Narcissus

Through the labyrinth of laws Controlling the cosmos Celestial bodies Orbits of planets and moons Something started spinning With water, light, movement Time was envisioned and freed All I had was a moment In this miracle of lights Then amnesia set in Sent me back to the darkness Within these labyrinthine layers Of chaos and sound And profligate echoes I lost you

Hall of Trees

Driving across Mississippi
Is like driving through a hall of trees
Wonder what the natives
Made of these

Elegant, aristocratic,
Reaching for the sky
Rooted earthward yet giant
In my mind

I see longboats, spears,
Looms for something spinning,
Winning till the white man
Tore them down

And cutting through this sanctuary
We now have carved a road
Found a box to put the funny
Red men in

These ghosts with leaves and thistles
In the wind like arrows whistle
But there has been a crime
In their blue sky

These trees have seen it all
Know the Natchez, saw the fall
In this hall of trees I am small
But I drive in

Children

They are from another planet
Know nothing of our world
Questions so ridiculous
They make you laugh in joy
What is inside an apple?
“An apple.”
What is inside the sun?
“Fire. Hot, hot fire.”
Where does God sleep?
“He doesn’t. He’s God.”
Where is love, anyway?
“In your questions.
In my tired, bewildered eyes.”

Coherence

I can be coherent
Like a drunk on Sunday morning
When he has to he can
Make it to the church

I can be irreverent
Like a preacher lusting, leering
With my sermon, words just
Floating on the wind

I can be a martyr
On that cross you see me writhing
Is there someone who can guide me
From this tomb

I can be connected
Like a telegram or modem
But I prefer to lie here
In the dust

Time Is Cold

I struggle with time,
a man paralyzed
by desires unyielding
to form

No matter how time
is delivered, its entrails
are all I can make out
at night

Time could be snow
delivered in blizzards
and still I’d hold this
empty shovel

Time could be steel
with its bars all around me
and I wide open to night
in its prison

Time could be ice
like a glacier retreating
to the volcano from which
it once dragged me

But time stays unknown
as the world becomes old
and all that I know:
Time is cold.

Sleep as Best You Can

On President's Day, I offer this humble paean to certain recent administrations.


Sleep as Best You Can

Fire’s blazing through your store
No one is coming back no more
But sleep as best you can

Termites chewing up your walls
Soon you’ll have no wall at all
But sleep as best you can

Sleep as best you can
Through the uproar in the nation
Sleep as best you can
Through the whole damned conflagration
We all know that you’re the man
So sleep as best you can

Floodwaters rising through the streets
Yonder muffled drum now beats
But sleep as best you can

Guerilla warfare down below
Stop on by and say hello
Then sleep as best you can

Sleep as best you can
Through the uproar in the nation
Sleep as best you can
Through the whole damned conflagration
We all know that you’re the man
So sleep as best you can

There’s a shadow on each face
Each rebel soldier struck by mace
But sleep as best you can

Dark miasma hangs above
Squalid children cry for love
But sleep as best you can

Sleep as best you can
Through the uproar in the nation
Sleep as best you can
Through the whole damned conflagration
We all know that you’re the man
So sleep as best you can

Winded

I don’t want to look at you
Broken anymore
When you were
Whole you wore the wind
A beggar on your back

You changed direction in your
Chained spasmodic sleep

Now no longer stone
More like a sponge deep the sea
The wind no longer touches you
But puts the waves
Where you would breathe