Revelation Again

I am not of a mind
to be freed of the dream;
and to wander down the streets
headless.

Who would recognize me
if my face had been secreted
and my voice had been taken
to some echoing canyon?

Oh, we have been walking too long
without visages
or kind eyes.
I could not keep my voice
if it did not have songs.
I could not keep my eyes
without light.

You are drunk they say!
Ah, yes, taken with delusion
and delighting in it.

You are mad they say!
Ah, mad with that swooping sense
of recognition of reality;
its tiniest parts
its most obscure details.

Solomon thought it
as he stared at the temple walls.
How the soft arms of Bathsheba awaited
and all those wives sang
of yearnings
and smiled.

Aristotle Versus Plato

With a mouth full of cock she thought
how St. John wrestled with the horsemen at Patmos
how there is no civilization in the lion plain;
only life
and how Michelangelo quickly realized
that the Sistine Chapel was a mistake
that the dawn is always enough
and the voice of the rooster
can be heard anywhere.

And back before the universe was a dot
after there was a great rush of fire
and methane
and meteors dropped like dead sparrows
to the barren earth,
in some slime-gifted pool
jelly crawled from the guts of the sea
to bring the first taste of salt
to the land.

Buses are the best poems
As they slide along
Spurning the pavement.
They are not of place but are the things
In between.

They do not think of being buses,
Dwell on their busness, thinking,
.
“I need a taller roof and
better glass” or mourn
“I am trapped by the dirt
Of the road.

No. They are buses.
They are proud.

In the Younger Days

Come into my heart
with ravenous delight
and there find butterflies
gathered by the mid-afternoon pools.


They rise with cymbals
and sweep towards the sun
on the last thoughts of the storm
as it heads into the nothingness
of bright days.

Let time be an orphan
and duty an unfed beggar.
They howl and are unanswered
While the young of all ages
Go about the business
Of astoundment.

Do not pause:
it is against the rules.

Summer

Alive in summer’s yellow glaze
There is no time
It sulks in the corner
While all around are swings
And fast feet.

Drunken tomorrow wanders longingly
Around the house
The bones of yesterday are white
On the beaches.

We have been here too long
the elephants sing.
What do they know?
Trunk-tied and tusk-bound.

It is the dawn of the last minute
And midday of the first.
While the next comes careening
Around and around
Lost in sweet dizziness
And reverberating are the shouts
Delight is everywhere.

Continental Rift

Always the sea tumultuous
How could it otherwise be
Over the things we can’t see, hear or touch,
Where the light does not venture
In the land where sulfur rules
Where the news comes floating down
Bits of the world
To things that do not know a tree.

If it grows cold,
There’s another smoky eruption
And colorless things rise on the flume
But not too far
For the bubble crushes down
Black with a shining tongue

And things scamper away
From the sense they do not know.
So it always is in the darkness.

Feathers of the First Kind

Some things are better hummed not said,
among them,
the birds, who do not know better.
How could they, beak-filled and feather proud?
Which was not all they could be.

They could be, it was thought,
dreamier, filled with silver water,
all ready to pour
and cooling down from the red hot river,
or they might be, it was denied,
a midsummer's forgetfulness.

How it was whispered through the forest
was not known.
But things rise at dawn
and are not seen again,
only their tufts falling down,
and falling to falling
and falling again.

And in their falling
they were all facelessness,
and not-ness and thing-ness
of the earth.
They were slivers that scented rocks,
which drooled into the streams,
until the roar commanded all who were nearby.

Gone and back;
gone and back;
All who were forgotten
are now thought.
All were unlost
Are now unfound.
Semiridae. Semiradea.
We will not forget.

Thoughts of the Megalith

I sing of things eternal;
glad dances all around
the voice of the ancient Saxon
as he contemplated Stonehenge’s rocky testimony;
how it bloomed from the ground
with an explosion of gritty pollen
and strange insects flew from granite pistol
to basalt stamen.

And it sang:
“Go forth.
Multiply thought;
Fertilize invention.”

It is the same
When we lie counting the distance
between the stars;
And grab the Milky Way by the handle
And swing it around with delight
Until it cannot but glow brighter
Liquidous
With splendicity
Filled with ever-lusting life.

Leonard

The dead pigeons flock
on the morning the poet died
How did he stay in the street
Dead!

Of course, not not-dead,
that would not do
would not yield to a bearded leer
and an upturned couch
in Lincoln's face.

With dead magazines
and newspapers
how best to start the day?
With the Danube flowing by
so not blue.

It is that voice
that bird,
all crazy
all filled with oranges
trotting back and forth twirping
"Walk on water
Walk on water.
It is a soft path.
There you will find truth"

Secondary Treatment

I saw you by the light through the shades
Of the sewer plant window.
What strange reverie brought your there
I did not know;
But your eyes were hot moons
Burning through the odor.

There was music,
Tchaikovsky?
Or a garbage can lid?
And there were druids—
There had to be druids, trees you know.

And I could not
Would not
Should not
Understand,
For on such nights
All mysteries are welcomed.

What the Third Pig Said

In the end, the wolf tired of the game,
sore feet and hacking cough.
He had knocked down straw and twigs
And yet it went on.

Why him?
Where was his glory?
Ugh, Grandma and big eyes and
All those other hurtful tales.
What stories told of his kind and its triumphs?

What if he stopped playing?
What would they do then?
Wait for a knock at the door
That never came?

No, his was a proud race
They told stories of Gnarled Foot
and White Streak ....
Those were wolves!

And the pack!
How they roared through the valley
Taking only the best lambs.
They were not scrawny pretenders from the mountains
Who could not hunt.

No, he would not do it.
Not again
Not this time.

Snow

Snow comes like a secret.
It whispers to the birds
that the berries are covered;
their soft, red hearts dripping ice
It tells the fox
the hare is not fleet-footed.

Blue stars shine.
The moon's glow is an afterthought.
The shadows are many and deep;
padded feet creep through the briers.

It is winter.
The snow is deep.
Foxes are clever.

How Alice Made It Through the Looking Glass and Back

Come inside, the shining said
And we will have thoughts and thought and thoughts
And then we will think no more

We will be pirates of flesh,
sailors beyond mind.
inside the old, antiphonal chant
“Now, more”
In and out

In touch with earth
And a part of “yes”

Primal Scream

When you jump on a contrampoline …
Well, … you know.
One good bounce and your head hits the sky
And then you land duckside down
And roll on the ground laughing like a moaniac.

I saw you that time:
Your face afire,
So bright that you couldn’t put it out with a ladder
And then we laughed until a year was forgotten

And here we are again
Ready to bounce
Ready to roar
Ready to burn.

Revelations

To know the mind is a wonderful thing;

Not to know it,

Better yet,

As we slide down slick hot nights

past the supping of fireflies, periwinkles and frog dust.

Oh, ravenous joy

that has devoured the arc of sky

on this note we are risen

on this night we are born.

As the vapor seeps from the fields,

the hills are in our bones

and we are delivered with cricket voices.

"Pay attention, I asked you a question!"
"No, you asked me a song."

Rocks

Watch for rocks.
They sneak up on you on the highway,
when you least expect it
They hide behind other rocks
and when you are not looking,
Fall into the road.

They have been there always
in their rockness.
They know the earth and its secrets.
They know where you have been
And where you are going.

They are patient;
waiting for you.

Never Own a Willow Tree

Never own a willow tree;
in winter, the branches fall
gremlin-tossed
and cling to the grass
in spite of rake and muscle.

But in spring,
the tiny green leaves leap forward
to feel the lengthening sun
and in the fall,
they linger like old friends,
who refuse to leave you
alone in the night.

And you can climb low-lying branches
wrap your arms around the trunk and squeeze,
all kinds of games to play,
and if you own a dog …

Never own a willow tree,
in winter, the leaves fall,
one by one
love me, love me not
and you can wrap your arms
around the cold bark.

It will not respond
love me, love me not;
you can scamper among the limbs,
spying the land for love
and to the horizon stretches
the bare trees and blank snow.

But, in spring,
the willows reach to eternity
and from the highest branch
you can see geese
flocking north
in tight formation.

And if you look deep to your heart,
you can see her coming,

love me, love me not,

You can see her coming,

love me, love me not.

You can see her coming.

love me, love me not.

You can see her coming.

Pantheon

Which of the following is not a god:

Allah

Shiva

Jehovah

A can of chicken soup?

The answer: all of the above.

We have all see the sign:

“The deity is not in

Try again tomorrow."

So what remains?

Only the great questions

Why a duck?
Paper or plastic?

How are we to act?
Think mythically, live really

Take the earth apart,

and put it together back again

Connect continent A

With sea B

Examine what is left over
And learn the meaning of a smile.

Columbus

And we were all Americans in 1492,

Americans, unborn, unburied.

We were breezes

pushing the ships on.

We were the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria

and shipwrecks and vacant maps;

blank faces of the navigators;

faith in a faithless wave.

Land Ho!

The queens and kings lay down their tired old world wars

for wars of American blood.

We were waiting.

Unborn. Unburied.

Filling Station

"Check your karma?

Rotate your circle of life?"

“No, my mother warned me against extended metaphors

One minute, they are picking daisies

The next, they are in a distant universe

Where the strings vibrate in reverse.”

“A wise woman.”

“Yes, she taught me to tell my left soul

from my right soul;

what to wear to a crucifixion or an enlightenment,

how to act when the Messiah comes.”

“Some say he is here already.”

“I know. I saw him one day.

I called his name: he downed a beer

And slid out the back door.”
“Messiahs are like that,

Never one around when you need them.”

“And there is this yearning for earth.”

“The earth yearns too.”

“Yes, always.”

Priscilla's Daughter

Not many voices are nearer

Priscilla's daughter.

Not many are so young in the morning

alive with quiet eyes

and hands that clench and unclench.

Your voice is clear,

like morning air;

and your purple blouse

is like lilacs.

Your breath carries honey scents

that drive the bees mad and

send the birds

singing into the dew.

Priscilla's daughter,

young with voices,

which soar like the butterflies,

that sat through the night, dew-drenched, and heavy,

then dry in the morning sun

and rise exuberantly.

You are among the brightest

as you lift your voice

to the sky.