The Holiday

Flooding the street the voices rose in waves

as the outstretched arms rippled towards and away

from the golden hero, the shining god.

Adrift in the crowd, he came like a ship

sailing through the town on glory

and worshipping hands.

Let the town rejoice.

The day is new.

There is a king to rule

a duty to perform.

How eagerness grows from chaos

for the voice that claims to know

the way things should be

and calls himself king.

Let the fox eat the new grapes.

The fool dance through his belled shoes.

The children run rampant in delight.

The war is over and what he says is true.

Sing and lift the new king high

call out your joy and delight.

He calls himself the sun

and he has brought us light.

Fidgets.

The warm anxiety shoves

its way along my legs

angling roughly against the table

to bounce with excess force

as though to protest its restriction.

Restriction by existence.

It is a problem more common

than not.

The way my breasts thrust

through the future first

broaching the air before

my mouth, my eyes arrive

and as herald therefore

also definition.

Woman.

Existence with restriction

is more the norm

than not.

It makes me anxious

to have the self

by being

be not.

This or that.

Because of this

not that.

I push against the table

as if

shoving

will expel (explode)

these sensations of cessation.

The norm is restriction.

Existence more common than not.

Woman.

By being, be.

Make existence into

the morn.

O Zeus

Let us die then

if we must under lordly law

but give it up lightly

under the light- not darkness.

I can feel the pulse

thrusting against my ring

the tide tugging

the ship of my finger

against its golden anchor.

Keep calm, after all,

we are not adrift

a raft becalmed

but rather let the rift

between life and us

rise slowly like the dawn

and when the soul is full blown

open to the sun

then let us go

and die under lordly law

full of light.

Inscription Upon a Journal

To transcribe the heart as it were

(already done: in steady rhythm

the flush and flux

of aortas as though a sort of

a or b thinking did not

could not exist)

a wasted text.

The act of transcribing is

of course, translation

more moving when it depends

upon the ribs

and their actions as such

(the force and flex

of organic ridges as if rid

of a wave with which to ride

out the storm one must curve

in upon oneself eternal)

when not redundant.

To transcribe the heart as it were

is, of course,

redundant.

Nevertheless, I love you.

Cause and Defects.

I will continue to casually

destroy

these parts of me which can be

destroyed casually.

With cause

or without

but always on a case by us

basis

a sort of basic evaluation

by which value is laid bare by me

and then through process of excavation

destroyed.

Start then with the small pieces

above all else it must be peaceful

in order to maintain causality

in a sense to render those last

moments of despair into an ode

an old poem or fact

of destruction.

After all we are all

quite casually

casualties.

Letting off Steam

We missed the sunset

walking among the streets

not noticing the time or clouds

or other such trivialities.

You were in a fine rage

on destiny and dynasty

tying them up with bloodlines and battlelines

in the triptoungue way you have

and I was walking adrift

in the wake of your street preaching.

Perhaps I should scatter coins

or applaud

but I am entourage not audience

and so I follow, encourage

by silence and such things

until you subside at last.

We sit on the sidewalk in the shadow

until you whistle cheerfully again

and suggest a cup of tea.

The Nylons

There are strips in your stockings

where your skin shows through

startling in its hue.

The moon has crept beneath your eyes

all pearl and silence across your cheeks.

The heather swells delicate in your veins

as they run purple across your wrist.

The willow has woven itself

into your hair that weeps past your waist.

All nature has bent itself to your making

All earth lies sleeping

waiting for your waking.

Yet when you walk, all they wonder

is if you know about the tears in your stockings.

How foolish to judge a nymph by her nylons

like the wind by its weight

or the world by its waiting

or the heart by its loving.

Proper places

To rebuild the earth

to restore the glory of the world

to prophecy that beauty

shall debut again

is beyond me.

Let me announce the quiet

turning of spring to summer.

Let me stand as herald

to the place where cold water

comes up from the earth laughing.

I will be the louder voice,

the longer hymn,

of the already present song.

I will take up the full-hearted pen

the ream of paper

and act as historian and mapmaker

inscribing worlds as they were and are

but ask not of me the future.

Do not question me for truth

in it's deeper patterns.

I may tell you how it appears

but not how truth be

that too is beyond me

to track it in it's essence

and not merely it's effect.

Let me stand as herald and announce the world

but leave the judgement to a better Lord.

Exit wound

When the tide retreats the sand

lies in lonely lines

ridges like arms

that could not contain

the beloved.

When the sun sinks the trees

stretch sunken shadows

fragile like fingers

that have lost their grip

on sanctity.

When the summer fades the water

hardens into harsh hiding

frozen like feet

that cannot follow

the track.

When you leave the room, the world

disintegrates into despair

silenced like my heart

that hates to remember

being alone.

The Game

Kissing the corner of my mouth

weighs me down

tilts the sky

spins the sun haphazard

Galileo's marble on a slope.

I become a lost thing

the treasure in the field

the pearl in the palm

of the child

along with his cat's eye toy.

You force me from the circle

drawn in the sand

by the ruptured silence

of your smile against my skin.

Kiss the corner of my mouth

scoop me up into your hand

Win me the way you would

the marbles on the cement streets

crowing your victory

and I will slip into your pocket

content.

Cape Cod Suicide

The sand seems a strange place

to choose to die.

Strange to think of swimming in

to the shallows

scraping the soft grey skin

feeling the tide strain to pull you back

towards its black-blue embrace.

Pressing on

to the burning light, the heat,

the eternal sun.

The asthmatic gasping

the salty thrashing

and all five hundred pounds of grace

expended along the shoreline.

At night, Brody walks alone

into the sea.

Past him,

the dolphins swim

to strand themselves

upon the sand.

The Garden

Almost too heavy to bear

your white cheek on your white hand

draped like a willow wreath.

There is too much of weeping in the curve

of your neck as though it aches.

The summer sun is cruel to beat so

across your shoulder.

Winter's weight has not yet lifted from you

for all the full season's blooms.

Almost too much to bear

watching you from the doorway

sitting at the iron cross the flowers cannot soften.

But soon you stand

and shaking still reach out to take my hand.

It is almost too much

but summer will come at last.

Creator debt

When you die, he will die too.

They will place you both in a narrow coffin

packed too tight to bear

such cloesness for you two.

In the darkness you go first

and then him so close behind it is

almost not worth the diestinction.

You first- it is only fair

since you came first as well

and bore him along as on a leash

a long wet cord from which he issued

went forth into the world but always returned.

When you die he will die too

and it is hard not to hate you for it

for giving such life as is possible to love him

and the taking him silent in your crowded tomb.

Author mother be kind

and let him die alone

before you claim him set him free

and bury him on his own.