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The face looking into the room; Behind it light, shaking, like heat Lightning; the face calm and knowing; Seeing but not seeing who I am; The mouth maybe telling something. Something about our helplessness; Something about the confusions of beasts; The consequence of error; systems Haywire, or working; the stars gone All wrong in the…

The machines were vacant. Was a trumpet beginning a single slow turn? How could the storm frame itself? Find the space between any two stones And measure your travels from that distance. The inside is too fast to stand against And not, move, you will not. Nothing more narrow. We were not told until after…

At the confluence of the Red River and the Assiniboine, exactly two hundred miles and fifty northwards from Fargo, North Dakota, the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba; from the Cree word win-nipiy meaning `murky water’, not, as I had thought, from a peg, or some other such, which had once belonged to Winnie. And the cold…

This metal blooms in the dark of Rome’s Daylight. Of how many deaths Is Rome the bright flowering? See, the dead bloom in the dark Of the Fosse Ardeatina. The black Breath of the war has breathed on them; Shields gleam, and helmets, in the memory. Their flowering is being true To their own nature;…

An accidental landscape could Close down the approach Sketched in glass, aureate Gravings of soft tropical Foliage, produce heaped on The dock, these islands Are slow. Pale oaken oars Pull each wave apart. A various harbor goes Out draped by narrows.

When I arrive      and Roethke rumbas      in a green      fedora.      Hands are strangers      large as pockets      light. Mine float.      They scratch my groin.      I scatter      punctuation. Rain. Another, quieter room.      Allen Ginsberg holding court.      ancient poet luminary      poor as tinder.      The threadbare coat, the light.      Shining through thin threads.      I’m glad you’ve come      he says,…

Looking back, the language scribbles. What’s hidden, having been said? Almost everything? Thrilling to think There was a secret there somewhere, A bird singing in the heart’s forest. Two people sitting by a river; Sunlight, shadow, some pretty trees; Death dappling in the flowing water; Beautiful to think about, Romance inscrutable as music. Out of…

The day lets go its frozen pose of blue and grey. Snow falls, white on white, wrapping the town in its cocoon. Such calm in snow. The air no longer hungers for each step. My puffs of breath lead me to the Common, its web of stone paths just covered. I scan the scene. No…

Trains in the night. In the morning waves reach beyond water. Animal faces appear at the window muttering cries from the pen. Fences fastened in dirt topple over. Unafraid the woman walks away from the man she loves, the man who does not love her. She is surprised at her own bravery, decides over and…