A Mélange of Poems

 

The birds     in their conference

             speaking                           in tongues

     speaking praise         to someone

from the shelter

                                     of their aviary

     while the boy

lies dying                           in the mud

                                                             below

such an antiquated scene

         written                               on stone

   with chisels     and pigment

 

olive trees                         are scattered

     across the slope

                                       of the mountain

 

there is the memory of fire

    seen         in the blackened     traces

that always   face south 

and somewhere else

                                               far lower

is a ring   of stones                           where

     a performance   takes place

each day

                       at precisely the same hour

a ring of memory                   locked in place

         until the century

                                           breaks apart. 

 

Pynchon in his prime     wading

through the syrup of his memories     the cracked

and groaning history     carefully placed

 

and pigeonholed     between the wooden

blocks and barriers     that separate the naked

theory from his warm and sticky appetite

 

ungrateful Pynchon     luxuriating like

a father’s child     that knows with such a deep

instinctiveness     that blood overwhelms

 

psychology     and that the craving he

suppressed for far too many years     can

only be extinguished by a quiet failure

 

oh Pynchon     your sweat stained body    

your filthy mind     how both of these cooperate

to flood the world with the quiet light

 

of excess     by the narrative fog

of objectified revenge     by the spreading of roots

and the untapped fruit of your unfolding.

 

Bright light became a limit

a retreat from color     a fading out

as we stumbled past the pit

 

that constantly burned     smoking

and stinking     filled with

the detritus of winter

 

the moon glaring as it slid

along its well-oiled wires

shaping distant strategies

 

our fists of bone in white and blue

each hand unlocking a possible

future     tense and flooded

 

salted metals enclosing us

trapped within the sweetness

that we quietly despised

 

that terrible night when

the moon turned grass to silver

and all was liquid     and dissolute

 

bright lights     seen from underwater

triggering the pivot of an eye

triggering a longing for music

 

that floods from depths of mind

to the ice-coated surface   of

a silent lake          an empty lake.

  

 

There were peacocks among the sculptures     deep within the muddy groves that we stumbled into     peacocks that flaunted in ways that the best art could never do     quietly fitting into its apportioned place within the landscape

 

 

every work that we thrilled for   a compromise between abstraction and placement     seemingly impossible for it to be moved to any other location     its absolute sanctity identified by interactions     by lines that stretched on invisible wires to create a web of knowing   and beauty   across a field     a level that rose above the shape of individuation

 

 

the whole a dialectic     a deferral of conclusion to the philosophy of movement     a world of stone   and wood   and the brilliant feathers of the peacocks     and the two of us     enmeshed within the structures that held us captive.

 

 

More moon     appearing so     continuous

it’s a mouth     it’s a corpse     it illuminates

the sex     we fight so hard to hold at bay

 

so restless     my angel   so desperate

for movement     as I communicate

by touch alone     my tongue still

trapped     as heavy as a granite slab

 

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

 

what happens when this life is ended?

only one of us can be the survivor     one body

dust    the other     decaying organically

within an endless stubbornness     beneath

 

the moon that shines on our obsessions

the moon – a whispering of starlight     swept

clear by such a heavy-wristed sponge

an erasure of all residual egotism     gleaming

 

sickly     and painted by a blood moon

the pain-wracked glimmer of midwinter

we have traveled in time     unrecognized.

 

 

Maybe air     so hot and penetrating

 

maybe the body that fits

     exactly     spine against spine

 

maybe oil that floats on water

     like a second skin  

               never to molt     or shed

 

maybe the neon that floods our darkness

     that ripples across a liquid surface

               fragrant     with gasoline

the underlying perfume     of any city

 

maybe the flashes of fire that threaten

     to overwhelm a star filled sky

               on a night of clarity

 

maybe the interior of a silver maple

     where insects have turned the heartwood

               into dust

 

maybe a plume of smoke     visible

     from all six hills

               that surround this town

 

maybe a dirty window     reflective

     from the buildup

               of the soot of decades

 

maybe the weakness

     of arthritic fingers     failing once again

               to loosen a bolt

 

maybe pens and books and staples

     scattered across a desk

 

maybe the upper lip that you trace

     with your finger     remembering

 

maybe driving the lesser traveled road

 

maybe all of this     or maybe

                             nothing at all.