same

it is forbidden you

the way of the thrushes' trill

the leaves like empurpled blades

rubbed in the spit of the grindstone

the hollow ache of melody

the forest remembers it not

teeth with no centers

nesting in empty veins

alight with fool's gold of eyes

and so she sings it again

bitter tune

of the seedling-coming-forth

the tattered body of the toadstool

bathed in the light of spores

the throat closing

around the water of the song

you cannot hear it,

porcelain girl, and not hearing,

cannot lust. the scrape

of the teacup on the saucer

is yours, the wine of your integral polish

bleeding through the silk;

purity and desire

stippled in your dress; the languid

fall of hair from the purple

of your scarf; silence and light

are yours.

but your eyes, like pale shadows

of the diamond, betray

the song you cannot hear.

your deafness is the taut drumskin

of a heart. your ears bleed

silent, muted blood, etching

notations in you.

plum, primrose, peony,

translucent hands

on the unseen strings of the harp.

privileged to do so,

your mouth echoes with

the damp taste of virtue.

with every chime of dying

vibrato, you breathe

your unknowing breath of song

you give back your silent taste of essence

to the dark moisture of the fire

flaming in the pitch of the earth.

the poetry of things

the red is a jewel

culled from rubies enamelled of rust

torn liquid from the meat of the bone

the red of the albino's

virulent pupil

the amputee's satin rag

now percolating in you

diffusing along induction lines

forking like roots in the skin

the livid health of the poinsettia

the sacre coeur of holly

moves, like expanding heat,

through the chilly lust

the white polyvinyl nude

of your rigid gleaming body

I touch you: there you are,

tactile scent of clean saliva

and tongue, the stony cairn

in which the past has buried the future

your cold arousal burns me,

static image; I feel

the polish and ice of your surface

and the exquisite throb beneath

you are flushed

with the hot red of the virus

the appleskin eating

your cool edifice

naked pearl of flesh

I wipe the frost from your brow

I wipe the fire from your thighs

disease of immunity

consumed by paradox

I make you nothing

explanation

I felt, as of late, the strongest urge to run away from abstraction. One element in this was the chance purchase of a slim volume of poetry called "In What Disappears" by John Brandi. It's made with sheer and gorgeous imagery that is so ghostly it's barely on the page; as close as one gets to a poetry of pure experience. Another perhaps was my recent exposure to the anime Mushi-shi. Yet another was a moment when, driving through Chestnut Ridge state park at sunset, I saw, for an instant, a clearing in the trees and an avenue of perfect illumination. And still another has been my recent perusal of a book called "Era and Mode in English Poetry," which defines styles and eras through the empirically measurable mode, i.e. the relationships of substantives (nouns and adjectives) to prepositions, as well as the degree of abstraction in the terms involved. The poetry of Shakespeare, all skulls and flowers and apples, or of a Neruda, a Pound, or a Whitman, is very much in this vein. She opposes it with the metaphysics of poets like Dunne and the classicist movement which is exemplified by Dryden. There are all sorts of strange and twisting links in this scheme, with Lorca hearkening back to the old balladeers (something which to me is about as counterintuitive as it gets), and it forces one to reevaluate not just the poets that are ideals and influences, but also one's own poetry.

So, the last few days have been atmospheric and colored with strange light. I had almost forgot the pure sensation of Joy, of transport through and beyond the heart of visible things. My poetry had been getting too philosophical; even though I've always been married to symbol, image, and the particular, I had become too obsessed with my search to pin down and identify substance, being, and sensation; or in lieu of that, to render the terms 'being', 'substance', and 'sensation' meaningless. I had been falling over myself; I had been straining a gnat and swallowing a camel.

And so I suspended work on my poems dealing with Alexia and Kadir and my little nascent mythology, and also my sequence of bird poems, which were intended to explore meaning and consciousness while dressed in the mantle of homage to simple pastoral poetry, to Robbie Burns and Emerson and Keats. I stopped my work on these and started writing my previously posted autumn night poems, as well as a few others which have some of the same emotional texture, but which I haven't decided to post. I may not; although the one which conflates Christ imagery with a bloody, dusty sunrise I've taken a particular fancy to.

We'll see. We'll see.

autumn night 3

they are saddling the horses.

drinking spirit from acorn-cups,

they ready themselves to ride.

there are maidens, clothed only

in shadow, hiding behind

the bars of the rushes;

finger-combing sable hair

in starlight and still

autumn water

there are holes in the path

pebbles caught between

shoe and cloven hoof

man goes forth, into the night,

carrying iron and fire

there are lilies and the albino rose

woven bodies of grass

demur and inviolate

waiting to be plucked

from the road-side

the riders press on

the breath of wet nostrils

streams like steam to the sky

catching the light like a net

only as thin as the butterfly

the lightning-bugs and cicadas

choking on the plague that sings

in the drafty hints of the wind

the hush and chill of winter

make their last enchantment

revel in the silver light

dance to the fiddle of spring

refusing to pass away

the horses cut through the night like a prayer

in the sky, the angels and serpents

and stars are crying

as they sharpen silver blades

the two auroras, dragons

of current and spectrum,

tear at one another's numerologies

snapping pale lightning

of many ominous colors

in banks of dismal cloud

by the blurry edge

of the loamy gravel path,

quicksand, asleep and hungering

in anxious fits

beneath uncertain ground,

the hydrangeas are dying

into constellations

the war of the heavenly host

but the moon has nary a ripple

in her feathery light

the riders call, golden song

warming their hearts

like the molten gold of the liquor

with the thud of hooves

like muted bells

ride on, ride on,

as long as you've beasts to ride upon.

autumn night 2

her laughter stills my ears

from ringing, glass bell

brass plate

the timid flutter

of a flute sustained

on a child's undertone

laugh at the webs

in the knobby fingers of the oak

laugh at death

working silent in the womb

laugh at the eyes

which look, like hooded men, waxy

hands on waxy cheeks,

from silvered pools, thin and tinged

with sulphur, in the forests

of the witches' night

laugh at me, comet-trail,

shade of dust, coronal ice,

the mark of worlds' passing-

whither and whence

are black; devoid of answer

the substance moveth on

laugh at the wind

which mutes the cry

of the spirits' fiery tears

laugh at the sea

which aches with a monster's lust

to have the shore in its belly

yes, laugh

laugh at the stars

you soothe yourself with

in hopes of becoming light

laugh at the earth

who looks at you

rumbling with arousal

laugh, and feed me

the whey and oats of your laughter

here, in your breast, in your body,

our ears have fallen silent

and there's nothing in our eyes

but the bright arc of your laughter

O night.

autumn night 1

the longest shades of the evening

wither along their length

night falls out of the violets

and the ground rises up, lamenting,

"tender flesh, deep blush

of shadow, secreted in the rose,

rolling in the violet,

you have drawn my heart away!

you have led my heart away!"

breathing the rich

breath of the mist

the whisper of wind

wandering lost in the gloom

the earth exhales

and sings with its voice

of silt and stone

the hollow pulse

of an infinite drum

the hollow bone

of men

dragged away

muffled and still

by the night, her scents and her devils,

the song of breath

given living to clay

is cut loose from her weeping

lost in the melodies of violets

lost in the mouth of the rose

in the mottled eyes of shadows

she sings herself to silence

New stuff

Hey all. Been neglecting this page a little bit over the past week due to my new job. It's high time I posted some of the words I've been hammering out over the past few days.

* * *

She discusses herself with her tongue

cold bone

glittering, dowsing

in the water of the dawn

heavy tongue

iron rod

sheathed with a weighty slur of iron

a bludgeon like a stave

on which speech is mutely noted

operatic sighs and screamings

unladen with the burden of import

unsaddled with the intention of mind

shadow lies

in the hiddenness of tongue

Elefaiya elekron tovayo

dszerus

Alexia unbows the ribbon

whispers obscuring the song

the commerce of meaning

effacing the tongue

No sound, my love, no sound

no high lament of poem

no weeping for your tears

hung silent from the thorns

of the lily wreath, the lilac wreath

your ecstasies of union

your child of song

and gibbering speech

formed from a mistress

and not a bride

deserts you.

for the forest, for the circus

the spittle of the champing teeth

the oily slide of things

in their union

and he is not alone

as you, as you

were not alone

alone alone alone

Destiny, with a majestic leer,

ravished and disgraced you.

Two new avian poems

robin,

you wear your beating heart

flowering from your chest

with your beak

you pick at the stitches

****

he who was born

from the weavings of nests

is happy.

the finch climbs out of itself

the thighs of the rookery

the plumage made as

birth is a making

and he sings his shrill song

unmetered by the fetters of pain

the terror of being

escaping from the craftings of beaks

of nests, of eggs

singing

"I am both the fruit and the orchard

both the crop and the plow

I am the feathers with which I'm feathered

I am the broken shell

I remember snow

like white fire in my eyes

like diamonds

the water of my people's tears

belatedly freezing

were the sparkles of the furnace

the stigmata of light

But I,

Finch and none other,

sing not of the past.

there is no journey

before the unbidden snow."

nature poem? maybe?

plump and full of itself

master of its own circular tracings

the hummingbird sings-

"I have left the light

of industry's door

for industry

in the light of the garden.

I have left the hot, spacious

air of the golden cradle

for the garden:

cradle of clay

of earth

I have left my beloved

whose swayings are the blur

of procreation, whose words

are the lovely poems of insects'

sweet voices, for the voice of the garden

flowers divulging secrets of milk, of gold

I have left you

early morning, spider silk and dew

I have left you
pneumatic heart of troubled sleep

I have left you

pantheon of birdlike spirits

mirrors hiding

in the valleys of the pond

in the heat of the air

I have left you

for the bewildering voice of the soil

for the colorful song of the shadows

for the many overflowing breasts

of the garden."