The Inside Passage

574

Swim up the waiting home

with your brow and figure

and your will to kill

the priest, our king, proclaims

every generation

a new revolution following

the law of invention

the level dream of existence forgotten

what was said in a stagger

is not spoken of in the upright

until gravity returns

to the waiting,

all seeing

eye

575

My hands are shaking

my luck is lifting

the gracious artillery saying

what is left is all this feeling

the defeated insignia

the ancient greeting

no thought of pissing, witness or meaning

our king arrives with robe-less erection

empty symbol, roaring, deafening

we were made in the image of freedom

rising bright, in this sacred moment

576

in a new century our poets are silent

annoyed by sticks and long lives difficult

monsters rich with opinion

and passing imposters laughing

surprised trading blind eyes among themselves

talking through halos

the dust of done hope

the questions of the patriot

long knowing the dying moment

the judgers of sunset and gentlemen

the moment of sun

a new way of life.

577

O you popes

you joyboys you dykeless rabbits

your trouble soon doubles

your better bitter laughter

some yellow-tooth sign

of indignant honor

where is the king who will

explain you these sirens?

where is the soldier who'll

guide you through?

Left unforgiven you

shirtless and peeping

their hats over faces

their hands to the west.

A Misunderstanding of the Wind

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448

When I was younger I was wrongly introduced
to a shitty woman who
not worshipful enough
wrote my name on the tale of a dog
ashamed of the light, she, drunkenly stepped back, then,
into misery and its brother
guilt
later condemned for fratricide
I appeared to be in love
but my heart was being turned to glass
and used to tune the keys
of this goddamned century
and, yet, here, the sobbing self, himself
face of mistaken identity
face of lost name
drummed into thy brother's name
you know, the one who's long gone, now.

449

Stain,
your profession might be battle
but in this country
where
the finest worlds are extinguished
where
quiet feeling is occupation
where
gallant defense is hardly ever mentioned
our comrade earth
becomes a color, a helper fighter
a scapegoat jury
all we do becomes a nest of understanding
a watching absentminded king
staunch breast and finest winning
first following then explaining to
the daughter of distinguished feeling

The Great Beyond

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442

We are spattered with coincidence
armless limbless
portered into broad daylight by comic circumstances
we wrestle with the air
and measure the size of hell.
you asked me if
I waited, lucky, walking.
no one wags, trying, but passes, singing
archways, doors and
falling dogs.

443

below an empty window
this bottled light
you, you, you in heavy shadow
I knew you when
you went far
you asked for a winter coat
and to haggle with the great beyond

Spirit of Grief, Spirit of Destruction*

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Circe 440

fade to yes
salt and tale
a broken heart
this afternoon some tea
I thought it funny in a pissed off way
waiting for a sign but then,
coincidence.
A wagged cock at passing daughters
an armless moses, looking on and
spattered with jealousy
drives past hell
on his way to daylight


441

even the windows are respectable, here.
the Whores?
the streetlights
the shouting army boys, all
respectable.
in the middle now, a private joke
a bulge that asks to be haggled with
what half earth,
battered and brazen
brags from afar
and hangs in the balance?

*from "My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts" Eno and Byrne- 1981

The Shape The Forest Takes At Dawn

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Circe 433

the world closes early
then it's all decided
moving, passing, life is change
change in the wide face of the sun
it's all decided in the poor capitals
in the bright pocketless water
where the sky moves slowly
and by recipe
and appears to give notice
of brightened eyes
arises to give notice
of a clean and polished earth
diffusing the light
and doing business with the east.

Breugelish Dreamers

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Circe 432

an uplifting tree in a curved mirage, perhaps a
cold jeweled desire gleaming in yellow air
a dark face, free and waiting there to be
as a slender ladder into water waiting offering
we look up
gulping fierce hope and covering
in shirt of hair without
this humbling we would still be
clowns blinking waiting around our virgin mistress
wearing the slashes of fate like
angry silk
like an excuse for being poor
like a great wide sky
that droops, clumsy, spellbound.

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.