collapsing
only to fall and find
myself standing against
the emergent overwhelming
XXVII
Lay your head down on straw or better
yet fresh grass, outstretched to meet you
& tell me, what need is there to carry on?