Poem

a word assuredly can be beautiful, at least synthetic
circles half-remembered treading faint portents in any view
through ophiocus        

A year of wandering I would park by the statue of steel shoes in the circle by the canal
to burn off the last hours of daylight, having no home I had five radio stations,
each in turns much, much more beautiful than language. Could switch on the small lightbulb
in the clear plastic housing set in the beige fabric ceiling and switch off the engine
let the fans blow in the humid air. in New York one night couldn't even fall asleep to the music
in my headphones, too loud for Paul across the room. Walked to my divider and knocked.
Apologized and he cursed at my politeness.

december
tunnel light lamps down the dark street
ankles pivot feet through the snow
arm in arm

what would you like to say


before I went to the hall for a concert after some screwdrivers
went outside for a cigarette you grabbed and extinguished
under your foot, jumping in the dry cold
the night you left everyone
else was gone and i was in my room
watching the fireworks out of the window
wondering who lit them
and walked down with my bags to the lobby
when it was three in the morning and glowing
with tea candles spread in the wide hall
men and women and girls dressed in dark formals
waltzed to strains         gray and cyan in the clear air
found the bus in the empty lot and rode to the airport

supine straight eyes and mouth
these places --- knows
small doors
a word can assuredly be beautiful

blithe

The dish brims water sliding in itself
forward over the rim onto the carpet
where the sunlight falls and will dry it.
The room is empty but for empty hands,
the fans forcing peace into July,
and the lightening moon

I wish I did not dream of you
leaning on a column, sitting in a chair,
bending over the edge into your own eyes
growing larger, clearer as polished marble.

the night you left everyone
I crouched behind a car and thought
sleeping one hour the night you called me
while I was reading a hard case in Dubliners
and drove out to you on foot unable to weigh down
the cement where the car gate was and gave you a glass of water

what would you like to say

If a spade is a spade
and not the knowledge of age, winter, black hair and eyes,
if you lie on your back eyes to the stars,
it's better to know that the earth is holding you back
not from floating upward,
but from falling into nothing,
bees can point to true north
by treading in horizontal figure eights.
The eight of spades is the fear of leaving a bad situation.

woke up covered in sweat and petroleum oil
no traveler returns, puzzles the will, beauty has better commerce than with honesty
Nothing.

the nights after thanksgiving we laid down on felt and you chewed gum
In your room instead, warm and full of vanilla, dry from the humming furnace
easy static electricity in the room,
mine good with cold from the open window on the rustling woods
but I didn't wash my sheets from the sweat for weeks at a time, (fungus may have formed
used to spray febreeze as if that would clean it)
talked about having what we wanted, pressing, drawing letters on our backs

and sometime in the winter the power went out across the city
found flashlights and each other in the dark halls, climbed the closest roof
from the bowl of mountains we looked up at the stars in the nude sky
exposed from the darkness, sorts of light I haven't since unpeeled

My joy is the same as a nitrogen container on a street corner in the city:
What is it doing there?
You look at it if you happen to hit a red
(which is a green for the other lanes),
wonder about it with as little interest
as anything else provokes on the broad way
and move on. It has nothing to do with you,
The focused point is liquid. happiness is a solid.

The days themselves are empty,
not even worth an amount of meals.
The months are grooves in the record
that move clockwise against an analog needle.
When you dream at night somebody's made something
that doesn't get attention. It's not about it,
but that doesn't mean the tracks are comfortable.
Maybe you know
by looking at the hollow spaces where the next song starts.