in August

I should’ve lain down
in the fields, in August
pulled into the turn-off
and left the car, idle
in the bare dirt,
I should’ve stepped into
the weeds
and followed the faint
trail, through the
wildflowers,
crossed the grass
to the dark hedge of trees
at the edge of the field
I should’ve fallen down
under the heat and the haze
I should’ve let the sweet scent
of dusk lull me down
back to the dirt, let the shadow
of the grass fall across my face
and sunk with it, down
into blue,

on the other side of morning
somewhere in Kansas
with the I-70 thundering
toward the hills, into Missouri

I should’ve woken
with dirt in my eyes
and burrowed my shoulders into the earth
to avoid the sun blowing across the plains
and listened to the receding echo
of something throwing itself, head-long
through the night

God bless

God bless
the devil-in-the-design
              through all the lonely ages
the liars
              deceivers, misleaders--prideful and spiteful
boastful--the blind
              God bless
the stumblers--the bumblers--the fumblers
the shamblers--the ramblers
              shuddering, milling in the night
              approaching, encroaching--with groping hands
where that old star hangs low and bright
              groping and grasping--they gasp as they're passing
              crowding the roads down into
Old David's City--such pieces, the sons of man
of the work--who will speak but not understand
              when the angels sing--to crack the night
God bless the fearful--and aid their flight
              streaming past houses--quick in the alleys
to the rooms they've reserved--some broke for the valleys
                  and left the torches and the walls, altogether.
              it starts there. with the sheep grazing idle in the heather
and echoes, out--all along the gutters
              into the corners--near and far
praise the shadow with running footsteps
God bless the darkness--mind the star.

... (xxvii).

the tide of pink

and burning yellow

rolling down the slopes

--did you see it?

the windows glowing

along the crest

of the canyon

--the lights winking

like eyes opening

blinking away

the light--in the clear hour

before the shadows come

or did you sit--in the gnarled

shade of the oaks, the banked

shadow--of the eucalyptus

crack one astringent leaf

between your fingers?

--saw the echos of the day's end

glancing off the papery trunks

flickering at the edge of the branches

in the deeper darkness welling up

from the bunched roots?

why don't we walk

where the sidewalk

turns to shadow, why do

I follow the pavement rising

and falling above the buildings

alone--while you sit in crowded

silence--watching the light fall

through rigid fingers?

Not gracefully...

... and not quietly, neither (pace Mr. Dylan).

---

the lasting hour--this one

we must crouch

as the guns thunder

your chest would shake

--in a silent room

at the tumult

--close your eyes

to the clicking

the hum of voices, be still as

the hills gilded by the light

of the mortars--close your eyes

--to shut the night in

descend, into the dark

fields within you, where the bullets

snap under the stars

--let them talk peace... let 'em talk it

and stand there in the white light

hands raised--and hopeful

close your eyes

and deny them

and give yourself unto the trenches

--you will die at war

salt

Sin-eater eat your sin
--dissolve it
as I lick the salt off your skin
and it burns, bitter
chalky ash of the seas
that have passed through you—your arms
have become the shores
of your desire

this is the only ablution waiting
how long did you walk
--with the asphalt melting below you
to watch the dry hills shimmer
in the heat, grass waving
in the still basin of the sky
--and I am waiting

we—have been washed clean
by our own tides, have tumbled
and spun among the waves rolling

across us—we have hung
atop the rollers—to grasp at
the sky—we
--have become strange and quiet
half-polished, unhallowed—rueful ghosts
with still-breathing bodies
--let me lick the salt from your skin

... (xxvi).

the moon watches from the corner of her eye

the night opens like a door

and the hills stand high

in sharp outline,

behind her sloping gaze

--eyes you, waiting

if you'd walk in these halls, then

you must go forward also

quick--in gleaming outline

in flashes

let us walk

through the shadows falling

off the tile

sprawled across the pavement

leaning, grinning--against the stucco

with the city padding between us

you're a simple soul, eh?

that makes you lucky

--you don't know what you can't do

no dancer--you go running

trade skill for distance

since I'm having trouble denoting "forward"

I'm taking the graceless slapping

of your sneakers--as the echo of the walls

here--to delineate the shape

of the rooms that lie before me

... (xxv).

speak to yourself

in foreign accents--repeat your thoughts

in some other language, mumble

in the words you knew--before you knew words

to the ones who came before you,

leaning out from the shadows, spun round

behind the columns, the doorways

the first one who hid--behind a boulder

from what they could not see

whisper, what they whispered above

clouds of incense, through sheets

of smoke, choking out the shapes

of buildings, and street names

as they watched the fire feeding

--etched the script across

the film clouding their

eyes--sounded the letters

like beacons, in the hanging

fog, to sound the bulk

of the lies, the slope

of the memories

and when the wind

whipped free of the hillsides

it met them in cadence, but

when the air is still--it pays

to bow your head, to mumble

under the shade and shelter

of your eye-lids--it pays

to trace the figures small