lxxxx.

the lanterns swing, wildly
light falls across

the cobbles, shatters against
the wall--you know it

doesn't matter.

they say, with erudition, that the
father, sometimes

consumes the son.

the permafrost leaking, below the
power station, arcing

the pylons: against the dark,
proclaim a new age, promise

to burn the time, arcing,
cackling in the coils

the ground bleeding
beneath them, but they will

die in folios, diagnostics falling
to dark, the diagrams backlit

by a screen somewhere in the
other world, their only epithet,

there's some places, they say with
such erudition where the

son consumes his father, but--
the lanterns swung,

and shattered. the fall--

swirls, soft and chill
between the trees,

flicks leaves across the alley
between the buildings

the lamps flickering, the half
lit haze, and the dark-line

of the stream, the doors spilling
light into the shadow--it

wasn't enough, the hush and
the shuddering possibility,

what's the point in saying anything,
when the people to come

will be just
as they are now? and if they aren't:

just as easily broken, or dissolved

the walls blaze. the sorghum,
the slopes, the frost,

the tide bleeds, crawls up to
the shore burning--it won't

--the wind rushes between
the cliffs, guttering--

be enough.

you had better burn your
ghosts--before they eat you.

lxxxix

somewhere, between the halls where

the powerful walk, and the

streets where they scream for power

scuffed by so many footprints

the truth lies, head bowed, rests

for a moment, and rises—

running--

there’s a world of men who would

make of the world a hallway

to walk down, who would shoot

hallways across the buildings,

through the houses, cut their

avenues from the alleys

build their streets through and from

the lives of others,

so there’s nowhere they cannot tread

the truth flees before them—wild-

eyed, cast itself sideways

if you should meet me in the alley,

and you promise me you are no maker

stoop and help me track its traces,

in the dust and refuse,

if you see a flicker of motion, sideways,

that is the mark of its passing

walk the trail with me, quietly

through the leeside,
we will go slowly together

lxxviii.

the churches of the unwieldy

are scattered across the street

buried in office buildings, along

the gutter thick with leaves,

the parking lot at the edge of the light

the churches of the unwary rise high, or

low, thickly bricked,

with bricks or chatter, sometimes choked

with song—

the churches of the weary are no church

that we have yet seen, are passed

invisible, in pieces, from hand to hand

carried in the eyes, and the brush

of two passing, slowly, in the street

lxxxiii

from hill-top to hill-top
calling,

echoing over the valley,

someday, someone will build
a city,

on the thin waves
of hunger, recognized

recognition, returned,
not yet,

redoubled, someday, the
net of desire, calling

desire--re-oriented and
re-ordered, redoubled will

rise--and reach, as it is
falling to the ears,
of us

below--will build a city of
desire broken upon

answering desire broken,
and redoubled,

and rising, the shuddering
remnants rising, sundered

reaching, such

a city built upon the empty remnants
of desire will sear the sky

irresistible, unanswerable--always
answering, unanswering, too fast

to fall, always falling--fragments
rising to fill the sky, breaking


rising to unbreakable, will
criss-cross to the sky

lxxviii.

in the shadows beneath the ring-road
he says: "we could pray together."

I say no: and I walk on--the people on
the verge watch the old man

twitch, he's foaming blood and spit
from his mouth, and I yell up at them,
garbled:

"Has anyone called the doctor, why don't
you help me?"

"What can we do?"

I kneel on the cobbled towpath, and I tell
him that it's alright, that someone is here
that help is coming

(is it?)

two policemen come, and a pharmacist,
they look over the wall, baffled:

"What is the shortest way down?"

(down the slope, through the dead grass)

"Go right, and come down the stairs."

(come down the slope)

when the younger man comes along, fat
with success, I say:

"You help me. Can you help me?"

"I speak English. I am a Christian."

Then: Christian, loosen his belt, and
check to see if he is taking any medications,

"Is anyone coming?"

"Two police and pharmacist, they are coming
from the right..."

"The shortest way is left..."

(Yes. I know that, when I think about it, but
what can you do?)

"Loosen his belt, ask him if he is taking any medications
we must--raise his head so he doesn't choke...

...he may have broken his neck, he fell down the verge,
there's blood on the edge of wall. Careful."

the people lean over the wall, watching, I say: "Listen:
I'm here, someone is here, help is coming...

...wait, wait just a little, wait and live, wait
and I am here

someone is here, so wait a little, just
a little longer, wait."

he says, "maybe we should pray."

the old man gurgles, chokes,
drools, twitching

"No."

"But, maybe we should pray."

"No. He probably isn't a Christian, don't pray over him
for a god that isn't his, we should just be here.

the wind whisks chill, over the stones.

Let him know that someone's here."

I put my hand next to the old man's, flat on the cobbles, who
knows if he wants to touch me--he might not,

it must be strange, to be stuck herewith me crouching over him

feet pounding on the cobbles, two policemen gasping, a
pharmacist rushing,

(there's no emergency services here, there's whoever you
can get from the shop, from the street)

hands waving, I rise, and start walking,

(I don't want trouble--I don't stay
for questions)

I rise, and start walking, under the overpass,

the young man rushes after me,

"...maybe we should pray?"

"Hope for the best--we've done what we can. Why pray."

"It might make us feel better."

"We've done what we can, why pray now? There's nothing
more to be done, so why pray?"

--the sun hits bright, past the shadows under the bridge, I
don't look back,

I rise onto the street

lxxxvi.

I have met you, and I have met you
over the long-haul of the years

when the shadows grew long across the carpet
the night, swirling, singing through the window

whispered in the darkness, between the beds, the
distance is immeasurable, is small

when the kitchen light burns against the silent, rustling
night, the sage brushing under the street lamps

the meat sizzles in the pan, these words cannot be repeated
the windows are thick, the glow from the television

some other world, the strength of the door, is a thing
we believe in, the hallway, well-lit

the linoleum is old, the ocean coos across the plaza,
I held your hand, I think, after we left the auditorium

somewhere in a dark apartment, with the street rushing
outside--I have met you, and met you,

this sort of talk: it was no lie, I remember, I remember
the books stacked on the desk, the eddying

rush of aspiration: other places, the street corner, under
the light from the windows, the porch with the smoke

rising high, other places: under the eucalyptus and jacaranda,
the benches outside the grocery, the strange gap

in the wall, with forest seeping in, I remember the chatter,
I have met you--I have met you,

other places: I cannot imagine

the world eddies, it breaks--shard-like--this sort
of talk: it isn't for nothing

lxxxv.

or it chases me harries me across the plains

breaks the sky over my head,

washes out the road, drives me to the hallway

to the safe-room in the gas station

(the world flung upon itself, rises

shrieking and blowing--the radio says

that's about right, for this time of year)

drops a year's worth of water on the hallway between rooms,

lightning cracks above the railing--

the endless rolling plains, sheeting rains, clouds cluster

along the peaks, the freeway awash up to the pass

(fifteen minutes behind, the shack fragile among the green

hillsides--the coffee is free, she gives it to me because I was

am a student--the radio buzzes behind the counter, but she

doesn't know, and I don't, if we're outside the path)

the city is dark, and there is not rest, and no place to

stop--running, and my head is buzzing, is burning

is breaking, past the turn-off--I remember, I nearly slept

and did not sleep there--the last time

(the trucks huddle under the neon, resting, waiting, I

see one on the road, and it is shuddering)

no place is safe and there is nothing free or fine

about the road, heat burning--I am burning

(this is detail work, this is minute adjustment as the winds

blow the wheels--slightly--

off course, this is timing the seconds between headlights

in the wash between the lines, this is the wiper hum and the dance

between this stroke and that, this buffet and that one, the wavering

wheels before me, in convoy)

wavering on the grass--

(the clouds rise and hang over the mountains, the wash is wide

to the feet of the hills--the sage flat, the sky cracks--columns of light

falling to the desert below--this is a hundred miles from anywhere,

I open the window

           and the wind shakes my car off course, towards the ditch)

I am falling, not rising--flattened by the heat and the wrongness

--because it is wrong, all of it is wrong--and there is nothing here

to see, nothing that can help

(the ditches, they say, if it comes upon you--get down in the ditches,

it'll lift your car up and bring it down, break you in it--get out and get down

and get down into the ditches, if it comes upon you

the sirens blow--

and I blow through, before them)

the streets are empty and dark, but the lights are bright--I step down from the

seat, you know this is a nice part of town, and break towards the bushes

the cars rush through the parkway below the trees, and gimlet,

in the spreading orange light, I pass slowly up the street

           and the mesas rise, and the pines waver--hold steady against the rough

green peaks, where the mesas meet the pine--they rise green and gold, riddled

with layers--greenery falling through their chasms,

a peach stand at the base of the cliffs

the lakes deep and blue, the slope roofed villages--and the curving mountain road

with slopes rising steep next to it, and the wildflowers--

by the rest stop--narrow, but smooth--and the broken pavement, the trailers

            huddled where one silent freeway meets another, the souls stalking

the asphalt before the desert, who stays here?--oh, all sorts of people--the

people who are walking cross-country, the people who are biking

cross-county, they come here for reunions--I stop as the first range rises, and

give half a chocolate bar to two Irish cyclists, resting

in the view area--the light gilds the rolling ridges, purple, gold and green--lit

from within, maybe, and the valley blazing as the sun sets,

          back that way, there is no way to compass this immensity, it is beyond

me, behind--back that way, there are worlds upon worlds,

the city rises in haze, the morning heavy and hot--and I have nothing, but I

make something to suit, it is frayed and fading

by noon--I will be gone before night falls again