Saturday, January 31, 2009

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

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

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.

Monday, January 26, 2009

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.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

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.


Wednesday, January 21, 2009

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.

Monday, January 19, 2009

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.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

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.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

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.


Tuesday, January 13, 2009

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.


Sunday, January 11, 2009

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)

Friday, January 9, 2009

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.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

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


Sunday, January 4, 2009

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.


Friday, January 2, 2009

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.