220. "You've asked..."

You’ve asked if there’s anything
more to give—I say, “leave”.
If thick mission-bells
shake away that hell
that’s accrued to you, leave.

-2004

219. "You start to amble..."

You start to amble; waking, you find you have walked a ways away. You find you are ankledeep in away.

-2001

218. "You must love me because I lack..."

You must love me because I lack,
because I am a void, and starless—
if stood by a wall I’d be a doorway.
If ants attacked a tree I’d be
there branched in the breast of the trunk.
If you cut at a printing-plate, you’d be
cutting my portrait, and failing.
You must love me because
you must nod at times
and must bite a thumb
and must leave a drum unstruck
and because you haven’t grown
this yet, you’re small of yet,
you need it for company.

-2005

217. "You look around his apartment..."

You look around his apartment, and there are things of interest to be seen; photographs of office-rooms mocked up from artful paper, mocked up to make walls that might withstand a knuckle’s knocks, so it appears, or even withstand this blasted coughing. Here you cough. But then, unavoidably, the paper staplers and paper printers and paper papers (pass that) would be blown away—

Over here, a photo of fifteen naked dancers, hats off in a row. Photography!—ah—ink a transcript, a strip of bits, point, point, point, point. Colors and colors—(a cough again)—this coughing fit will strip them all. Something horrible on TV, a man without nerves (or nearly), skin all a shudder as pulled with wires. What else—elections. Films, films. (You lay across a narrow couch.) Bored. Materials flowing from the drawers—what is it all? More, rejected prints, marker on them: not to be read. Writes like his hand’s in a box.

A photograph’s here—a single dancer, blacked-out eyes—a raccoon—open kiss to the camera. Tiny dancer—there! Steps marching up the stairs.

-2001

216. "You, be absolute for death..."

You, be absolute for death, the psalmist says.
Tie the many ends of your earthly term to bows—
and when the roses that turn in your cheeks
are trampled, and that matter that makes your eyes
is gone, away with the filing ants—
some expanding neural presence shall remain.
And the jewellish hope that once was secreted
in clutches beneath the clasp of your ribs
will blow out, shaped as a woven ring of shims.
Wrinkles on hands’ll cast off as rusks,
and the finger-whorls will solve,
those fingers gone spidery, gone
to fret between lichened roots.
Be absolute for death;
and don’t come linger beyond your term
and bother us breaking our dishes,
mumbling some broken words to those over-intent.
I sicken, I wane, my prospects dim,
my attention sours unto the single shining point.
I hear my fingers fretting at sheets,
and I ready to strike out—
Be absolute for that bloating face,
out from the wreath of wildflowers—
when the writ on skin’s grain
must be bleached off and hid. Be absolute
for char, those fragments, ash-heaps,
blood so dry in brass cups,
censers, chanting, and black amphoras.

-2004

215. "Writ in a country calendar..."

Writ in a country calendar, drawn from
the waking radish, his ink, drawn from his tubular hairs.
The frames on the days, which fill with rain.
Oh rushling calculation, spurt,
from balding flower, come proud-speckle fruit,
come bruit of sugar-narcissa’s trump—
Oh! You winking families, with whips,
four inches, more—and finger-thick;
you tumbling droops of blasted quince,
and quailing fingernail moth, that flaps
black cymbals to wing, ascends at his ease
from slit sacks of black flour.

-2004

214. "Would that I could engender..."

Would that I could engender with my ceaseless pacing, my feet crushing from the unswept floors a vibrant fluid, a giving to ensue, a forming to ensue. Fretful listings, of nerved times, would become rootwork deep in the rug, ‘bellishing the flors and diamonds therein in new and visible verne. My arms’ ceaseless drumming would be found, of a sudden, conduction, of central heating, phone-gleeking, of the symphony hung in the air. Would that my circular step fell into spiralling, depositing my hind to desk and working, and then my hand alone would fret, to pace in the cursive paths my head would demand.

-2001