Monday, November 28, 2011

gap

g                    a                                p              










g                   a                                                    p

i was just commenting

you make a lot of postscripts
something wrong with that?
just
commenting,
bullethead.
say,
make a poem
about
people
lining up
to register
as homosexuals
in Europe,
or
how Americans are
lazy and self-satisfied
not industrious
not lining up to
register
as anything.
it's not fair for them to be writing
registrations while
I
sit
here
with
nothing
to do.

just commenting.

last night of the holiday

maybe
read a long short story
started months ago
or
watch
a movie
if we can agree on one
what
are
you
going
to
do?

Saturday, November 19, 2011

a sick man and a river

What can the river say
it's old
a "blue mist" river.
Before he dies,
no misery, says he
recall a river.
What he was has washed away -
soft down now where thicket grew -
His piss flows
clear jade green, a summer color
from warm clay pools round the groin
(where tall grass to wood stood),  sways
now soft algal down in
late night sweats.

no regrets

rocking smooth
soothe fear

this man

was copper country
where skin and metal
met water once
in him
as rock
not smooth but tough
all quckened sex and bones and blood
true
his body now  

bruises black into blue.

A flood
up north!

midwest
in his chest
a storm
he remembers lakes,
and his sister as true mother,

remembers

dark warm springs and ice,
other seas of excitement and exploration
of drifting remnants and edges
of stones and water
before this rift between his body and desire


still

you see his body soft now with drugs and cancer
there's a hole in his temple, an empty pond
he washes every night 



still

he can hear the water of him in it
in pond and bone
cancer
as he's flowing downriver

as all do

when is the end?

each day's accumulation of down and slip
of other special flowing, piss and blood and bile

finally this smooth blue mile
will become him

and black and algal too
and then

for an hour
or a day


he will sluice
memories and a dream

to rise and fall

loose

forever

his moist body

into a river




two constancies

as all
we must be more

I

he and she
olding together
make glass
in blue and yellow
lucky fellow, he
to have his she

II

our
marriage
in dischord
in friendship
tried
as I did
to love you

III

they meet us
and we  them
us or them
are we less?

no

each in and through the other
opens

and makes possible

another

life




november 13

no story

left off here as

Dad would have

if he were

but he isn't

is he

Sunday, November 13, 2011

mourning

less sun

the minutes lie
we try
to make numbers allies

no
allegiance
here shadow and slant
not  reason

seasons
why mourn that


lopsang in november


Saturday, November 12, 2011

november river

saw
pawpaw
when a child
in old bark wood
zoned south of here
near
water
boxelder
currant
sugar-rich red

Guo Xi said
"autumn water blue and winter's black".

sumac
sassafras

chew the root in clear skies

watch bare bough bring

first snow

full moon

soon

black water




reading robert grenier

you look long and deeply at
what cannot be predicted
the owl
the beach
how many sunny days
remain connected
as you do
with
what is not you
in this translation
you consider
the
uncertainty -

thirteen?

even better