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.

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