Saturday, January 28, 2012

Estrangement 2 (Acknowledgement, Desire)


There is
an unbearable existence
in words

an incomprehensible
torturous, elusive
poem
in existence

the poem
of anyone

the existence
of anyone.

Estrangement


January

wind, a feral motion

twisting in and

out between the days;

the days, suddenly

strange to themselves,

estrange themselves.

They turn

inward,

long fingers curling,

pale, digging into

their collars

and scarves,

to seek a warmth

not there.


Sunday, January 8, 2012

Miserere


Oh God,

these pathless thoughts

and fruitless dreams encompass me;

be Thou the hope I cannot see.


Oh God,

my twisting lips

and hateful tongue destroy;

somehow, be Thou the word of joy.


Oh God,

my graceless steps

have murdered and entangled all my ways;

be Thou to Thine own Self the voice of praise.


My God, my God,

my soul stripped bare,

I lie unveiled to Thee.

My hope, my joy, my praise,

my prayer: be merciful to me.


Dry Oak Tree


dry oak tree

unlaminated

glistening

curls

a doorway of hesitant circles


low moan followed

clutching spasm

after slowly instantaneous

shattering of limb


her lying still

her turned words

and the darkness

like a sound of horses

growing rising bursting forth

descending out

from limbs and trunk and wind


a rush of wings

threshing of breath

harvest of caught eyes

outcry of blindness


fingers skittering across the stones

braided so deep into

the twist of height


becoming nothing


an arrow

splintering outward

from her break of bended bow


my bleeding temple

streaked across her spattered leaves

stirring against concrete


a new autumnal sound


as I go on

uplifting my destroyed wrist

and clear eyes


In Twirling Arcs of Soundless Light


There are spirits
like white foxes on the lawn,
passing through shadows and
becoming birds
who fall
in twirling arcs of
soundless light,
to land
as plastic bags
pierced through by headlights,
fallen angels or
the guardian stars
of wheel wells.

Withdrawn behind the silhouettes
of oaks and aspens
the moon remains
a coward:
setting--hiding--
waiting
for the light to go away.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Spring Drought Canoe

My yellow utterly incarnate tree bends to the wind,

trailing its leaves, like the wake of a trawler, across the glass

in the wall at the head of my bed.


A sunlit dress with a pale green fringe,

and narrow, deep-red veins,

drifts from a hanger on a rack of clothes

behind your name,

haunting the still air near my memories,

flirting the billowed breeze

beside my hopes.


My rising summer heart

and daybreak eyes

twist

into the fabric lines,

fingering knots

against the sight of naked limbs

reaching out to the wind,

answering the wind:

a dry and ceaseless rustling--

the planks of a canoe scraping against

the riverbed stones

in a spring drought.


My yellow utterly incarnate tree,

unravelling its solemn bough,

splashes its dress across the wall

and spreads a tide of dew before my dreams,

unclothes my dreams with names,

whets the abandoned channel of my thirsting dreams,

disturbs the sleep of the canoe

on the riverbed stones of that distant spring.


Thursday, October 27, 2011

A Wingless Bird



God, I have nothing
to say to you. A beggar
shows the king his palm;

tumbles, a wingless bird
before the swaying pines,
and waits--unmoving, breathless, mute.