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—

xxxxix.

If you believe the world is your oyster
you will eat oysters every night

--if you do not believe in your knife
then you will spend all night cutting your hands.

The image of--blood and salt, on the ice,
the straw and the paper covering the table--
the fingers slipping, and the hunger
--glancing through the small windows
built for a much smaller set of souls,
or the gracious expanse of glass
--looking out onto the boulevard.

It isn't different, I don't believe
if you can hear the sea echoing
or only the rush of the traffic,
not different if you were born
for lights and alleys, or ridges
and fields.

Some weep against the world
in sweat, and the blunt calluses
are the quiet song hope
embers of rage
gone still--

When the mouth runs dry,
the brush of moving cloth
is surely somebody's song
sung for somebody--every
thing that was made, was
made for love.

the last city

I dreamed a city
          of long and windy alleys
and streets engulfed by shadow
cool still, like a masoleum:
except for the vague rustle
of the offerings.
   
they found stone slabs is Turkey
on a quiet sunlit hill
          with the grass rippling
buried in bones--I think an altar
of asphalt--

I would lay all of my
cities to rest--
               by silent girders
the mirrored haze
rising to the skyline
the reflection of leaves
--in the fetid puddles

      in some unused corner
by the steps, rest
by the trashcan--

eucalyptus

the eucalyptus swings down

and the leaf-tips

nearly touch its shadow

before the wind blows them apart

together

and also, separate

--from the balcony

I see them.

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