Poetry

Nothing else to do But love while waiting. We hold our hands To the flames until we no longer know What we wait for.

Sludge heart. Pot-metal heart. Scree . . . Some leaves fell. Schlock heart. Chil- blain heart. Piss-stain heart. Gelded heart. O heart incontinent. 24-carat electro-plate heart. Cicadas were silent. Bumper-sticker heart. Foul-mouth stink-bomb heart. Black. Black. Black. And I sang all day. Drop-dugged wolf- bitch heart. And held birds in my hands. Thistle heart. Briar…

These files in longhand preserve . lies I tell myself about shoulderblades . whose outlines I never traced about eyes that once met mine . but did not turn back after they had passed . I arrange them by last name made up when I can’t recall . exchanged when I can . Each tells…

What happened to sweet heat, the sneezeweed, the luna moth and gingham sleeve, sipped Slurpies and reedy kayaks, the sponge-bathed trees? Why are the nights so flustered and furrowed, dusks crimped by crooked V’s of snow geese bored with palmettos? Why does the full moon pinprick the draft, neurotic winds reentering therapy, the light, an…

(July evenings occur as a name repeated.) Strange benefit of geography. He studied me at mirrors but recalled only photographs and houses leaning seasonal (a deluded shoreline). Ascertain bird or cicada near. Awaken to a darkened background clouded North by noon. Here is a reverse. We take of gales and a landscape of driving rain….

I need you to get me a ticket, he said. For what, I asked, waking at the foot of his bed. For the train, he said. They say I need a ticket. Except for the small lamp the room was dark. The air was cool and clear. The first night of September. Do you know…

translated from the Greek by Stratis Haviaras & Dana Bonstrom On a wager one journeys alone, else There is neither journey nor wager. Passepartout, your name spoke for itself but beneath lay contempt and coercion. Loyalty? What loyalty? Till when? And why? What of yours was at risk? Would I win the wager you’d doubtless…

A circle of young: vicious. A circle of young: smells like sugar. A circle of young: why such organization?                               Around what? Around how? And into the circle is assimilation. Meaning: The girl with blue eyes is a foreigner. Xenophobic is a fawning. It smells delicious, of lavender and his mother: He slept with her….

There is no further trace of the painter and wall this house out of heathen legend. Her feet in our boat. In a green meadow I saw madness. Were singing. There is a word which means dark or blue or the black stream. Having spent years there darkening mountains—sea-caved and frayed. Walk before me still…