spring

who can mourn in the face of such beauty?

the snow has wept itself down into green

and your feet, also weeping

have drawn lines across the softness

and the world has drunk down all waters together

and has quenched itself on all waters together

and watches you now, emerald eyes gleaming

... (xiv).

grieve not for the despair
nor fear slashing yourself on the ice in winter
nor that the blood still wells in springtime

for the world is also bleeding in cardinals
--brother, I wish she had loved you better.

... (xviii).

... really *not* quality--it's been a long week.

---

waste the day

--grind it to ash

smear it across the tile

skid across the seconds

knees bent, and crouching

and whip your head

towards the past

--as it comes bounding

after

be faster than

memory

more cunning

--you must fool yourself

all the spectres

come streaming

howling your name

your own old flesh

flapping behind them

city

this place throws off beauty with a toss of its hand

through all the soft, sweet nights--I am compelled to stand

the trees slice, languid, into the sky

in the leaves, a welter of birds state their names, loudly

and so, I must grip my own name tight to me

and not look where the roads lead across the ruffled land

when the year closes in on itself again

and the wind announces itself, burring

and grinds its teeth on the skin

when the moon turns sharp

and the stars go reeling

I will walk along the edge of winter,

all the way out to the hills

I will hold my skull hard

and walk smooth and steady

--and beyond them

beating my name on my bones

when I come to where

the ferns wave sharply on the ridges

and the rain can't bear to bide

and the lights fill the slopes

with warmer stars

on the edge of the valley

with night prickling on my neck

the reeds rustling in the wind

I will lay down my name

in the grit

I will put down my face

I will cut my tendons free

of the bonds that bound them so tightly

with all the city heedless below me

I will kneel down and be glad

... (xvii)

I must be weeping on my skin
--rolling my eyes in my pocket
I threw them in as I was leaving
--it pays to be prepared.

So I should toss them between the branches
and set them on the table
so I should be careful when doing the laundry
and not run them through the dryer

--I wipe them down
when I remember to clean them
and it's been two weeks, nearly
since I've left them by the napkins.

--but it's hard to hold onto
something so useless.

on two.

--thinking

how I might have lit myself on each

one, an unspoken understanding

the clasped eyes held firm

and a rueful twitch of the lip

for all the confusion in between

and the echo

--the shadow reaching out

for once, not back--

for the sake of holding oneself steady

to allow another's voice

wandering the surfaces--to return itself

--a tight grasp between them.

--and something stronger than tenderness

would be self-control.

and the fire would consume itself

into a glow--ever-brighter

until you lit the sidewalks

and made the world to sky.

and in the other--you'd wander lost

naked, despite your clothes

you'd come stripped bare

and come to yourself out of self-preservation

in the face of the wind whispering--alien

in the needles, and whatever is scuttling

in the brush--

--the chill of the lengthening shadow

--and what would be returned to you

would throw you against the sky.

and teach you anew

the names of your bones

dawn

--let it be: this way

that this morning was familiar

and the bite in the air

familiar

and my lungs full

of the ache, of the deep wound

from when my ribs opened

like a hand, reaching

the sweet bite

the shadows cast

by the ruins within you

now, stretching long

to your nails

if the shade is the only thing

growing

soon--there will be dark enough

to lay in, the night's rest

and the bright morning moon

soon to be ever-awakening

and the trees on fire

with the sunrise

and the first glow

of daylight on the feathers

soon--you will be ever-rising

and the day

will course past

unacknowledged

and you will sunder yourself

from the sun

grave

now that it has been taken from me

to rest beneath the shuddering green

to lay back in the leaves

lean and strong

with the light filtering down on me

--and the coming

lightly,

--a sharp and rippling

freshness

in the dusky still

--from somewhere else

now that I am denied

the final coming

of the familiar ghost

I have not met

and its chill touch on my forehead

and its eyes on my eyes

now that it is far beyond me

now that peace

and honor are buried

deep in the rolling flesh of day

know that I bear

the sunlight on my skin

know that I govern my limbs

purely as an epitaph

... a digression (ii).

Just to note something troubling--

... I was wondering "why?". About the "why" as it were of this particular endeavour (and others like it). Why spend your time on something--which has an undeniably performative aspect--when you are unsure of your reach, unsure of your quality... but under the strong impression that the former, at least, is not expansive?

--poetry being a rather interesting art... because more or less unnecessary. You could go read, of course, but who attends poetry readings?--poets. A highly, highly reflexive field we have here.

Once I had a teacher, and I was talking to him about how one might make a living this way. And his response was--you won't. But if you find something within you that compels you to keep writing, you might as well. (a rather trite, "artistic" response--but he liked his stereotype, eh? "Oh don't use 'professor', it sounds so formal..."--and I called him professor anyway, because it was getting a little too precious... and I like a bit of camp).

The internet is surely rather harshly egalitarian--in that one's success cannot be imposed... can only stem, a little, from one's natural abilities... and, more so, on the mysterious calculus of other peoples' sensibilities. To hell with the internal critic--the greatest challenge must be the rather vicious flightiness of the human attention span. (and since poetry, especially, is aimed at catching the mind in its periphery--it is more clear here than elsewhere).

And so, I suppose, the benefit of the situation is that it keeps you honest. The answer to the question being--because I have something to say. This particular thing to say, in fact. And to be said this way.

Nietzsche writes that creativity should be internally focused, like giving birth. (which is a bit of a... sticky metaphor, isn't it? But it works well enough) A concentration on the making. Which, I think, is the satisfaction of it... possibly the only sound satisfaction. Certainly the only one possible if one wants one's work to ring true. Or, at least, true enough.

pigeon

hair hanging lank

the day settles, and weaves slightly

the lights on the water

wavering across

the film on the window

--your eye is such a window

--the pigeons coast

along the stone, in the blue wash

of the morning, streaming

into the streets

and tautly burning

light of the afternoon.

be in the fountain

and on the steps and wet your feathers

and the light scrabble of feet

in the shadows

nor consider the courtyard, too closely

and disturb

the ungovernable communion

of the sky and the ground

they have no eyes

and only for each other