POEM

her bed is a pulsing sword radiating the whirling symbol i grasp

the body's mouth

 

the whistling 

of water   

in the act of drowning 

 

CAVE

cracked basin holds but seeing

my other throat

POET

burning cloud

who wades

through the earth

bearing the lambent

music-torture

of the first name

you endure

infernal seizures of breath

the kiss the eye of the night

with your eye

 

CURATIVE BATHS
Three water-poems

IN-YOU-DROWN

Luminous crystal, his bleeding mouth whispers you to me. Pestilential snows and ice-eaten villages, a night filled with cold star-elegies: O baptism, O wings. The stone-caress of the infinite ocean.

YOUR AMBIENCE

and its arms

and coiled eyes:

I have become this apparition,

I am your question and your question.

POEM

Faint echo;

patterned reptile, umbrella

scrying 

watercress

His body goes;

steam through the mouth of the supplicant.

Hissing pythons and sweat fall among citrus;

music-odor of hemlock. 

 

GNOMES AND APOTHEGMS

Tranquility can be reached only through delirium, just as the Yes can be spoken only as a No.

§

By some accident of the universe, a long-established and widely-spread myth has taken place, step by step in the world of historical fact. As such, it is rendered utterly impotent and thrown readily into the cosmic trash bin.

§

Mankind is a plague, one whose purpose is not to infect but to be itself made sick by Cure.

§

The pike being driven into the back of my head is Solitude; the one for which I reach in front of me (and which, unbeknownst to me, is identical to the first) is Companionship.

§

I believe I possess a great will, one that can be expressed only through inertia and hibernation.

§

... the mystic, ever the kleptomaniac, sneaks in through the back door.

GATHER

'gainst knowledge

                                        all out

                                                            rages; knowing

atop thy head— a welt

                stained              glass

                               bruise

strug’ling to flicker

dull eyes                  stilldimming;

approaches the cross

                        the               into ground libation

                               sighing

ORACLE

Their faces concrete. Lingering sheeps of crimson of black song.

An arbor one’s limb weakly extends through, smoldering voice earth.

A face dalmatian spattered. Around a corner peering eyes

Terribly.

“Which way?” he asks.

To the arbor. Of darksome fear so died

The gold in grey cloud.

By some invisible hand steam wafts between the two.

Knotted earth, savior plant; into existence never did myth;

Behind veiled eyes the python sits.

Sleepeth.

Do you see myrrh? O bride of red vestment. A place dark and worn.

“Boyish wisps of late cloud–

“A voice is poured.”

Hands-of-laurel.

“The totem head speaks; crimson womb.

“Eyes; blind, glowing river. ”

The many hands-of-laurel quiver.

The heartbroken one vanishes; twisting torso pierced.

The priestess sits; a winged graze is felt.

Limply dreaming on his rock the stray.

By dawn her basin still wavers emptily.

LETHE

With whiteblind eyes he sees.

Almost glowing his totem head.

Dampness toward them flows

That nothingsmell of wood.

SMOLDERING VOICE

Great hands which churn the earth.

A seminary wilts and dies.

So unknown is even a book

But in the ground the faint white eyes.