xxxxviii.

did you think you were alone--
weeping pitifully in the lee of some boulder
as the desert sun goes down?

don't you know that every one of us, every one
has been beaten, is bruised
is bleeding, from their long journey
between the sands?

didn't you know that every one of us,
every man, woman and child
has hung upon the boards
thirsting

that every one of us,
every man, woman, child
has been crucified by circumstance

either we mourn together or no one mourns.

the street is a festival of monsters
every word and note is a device
to ease the passage of the crippled

if we walk, we should walk together
and rejoice when anyone of us finds
that what was broken
has grown anew, and strange
--a tail, claw, an elongation of the ears

in the gray, dust and at the coming of night

the songs should swirl

in the wind and eastward

--cease your wailing

your screams are the ancestors
of music, from a torn back
--the suggestion of wings

march, with us the weary,

as the sun fails, you may shamble, stumble

or huddle, but as the stars rise

you must walk

songnet

a scholar in Beijing
the dead branches scratching the window,
blurred smoke and grime, was crushed
under innumerable feet, and spinning tires
and a poet in Los Angeles
fell twisted between
the hills, and the creak of the sage,
into scrap on the verge of the freeway,
bound for the greener coast

an artist in Baltimore,
sunk into the moss, like light
between the spindled trees, was
lost chasing movement in the brush,
to the sweet and rot of summer

--and an engineer in Washington,
busy wrenching some ghostly machinery
into functionality--before it failed
and faded, somewhere along the production line
--but, really, what can persist along
the great highways and the echoing ranges--
who can survive the desert in the winter?
fell into the thick beds of leaves,
and lay with them and the frost.

and a madman, least and last mourned,
whispering and mumbling, the names of each
until they blurred into one name, and then into nothing.

the relics and remnants fell, dry and tired
from his hands,

and the story-teller crouched,
and squinted quizzically at the fragments
as he gathered them up,

"...how many men died

so that you could be with us tonight?"

xxxxvi.

...this was written awhile back.

---

was walking through your ruins
           this morning, thus accused
           how can I answer such accusation?
I am dead, and have been for some
time, now.

the silent place between them--once thought
it was the smoke between the rafters,
pressing against the eaves--
                       has expanded
   it sprawls across the ground

Tess

Now, now I understand
why you left all your things--in the hallway,
and abandoned your car in a stand of pines
to pass through the halls
of accumulated sentiment, to where
the light slants through the trees
in the thin mountain air,
--the rich sent of the sea, weaving
through the branches,
I have set down my memories,
--I expected to see you
outside, because you always
return--when I leave
--but I lean on the doorway
and find I'm staring
at the path you took, clear and
leading through the dry leaves
to the shore and the skyline
above it--we could talk
if I see you again.

I will leave a note for myself
and will not
look for you in this house again.

xxxxv.

in the dark tonight,

I am not the man I should be

but I am thinking of you,

and looking out over the canyon

facing the sea

when the waves rustle,

I hope they whisper a lullabye

across the water

         in your desert city, not so different than mine

but much busier, to you

in your flat, with smoke in the walls,

         and a collection of bottles on the sill, I’m assuming

many different shapes—

--I dreamt we met in Bangkok, possibly

in Singapore, and passed briefly on a rainy street

on a cold day, in front of grey buildings,

and stalls with colorful awnings, it halfway

passed for English summer

and our eyes met, yours hooded by your hair,

and mine shaded by my hat, for a moment

I was surprised and thought, “What an interesting woman—

what is she thinking?” and you thought, “What

an unusual man—where is he going?”

perhaps I saw you again later, by the river

and we walked into the mist along the banks,
with the lights gleaming on the further side

or perhaps we simply exchanged a nod,

recognizing a fellow-traveller in the silent

streets—

--if the palms are kind, they will pass

this note under the crack in your window

xxxxiv.

when the light bleeds away into the ground
--I remember another time, when we wore the dark like a skin
and the ways were all in shadow
the sharp obtrusion, of a broken socket lying in the dirt
pricked my knee, the glass slivered my hands as I ran them
through the tufted grass, and the moon glittered
on the prongs the once held the bulb

--I keep my eyes on the ground, on the pile
of twisted metal, lying near my legs
and kept my sight in my fingers,
rolling the fragmented wires between them
and listened to rustles in the bushes.

--at some point, I sank into myself,
and the moon recognized my ghost
in itself, by some foreign science,
it's light made the ghost of a light
in my hands.

someone once smashed a lamp,
on the pavement--
fleeing, perhaps, or threw it when
they did not need it, and I swing
it before me, when night
crawls up out of the sea, when
it spreads hoary wings over the hills

and science and alchemy,
govern us, in the scattered pieces and luck
lies the mechanism by which
we come hold the day in our hands
to cage the night, in glass and wire
the lights we build,
are the bastard children of the sun
and the glint in our eyes.

WIP

I felt in my chest today

my heart beating beyond my chest

I thought it might rest between your ribs

but I found it had not lodged there

--I hear whispers between my shoulders

the wind whistling in my vertebrae

and I watched,

and bled

it pounding before me 

into the empty air

if you hear the drumbeat in the distance

don't hesitate to stomp

here, I am singing for you, also.

tore itself free--of its bony cage

thrumming in the open air--