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