xxxxix.

Marc Chagall died in 1985

and it makes me happy

to see—

after the blue windows went

up in the cathedral, and the man in his hat

and the woman in the dress floated

past the village,

the grey green hills fade

into the smoke—

by then, the world was

open, once more.

xxxxxviii.

              there is no help

coming, not for you—

not for anyone,

no siren ever sang,

             before someone

had come within

touch—

of the fall

I would fall through the floor,

if I could,

gravity, the bitter handmaiden

of illusion, carry me

through the tile—

I would give all my summers

for one fall, ending in flight.

xxxxxvi.

don’t

            don’t

don’t tell me

            that

don’t tell me

that,

you—don’t tell me

that you—

must it be—that

must we

            become

if we

are to receive

what—

            --if it was promised

must it be that

to receive what

we were promised

must it—

don’t tell me that you must go

go—

xxxxxvii.

Rome crackles as it burns—

I squeeze the colors onto a plastic lid

and spread the mountains of home

onto the side of my bookshelf—

the finance text lies open

on the couch—which is worn

and nonsdescript,

in it’s softness.

on a whim, I halo them

and tell her what I am doing

I worry for the lights across the canyon

and the whisper of the freeway

as the cars rush south
--the frailty of the edges

I confide in a stranger,

and for a moment glimpse

with confidence—
what might have been.

xxxxxvi.

The harmonica whines, and I think,
that everyone is somebody’s dog

as I wait for the storm to come,

I feel the pressure rise

behind my eyes, every man

is a world.

In the corner, they’re talking about,

South Africa, and the piano clunks

through a love song, I thought
I saw a flash in the window,

but they talk in circles, and the

asphalt is empty.

Outside, the boy and the girl

shoot each other with their fingers

the dog jumps, and the ice squeals

in my cup, they stand up smiling,
at the corner of my eyes, and I

smile and hunch over.

The trees trace shadow,

on the clouds, and the singer

strums his guitar, my back aches

and the car that is parking, glows

so bright, in front of me she

sneezes, as the baristas rustle

behind the counter.

At the ending chord, another

song begins, I find myself

thinking--

another old one...

when a boulder breaks
--it shrieks

it's nature is to be
whole--

as the molecules
resign, and loose
their hold

--it knows it can not
be divided, without
dying.

when your fingers
tap that vein
--I creak

xxxxxv.

the roaring watch-fires

on the mountains of my soul

have stilled,

adjunct to silence,
strange to smell

the guttering

of your cook-fire

...

I found an old one while cleaning the hard drive.

---

tonight I fingered the outline
of the gas station at the corner
the hovering palm, and brief curve
of the foothill behind the freeway
like the ribbon of an old medal
from a quiet war
ran my eye along the horizon
bright and sad
--like you do for an old lover, caught
in passing, held my head up
cocked--like I was feeling the breeze
skulking through a window
in a wall that has fallen
clear

xxxxxiii.

Every man is not a world, but a country

bordered and limned in its own way

and if borders are artificial, one should attend

to the piece of nature that posits

the construction of walls, and what waits

for brick to rise in order to grow

In the tariffs, and the agreements

in the negotiations into the night

we come to map the shape of the word

in transfers—I offload most of my deeds

and my misdeeds into the informal sector, but

you will know my love for you

by the commerce between us

--when you find goods of foreign origin

unexpectedly within your borders

a hint of the desert, and the brush of the sea

what I hear when the bushes rattle

and the shape of cliffs rising

above the houses and below the beltway

I am positioned to become

a small trading power, and what I carry

must be of high-value to justify the journey

across the wasteland, but

find the traces of my affection

among the bulk of the marketplace

in some shadowed stall
by the alley, the lanterns will
confuse you
my teeth, reflect the corner of
a false constellation.

xxxxxii.

As things fell, at different rates

               we clattered down slantwise

and scattered,

                a quiet trickle of refugees

                rolling into the corners

it was never announced

                   and never expected,

that we rose downwards

it seems that time has parted like paper

hung on wood, 

it seems that we pass into a

different stage,

              the encampments of the well-intentioned

              and the ambitious,

lining the streets, behind stucco walls

you must carry a sturdy container with you

there is sufficient water,

             

            all of them quietly mourning

for their homes--but the canvas of
expectation, snaps against the poles
and the unmoored edges fly. 

              

xxxxxi.

I heard your name today
--no the other one
in a chord,
in static, the edge of
the air.

xxxxx.

       --and the walls are covered

in paper, and the slash-marks

of a horsehair brush,

black as ravens, stilled

in flight.

I see raven slash the sky

to ribbons

       --over the low hum

of the generator,

and bushes blooming,

gently

resting behind the leaves

black wings folded,

over his chest.

He is unfooled, you should be like him

and mask, a wicked beak

among the curved branches

and buds—