Summer-Spring Verse
SOUL
history of a

I. FAULT LINE

The sister to the Lady of the Rocks (though not her double)
became wonder worn among
the shadow people, the whispering walls, the yearning empty spaces
and
the towering angst
of a Babylonian culture and their hubbub and toot
and swindle. From some incomplete topography
though reckonable by sexton
stepped forth a man whose form and impulse
accorded to our sister so perfectly
as to evoke a previous state of grace
and suggest all possible perfections.
The landscape behind the sister
achieved sweet Aquarian light
scintillating bursts, intricacies, fine chiaroscuro depths and
alignments
of far reaching consequences for
together, they did frolic.
They found the primordial lake, the Road River and even
la grande Mer...
(she found the aqueduct much later in a dream)
but at the sea some shift in the sand
at the end of a day
invoked the end of a sequence and the progressions advance,
he, at length, remembered his wife-to-be
while our sister rooted to the spot
reviewed, with invigorated renunciation, his final thoughts,
“...if you know what you want to do,
then you can’t be sad.”

In a later schema
the houses (even the faces)
clustered
around our lady
like rocks
and crevassed places where the air rang
with the narrowing rising song
of a coyote chorus
at night until the skies poured down
and the streets ran rivers, and even warehouse pallets
escaped their moorings and ended on doorsills.
Doors did not stay shut,
objects could not maintain their placement,
things broke without use, food had an unusual property.
Experience itself became uprooted
and hovered around
waiting to light upon things;
and again the landscape thrust forth
a man of unknown dimensions.

II. THE PAID SOLICITOR

more dire than please
more urgent than wish
in happy reply, he camely.
eyes sigh mild with glad,
brown eyes brim then close
hair soft, silk brown blown hair
(arriving between the camel and the mare)

How the ring became a halo
the halo came undone
her unripe fruit
got scattered
amid a hundred shades
wings beating full vibrato, indulgent tremolo
(the suede gone smooth from washing-
it would not buff, but still it did not shine)
she knelt down and pressed her hands together
and wept upon the ground.
the hands they rose unfettered
while the head kept moving on, searching for the chest
and to lie beside the long.
“let go, let go,
let go what will not stay.”
GONE.
The rain pelted down
she lay under heavy quilts
listening with her bones.
When the thunder struck its bolt of fury
she knew he loved her and she knew
she’d never do,
perversely paralyzed
deformed by life’s relay.
(what ran ahead, what fell behind?)
I don’t like what’s bigger and bites
or, the many.
even sly can make me cry
my hands don’t know what’s wrong
GONE
A tiny bird judge looked at me
and blinked his eye
before time, he looked at me.
ALL GONE
Dinosaurs’ delight
it’s a bird echo day
when iron trees creak iron leaves.

III. PERSPECTIVE STUDY
(from study by daVinci for Adoration
of the Magi, Uffizi Gallery, Florence)

Between the camel and the mare
at the crux of their mutual apprehension
that point where vision met.
(time deemed it so) But if the landscape slid...
a lodge pole stood with one dark splotch upon it
where the perspective of the land itself
was denied by one who saw it
(and yet it happened not) - while happening,
two stone stairs stood as ramparts
furious as escalators
but whose recent arrival like tanks across the land
even as ruins
were so tightly knit into the scene
that their reversed reinvention
formed a valley of space, an abyss
and brought with it all the creatures as if through a mirror,
in and of the bulwark of arched and lintelled halls like tiny motors
towered and crouched
and whose pillars or flesh ascended above
a semi-transparent (the only true raiment of civilization) shed roof,
which almost shook but held
aloft the lodge pole where support beams angled up
and a small St. John dreamt
already of desert glory and gestured
but the place of the one
who saw
was long abandoned
and even the shadow receding was gone
for in the next scene
all that went before (or aft)
was far away
or had shaped itself around and fallen
like a flesh waterfall, a vaporizing earthquake
a temperature
a tedium transfixed and washed
by aseitas
who also made the baby.

IV. MELANCHOLY NESTLINGS

All persons are impermanent
the son of a barren woman is a person
the son of a barren woman is impermanent
a barren woman does not ask her son for help
“I am not a barren woman, I’ll not ask my son for help.”
only a barren woman asks her son for help.
No man is an island.
Every man is an island and islands are not discontent.
Where, where are you now my merry missing mate?
and only the Void replied...
nothing is renewed
hope is only hope
despair, despair.
Time is always time.
and the agonizing clutch of memory?
not getting what you want is suffering
not getting what you want is sweet
compared
to getting what you do not want
and Thus the Void replied,
Who IS your God?
….gazed long upon the stratosphere
in a world before chlorophyll
What dawns? What storms? What lightening cracks?
Was pain discovered first?
Is lightening really love?
(how the hydrogen recoiled, throbbed and stuck
began to pulse until the whole sea yearned for
light, warmth, shaped itself and crawled out on
the land..)
My eyes themselves ARE sea
that IS their memory..
then IS IT?
good or not?
green is ever green, and blue?
time is ever Time

V. THE SUN’S DIAL

a lavender shadow extended from the manzanita bush
and from the ribbonwood and the sage
for every bush, a shadow lengthening with the setting sun
but one bush, set in among the rest, had no shadow
no lavender spreading shadow upon the golden earth
my eyes are wrong, the bush is wrong...
(some would mark the bush) but within the twilight
the distant fir forest hung like mist
or a powder panorama of mauve and white.
Thought back upon this memory
“I can’t be sure it happened at all, it was so long ago.”

In a field, a filigree
tangle of grasses, weed and belly flower and
the shadow stalk of a child’s leap
run-run-leap, run-run-leap
she could remember her hands on the piano
how the music
was always there whenever she noticed listening
but the place where the piano went was empty
and the house had only one stair
and the other hand, the big one, that lifted the bell jar
over the workings of the golden Chinese clock
and it all went dark, coo-coo, coo-coo
from the opposite wall
a carved bird emerged
beckoned by an iron pine cone chained
to the mechanicals of the wooden Coo-coo clock.
The placid mother-child in lavender smock heavily
embroidered ‘round the chest and plaited braids of baby hair,
her brother a whir of false-laurel like shooting stars
breaking from his forehead in sleep, in nightmare,
in tented bed of vapor and reread books.
How absorptive is a woman with children in her skirts?
all women are the same below the waist
what measure is a man?
WHY stole the dog.
HOW taught the boy to fight.
Or, beyond the
dusk, the music of the stars.
“I’ll look to the whole this time, not get lost in details,
I’ll never lie, I’ll marry the one behind the door.”
(if the child has a fondness for flowers
the old crone may get her instead)
What color is blue? true-blue? blue blood? blue-blue?
Indigo? Navy? Ultramarine? I’ll never lie.
We step under the earth to redeem the earth but by our act
we’re spoiled. Life is capricious, love is an anchor
Or, love is a sinker...
love is confetti thrown against the wind.

VI. FAUST’S SEX

1st Crone: How shall we convey our food to the Covening Site?
2nd Crone: Why, we’ll get it to convey itself, cackle, cackle, cackle.
We’ll say we’re having a secret steering committee meeting
to improve the Sabbath, and won’t you please be there?
and for your safety, Gladoris won’t be told...but
as our head witch does arrive
we’ll scare our “”morsel” under an overturned canoe.
She’ll think she is hidden ...but
we will all know where she is
and all that shall be hidden is her viewing of our “rituals”, cackle, cackle.
Boil, boil, toil and trouble
the mouse that roared shall be less than rubble
we’ll cut up her spine for a lending table
and condemn or convict any who reveal it
the doors shall be loosed with theater paint
and our dinner table permanently anointed
“I’ll steal her dog,” the first warlock said.
“I’ll turn her into a toad, ”the second replied.
“”Ill double your bid,” a hag cut in, “distorting all mirrors until I’ve caught her inside.”
“I’ll make her my dog and give her some training,”
“I’ll make her my child and give her some beating.”
“Let’s call forth her cat and tournament for her bed.”
“I’d rather her hat.”
“Wait, I’ve got her dog, so I get her cat.”
“You don’t have her dog, quit whimpering,
and those dogs that you keep may well neigh get your cat,
and that pedigreed pair that were strewn by the roadside,
did they turn you your trick? Be quiet now and wait your turn youngster,
and keep your hands still,
even I’m sick of your inauspicious displays.”
“Hush! The matter’s severe, let Mozart preside.”
“Brethren be still, my best familiar, that bad cat Ensor,
he’ll sort through the birds and soul-fleece her for dinner.
I’ll reward him thrice daily with a cup of no-dinner,
I’ve already secured it at a garage sale from her mother..
but each time you see her call her ‘Hamlet-Ophelia’.”
“Your plan is so good, let’s heat the whole village
while sparing our firewood, tee-he!”
Take a bird-curtained mirror and a 4 and 9-ed broomstick,
keep the laundress in stitches, I’ll go for her liver,
we’ll shatter her will with the slaughterhouse trick...
then catch her up cold.
We’ll break off her tail and pour her all out,
she’ll ride tonight at the strike of eleven.
she’s tabled I tell you.
Concluded oath breakers, sorcerers all, we’ll meet in the air over her head,
At precisely eleven, she’s ours or she’s dead.
So paddy-wack, and paddy-wack, 4 and 9-ed broomsticks
6-toed slothery, oath breakers all,
greenwood doesn’t burn unless the fire’s hot ‘n kindled right,
3 and 7 misery, oath-breakers all
Hammer all the windows shut, future tense is perjury
(only for the simple souls). oath-breakers all
we’ll see that our mistress has a stone for a pillow
so Hot Cock-a-lorum, oath-breakers, all.

VII. PROPAGATIONS

AND the vandal struck
the cock crowed
the dog howled and a pestilence spread thru the village
fortunes were spent and fortunes were made
and many moved permanently away
(either with soiled hands or their pockets lined but most often both)
others decided to summer abroad
and there was much coming and going.
At the health food store they said,
“Purification brings out disease,” and sold bee pollen and bottled water,
The waiting room at the doctor’s office was kept in constant rotation
A chessboard stood prominently among the gathering,
The doctor himself was still at home eating lunch or at the post office
collecting the mail or otherwise buffering his punctiliousness
for the season before his daughter (and her friends)
had made off with a rare cambric shawl and an entire wedding
trousseau, which she had apparently distributed among her promoters, leaving the doctor no choice
but to take the aggressive,
which little suited his already constricted style.
NOW the same gathering (plus or minus a few)
reconvened at the apothecary shop
where unfamiliar hippies were inventorying the stock.
(It seems the druggist's son had died suddenly in a Northern province, either of ennui or chagrin
but certainly by his own hand)
and a substitute had to be called in.
THE elementary school sold bawdy plays
which satiated only the crudest and left the finer few aghast
crucified in fact and a well selected group of demented OR abused
third graders stood in askance.
The master of ceremonies, by trade, an electrician,
decreed, “No problem.” And Solomon, the witch, agreed.
The director of Town Hall perished in an automobile
(or was otherwise Voodooed away),
the pornographer who ran the local gazette reemphasized
his ban on 4-lettered words, replacing them, of course,
with more saleable items and secreting them -yes- into the mouths
of children, the editorials became more vicious and ridiculous.
The town elders and the municipal fathers (though few still rented)
had long since thrown up their hands being both fatigued
and infiltrated,
a kind of glassy rot perverted their every intention.
The sheriff rarely ventured into that lawless world,
and when he did it was only to haul away the bodies of the innocent.
The healer’s lost clients, hostages, and most of all unpaid debts
-(ex-beaux) were celebrated in the willful shambles
of a home and garden like gorilla warfare and bad taste.
Down the street in even danker circumstance, dark and filth,
the stunt actress lay on sour bed with Vodka and HBO
day after day, her children rendered identical,
also by alcoholism and forever
sailing down other people’s hills,
suddenly whisked away...
“Came into some money,” somebody said, reiterated, “alot of money...”

At the restaurant the waitress winks to granny
flashes at the new patron, drawls, “Ya’ll want a ‘may-ter...?...
on that burger? ....Tay-ters?” And the match is struck,
tosses the letter from the last match at the cook who refuses it
but gets charged anyway (take your vitamins- Alpha.).
Two blocks away, another waitress, “All our fish his fresh,
sautéed in a variety of French sauces, the wine is Californian,
the cook is a rock star (his friend; a mourner) and we patronize
the arts. May I bring you another toilet to fix?
Or a fix? Honey. And, we own ALL the travel agencies.”
The hairdresser, who read cards and other acts of soothsaying/barter
remarked, “It was a very good season.”

beyond the mechanics with their gas-pump-arias
the whiff of toilet clutched at dawn when the dog howls
the three day flu to off-set the murderous hand of the child
(How many?) and whose mother rewards it?
(30% loss of function, dig out for ten years,)
and poured instantly back into the gutter!
IT IS A SOCIETY OF SICKNESS
where one person's ugliness is prized
for the damage it can cause upon another
(and the butter streaked stains on the fat fraudulent cheeks
of the Christian Scientist who went for 100% -
the chemistry of death by terror?)
and this is the house that Jack built
and this IS the house that Jack built
and the fires rage and the setters of fires rage and the elixir?
Poetry is inadequate, one needs an eon to put things right
and there was no Word and only by the Word such scoundrels.

VIII. SCHOLARSHIP

two professors met at the brow of a hill
one had a case of the father-fall, the other an ingrown quill
“Fancy that behavioralist in the psyche department won
the teacher’s award this year..” the first one ventured to say.
“Delete the English, and before him, the philosophy ‘prof’
was sent off to Vassar to stay, copped a story and sailed, no cover.”
“Faggot?”
“Got the contract too. It’s in all the departments, that and
the quotas….
but the girl? It’s hard to believe they’ve gone public.
She barely made it through Freshman Comp I heard,
and they took it for some reason, she doesn’t know, of course,
probably the only one though...”
“We’ve got a problem with our alumni.”
“Some of them aren’t even alumni.”
“”How are your students?”
“They all smoke dope...oh, I’ve got a few, one in the miasmas,. lying in the bush”
two professors met on the brow of a hill
they talked for a while and then they headed back down.

the world hovers
choice is brief and mostly past when it’s seen:
the problem with this age is speed, speed and expansion.
history is nothing
history is will power of force the end of all history
Do you remember your history?
Can you even remember what you think?
Do you think?
(to forget the self is to sneak up on the self, to have a self,
to lose the self is to become someone else, to become…
someone else.)
Who will cultivate the self and maintain its boundaries?
What is morality? Of the three watches of time,
will you not watch over even one?
WHO ARE YOU? who are you?
Or you hand experts who first became engrossed with the Word
when you found you could say it “counterpoint”;
mechanics, rhetoricians, trainers of bulls
see the opulent leer of
the aging hippy
desiring...
and again driving through the pasture
under the charm of a grotesque beauty
of green and blue and bulls
with frozen upturned necks enchanted
through time-barbed fence
and hypnotized by the passing car?
in the -snap- of a finger
the nightmare ends
but the barb remains like a closed road or
like a simple mender
who no longer can use
her “poxed”
though returned ‘things”.
See the connective tissue of disgust and remorse, sophisticates?
burning down every granary in your quest -spent-
until there were no granaries; “How shall we make bread?” -now-
Fervor for fact and foible: odor, spell, affection left
to historians, their voices sucking at Space.
“We know...nothing matters, life isn’t real,”
and steal away
to buy tickets to Hawaii and other high points
on their list - beauty queens and scholars.
and awards were handed out
sentences, assignments and career placement
and they made “turnip” bread
cake and “turnip” bread.
The one who knew where all the flour had gone
was tortured and blamed until they found
even his brains could be taken out and fiddled with
(on some occasions the birds seem trained...)
except, of course, the one the cats got
that one was real, forgetful
absorbed with purpose...in the Fairey Light
caught in the fricassee of space where the Demons breed
and its half-life likewise -spent
ingested by the bright-eyed Demons of Christ.

IX. VOICE OF THE LOCUST

The wall-eyed locust arrived this year on schedule
climbing out of his dirty husk - bright iridescence
to dry briefly in the first light - its lacy wings
immobile -still
with its short necessity of wakening
then disappeared into the trees,
trees already tall and thick
(why so much green above the head?)
and storms had left so much decay
to dangle there from “Arbes en X”
higher yet cathedral walls with stained-glass leaves
received the insect choir. Below
the house and eaves pockelled with
discarded cells, those too
reminiscent of the seven year sort
the locust of the fire -tempered
by the pungent earth
and gentler-bred that gets enough
with plenty left
comes yearly now to sing
a song that starts where words leave off
illuminating the space you do not see
higher than three upon a hill
a sound of immutability
chiding laughing ranting rife
madder than a hen house sacked at night
but wider broader more distinct
the vibratory quality of space itself
flavorless and cuts
where all lines melt the locust sings
metallic tune lighter than the fairest ore
does not repeat its sonar score
each man stands upon his feet
within this sound all else retreat
whose tiny turquoise bodies are seldom seen
except at birth upon the husk
-jockey style
when blinded by their sooner-selves
ride fiercer broncos than at Guadalupe rodeos
and self-trained steeds of empty skin
which mock
our understandings...
the locusts too have changed.
If I had married you (if you had asked)
such children we’d had have
how easy it’d have been (like falling off a log).
Unbroken sequence
mother - daughter - child
our parents too would have been friends.
I linger still before the door having preserved at least the hope
for a woman alone is a woman indeed
though harder deeds are rarely sought
and no mandrake will fill the room
the room I keep (but not for you)
the gaudy root I keep outside
to mark the wall and to stop the hag
tribute does not duplicate
the end is past, time must breath
even this will not come again
there has never been more
forgiveness is not possible
judgment works only for the dead
how can you recover yourself
secure your flesh, your spirit?
I trust to the largeness of the day
that there will be enough time (just enough)
HAPPY SPHINX
to the discipline of the hours
that all acts contradictory or harmonic
may be given their fit place
(and no more).
CAME BURBLING
I lift the spade, till the earth, tend this garden
I am at home with it (now)
STICK GRIPPED POISED WAIST-HIGH
LIKE A LANDSCAPE MORE DANGEROUS
THAN THOR’S HAMMER SILENCED ALL BELOW.
Not the second wife of the first husband
but the first wife of the first husband only
(and what a monument you cut!)
nor the first wife of the shadow silhouette
or the star gazing other of the first wife
nor even covetous of my sister’s husband
but covetous of my own husband only
for the second wife of the first husband
must also live in the same house and not abroad
where dissolution by delusion thrives,
if only we knew why we ever love
(but what dissolution that might bring)
-and notice just how old I got!
Begin at the beginning always.
In my next life, I want to be myself
(not hero not saint but myself)
and in the one after that, myself again
over and over, myself and myself only
until it actually happens
found or alone
I remain
tending the garden
or even with no landscape behind?
(why, that’s the trick!)
I (or maybe we) have preserved
this small capacity.

X. EPILOGUE

Form is a philosophical possibility
illuminated here and there
by bits of filled-up emptiness and
empty form
like the headlight of a car at night
or a child with a lantern lost in a wood.
In a room my eye
is never quick enough to catch the part
which isn’t filled up yet
no matter where I start or which way I look
it always gets there first
but at night sometimes.. or in a dream
and then one gets to know it. It’s
more a matter of ‘still’
then it appears on filled-up forms
as an overlay.
an uneaten apple still has flavor
and suffers not from lack of savor,
the shell of all perception lays
broken like sand upon the beach
(conch pink at sunset).
It takes a flower to know a flower
without a door, no solicitor.
After heavy labor a cloud of gnats
collide on my sweaty cheek and stick,
at the end of one geometry, another.
Inspiration favors
the prepared mind.
Form is form untampered.

 

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