The Devil Is Nothing

Telemachus 18

Stripped of gloves and pockets
Resigned to gloomy doorways
We have eaten all that was left.

Where hope leers, strolling
Out- passed away gravely sorrow
Among the leaningplaces
A Jesuit disrobes.

Collect the limp, empty rags
And turn them into rebellious missles
Hands to collar tie the tie

Voices

Telemachus 17

Look into the heart of the lookingglass
Miracles seriously trickling
Followed by a tender chant:
Find your day so blandly that
The washed slices of warmth
Twist round your rising.

Today expects intention!
Trying to find it in this uneager corner
Will only remind you
That there is no time left.

But you may find your heart will owe some
Poor old creature.

Beautiful Ruins

Telemachus 15

Silky Crone I serve her bidding,
Drink, drink charming bidder
Hewing, sewing, knitting
She knew the common betrayer.

The secret islanders
Blinking reaching pouring back
The rotten conquerer.

Her mouth is dry
Rasping sore with old names
Given.

The messenger: the favor of upbraiding
Crouching among the overclouded mornings.

Dormez-Vous?

Telemachus 14

A fancy printed blessing
Comes after a Paris morning
Like judgment day.

What sort of saying impales the
Pages before asking us over for tea?

Hewing the water a
Mother floats through the doorway
Quickly quietly
Giving you her voice
Fumbling her eggs
Sleeping with Jove.

Welcome Melting

Telemachus 13

In gloomy air- the rain is come!
A yellow (ish) cloud is over
A boat that carries the servant
From coalsmoke to forgetting.

Without looking I have
Also carried this friendship
From parapet to parapet
From doorway to doorway
Through fried rays of bright light
Now set ajar

Welcome, servant, here is
Your land of bread and honey.

Holding Down the Bitter Water

Telemachus 12

Pantomime heard through bitter doors the
Brain the song the
Offended morning shadows all
Fell down.

Attend the breath of
The bitter sea
See the cloud across
The inconsequent sun.

A secret is hung by one brooding hand while
The other plucks loves’ mystery come
On down,
I’m coming down.

Lost Shore

Telemachus 9

The impatient snout of anxiety
(Worse than nothing wrong)
Round and frank works
The giddy wind
against the somber cape.

Evening laughter
Looking softly toward
The gilded, sacred ox
Oh Helen! You are chased chaste
Here your fair noise betrays you
Here your broken ribs murmur
Slightly in this breeze.

Russian Trumpets

(Telemachus 8)

Terrible Caliban now

insane you’re crazy

with intention and pain you

keep your mother close like a

cold servant.

Drawing your own

radiant lips with which to

speak temptation you

will ask me to

be Plainlooking with spirit and fear

I can’t hold this mirror any longer,

for the mockery of teeth,

For the sunlit eyes.

Winter Light

(Laestrygonians 205)

Shameful nature you
shrunken fiction, like
some unborn Hamlet,
the father of love
the father of error
the father of uncertainty.

Himselfhisownfather
The envy of Mars he
Is irretrievably flung,
Shybrightly token

Into the beast of decline.

Fiat Ars!

Telemachus 6

Will you have fear of envy?

tripping shiny, woeful, love, while

some drowning hero

tries to guess the contents

of an irish pocket .

Speak of delight

in sunny Athens

tell me, why don’t you

tell me, my love?

(Note- this is the second version of Telemachus 6- see December 3, 2008)

Noise

Nausicaa 397

Elegance of the rain leaves
Off where the heat refuses to
Resolve.

The flesh now broils
With poorest ascendancy where
Nation-states stir with the blade
Of Egypt.

Der Himmel Ueber Los Angeles

Circe 526

Amusing tongue
You swell with smut and blood
Repugnant with faith and repentance
Mute and pinned to some
Shitty poem like a dishcloth tail.
Leering oath, puking hag,
gibbering among the hogs and
Wretches, revolting obscenity
Life of crime
vanishing

God's Mouthpiece

the Wandering Rocks 276

With-holding its own

The gap tap tap tapping

The husband of lovesongs

Makes his way to the bar

He finds his lost voice and

Takes it by the throat
Where it waits to be

Held to the ear of some passing hearer

Among the pale golden scoundrels

Gliding by atop the waves.

Smoke Rising From the Deck

The Lotus Eaters 136
With his weeping mouth
Rhyming with men
The goat makes himself a new skin.

With the talent of the cyclone
He turns out to be a star
Disdained for a kiss.

Now dressed and silvertongued
He comes home to Dublin
And rests among men.