Poetry

I want no more to do with what is understandable. There there. Only the lilliburlero of bird because it is songful. The lark ascending the air. Vaughan Williams’ Surrey local choir of ladies sorrowful between the wars. Only the dot and carry one of Clare who gave himself moon and stars to Northampton County Asylum…

        Small mysteries. Leave unidentified that picture hidden in the dresser drawer         and everyone in it, any reason for it, and who and where and why and when you were.         Leave coins in babies’ shoes. Leave words on scraps of paper tucked inside         coffee table books: galoshes, periwinkle, ménage a trois, calligraphy—maybe terrified.         For the most…

A black man and a white man like two philosophical mates are engaged in a debate. What has only one syllable, and no eye, ear, or tongue, yet is God’s class-act creation? Night, says the black man. It has to be night that inspires rest and mystery. Day, says the white man. It has to…

from Chains From dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn, I, slaveto Sir John Hawkins, bound, emblackened crestupon his coat of arms of lion and wave,salute him, founder of the Chatham Chestthat succors seamen maimed in the Armada;salute him true in Spanish, French, Italian;salute him, most courageous founding fatherof Chatham Dockyard and the “race built…

“If you sold this place,” says my neighbor, “you could buy a little flat.” A little flat! One with no room for half my books, no stairs to keep my knees in flexible order, one in which on no morning would my eyes open to next door’s silver birch, self-sown in the days of Marjorie…

I think myself thin untila scale calls me to honesty,its numbers the mind of God,unrelenting, and I questiona machine that can drive usto uncertainty, to suicide,or into the edges of murder,thinking we are more or lessnot there or here. One dayI walked down a street feelingmyself there, feeling as thickor thin as I wanted to…

Under her tongue, there was a story.In her mouth, nails. Frances hammered license platesto the back wall of her garage. There hang the years that sunk like a foot in loose soil.That rusted like a hinge. Whose hand or what machineetched the numbers that cruised along in the exhaust of a town that no longer…

Life, the devil you know, the oneyou’ve bantered, bartered with,trading this day for that, this lovefor that freedom, that freedom backfor happiness. Something lacking,something gained. The devilis one hell of an investor, turninga profit continuous as flames.You are wood. You are the paperyou signed your life to in exchangefor this sweet spate of days. Thisis…

Love, if you want meto speak, let me find a way out of my sadness.You are everywhere lingering—moss over rock,rock over seed, seedlings about to remember. Irecall you in small things and nothing: stonesupon water—water turned hard, into rock.Here on the listening lake things burn to be bornand then buried—seed into pond, pondinto withering light….