Shadowmaker

link to website update

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

link to website update

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

link to website update

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

link to website update

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

link to website update

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

link to website update

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,...

link to update

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