Sunshine Archipelago, Sea Of Illusion

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Circe 431

she comes as youth wearing her net
she ransacks our pockets taking
our hearts our spectacles and our poor lamb of god
then disappears through a watery keyhole
when we notice our watch is also missing
our mouths open to cry
but they are just as quickly filled again
with suits and hats and mittens and widows and feet
we are cut through with the challenge
and hauled up on a sacred reef
allowed to shrivel before the redeemer
our shrill pantomime now worthless, comical
she appears and takes our hand
and leads us, muttering, home.

In A Darkened Wood

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Circe 430

I suppose this was a place
where money changed hands
like the night
hangs down to be
taken by pickpockets, by vultures
and old thieves
all that's left are the poison wings
(yes, I know, papa,)
there, where the sweet souls were drawn,
we will place the spectacle
spend the silent sin
and vanish like
the god of Abraham who
demanded a son
but took a running nose instead
what kind of god is that?
we will find our weak truths
running with dogs
smoking with the drunks
standing outside.

Into The Night

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Circe 429

A fence must be white
to keep in sin
but something is lost along the way
we are a league of fireeaters, we who
wash our marks against the unknown
we are likely to eat poisonous things
we who slip past the columns of tonight
who, infected with mercy, ask for directions
ask for regard
but receive rags instead
we swerve to miss the beggar
the evil eye
the bone at midnight
the first likely place to lay down and finally die.
we wash away the world and are left with only the eyeless beasts
the hatted refugees of mercury
the bloom of the brain
the twin-headed spy who will
ask us where we live.

There Is A Swan Whose Name Is Ecstasy*

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Circe 428

We look around to see what is in bloom
but all that catches the eye is an accident
suddenly the chains of shit weigh heavily upon us
and we feel we ought not speak of beauty much
but, then again, there's that awful crack and hiss along the wire
when we blunder into the traffic
and we are caught and rundown by a red-eyed dragon
and we rise, slow-motion, through the fog
above the trolley, the city, the bridges and we slide by
fiery night and wooden lantern
and we might, might be the same tomorrow
and we might, might be turning morning's wheels
and we might, might never again speak a truer word
than when in nervous banging
our hand reaches for beauty's bell.

*Aleister Crowley

The Truth Is Not Sad, But There Is No Remedy*

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Circe 427

run, you bending light
dissappear before the hurrying fire
moments you miss and this glow
overcomes the knowing searching
the light that presses the whole cold thing
upright and flashes its burning side.
you, slaughterer of sheep
as if your breath were taken
as if you
could cross a cold street
imperfectly holding us safe against your warmth
if we reappear suddenly
it is because someone holds
open a shutter
and we are stitched back into
the picture moments
before you open the bright door
and let us in.

*Joan Manuel Serrat

Shadowmaker

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Circe 426

rivers lurch seaward
the nose can judge its distance
farther farther where are we going?
a navy passes outside my window
on its way to present itself to
the lonely south
walking damned creep into the fog
creep into the night
knowing only the mirror
a portrait of stagnant stare
a convex snake
leaping to reach a higher light
but expiring in the fumes of the custom-house.
Slowly slowly arise appearing
the larger jet of night
a swaying wing a finger,
a portrait grin a foretaste of a dream
a beauty without mercy.

We Bury Our Imperfections In the Shadows

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Circe 425

You come aboard, man
metaphysical in creation
senseless, I,
a greaser of language so much so
that I have become unfaithful, stubborn
left with no tongue
simply growling time
to the shrewd light of love
but we are bitten anyway
left on a railway
mounting a white world
squaring up the edges
flourishing gestures

so what?

Choice

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Circe 424

Come to this flourishing
Come to this soaring water
till your discontent
is everywhere
no peace amid these jets these
tightly drawn doorways
no calls to prayer in this egregious temple
you are attending time
and time of great water is upon us
we will not prevent a draw of venom
we are coming to famished joy
we are calling to our elder faces
We are singing in our legless voices
we are chanting to some idiotic trinity
we are lost in all this wrinkled bliss.

For Jack Levine 1915-2010

Inventor Of Constellations

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Circe 423

screaming on the doorstep
a drunken scrambler, a
warner of coming black luck
shirt of hair now askew
stick for leg
mouth of rags
how will you laugh?
passing Daedalus in the crowd,
you burst into light
and are lit by night
a father falls through the shrill air
the child dreams beautiful navies
and listens for the crash of dishes
signs rise from the smoke
singing wanders out from the lane
we, waiting, watch on the corner.

First Circe

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Circe 422

Definite idiot
with coal and ice
murky teeth, shapeless mouth
you, of most sprawling women
you, of blue snow
who are shaken with past dancing who
are saluted with palsied arm and wispy signal
of railing and grinding groan
through danger door
and nighttown whistle
you stretch out to reach
these flimsy houses
you release the night from prison hands
you call the children to the cold scattered forge
and reach past these rare answers.

Vertigo Days

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Oxen of the Sun 420-421

eleven whispers- abominable, best
allah, a bag of faith
this world of bad trumpery
like the hawk of love
it glides the long day.
who wanders the regions of fire?
inside all this seeking is
a lost angle of time
a hollow seedy war
a sin, really, against the night
did time wash the blood of the lamb?
unwell truth you see the bad in us all
will you speak some shit and
turn down our loose change?
your soul will not come to
this long, black day of judgment.
we somehow missed the glory of
this early god
we somehow forgot the precious
excess of all these false alarms.

I Wish I Had A River,...

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Oxen of the Sun 419

Certain motions create confidence
hell is full of these holy someone's rattlers and
fainting flowers landing in dog poverty
inside the fake gates
the criminal game handing us
a glinting loss
our green lives left toxic
so cut our breath and hide our crowns
we are firm and maddened
we are happy in our gorgeous drunkenness
we are gone
we are terminated
we will tell you
we are going home