Poetry

He woke in a different country, his own hands Rose to his mouth, and his fingers Rubbed at his eyes, and he was standing On his own feet, but the people passing Had darkened their speech like daylight going dim Around him, he told them to speak slowly, he told them To listen, please, he…

—Prayer, George Herbert The sun’s going down. Which is nothing new.      And there’s nothing special about the end of this day,      Even if a lot of the things we thought we knew Start disappearing with the light. What can you say? It’s a strange feeling, kind of a relief,      To sit in the dark and…

Dragonflower. Ice-flame fontanelle plume Of the Virgin — The spine coarsening on upwards The leaves centipede and sinister For swarming up the body For stiffening out the gorged soul Ribs Fish and perfunctory To lift the flared cheekbones, the mouthings Of the hydra-face. Core-abstract Shameless and craving Of cunt-flesh — The splitting grin and the…

Grandmother is all bleak and bare While the alien whom I do not know Fattens golden on the cliffedge. Yet although our bones rot more rotten than we know Or than we care to know; Although we find God’s throne but not God; And although we are all in our blueblack way Bleaker and barer…

I do not believe the ancients— the constellations look like nothing at all. See how their light scatters itself across the sky, not bright enough to guide us anywhere? And the avenue of trees, leaking their dark inks, are shapes I can’t identify. The night is too inconstant, a constant injury, alchemical moonlight changing my…

Snaps its twig-tether — mounts — Free Dream-yanked up into vacuum Wings snickering. Another, in a shatter, hurls dodging away up. They career through tree-mazes Nearly uncontrollable love-weights. And now Temple-dancers, possessed, and steered By solemn powers Through insane stately convulsions. Porpoises Of dove-lust and blood-splendour With arcs And plungings, and spray-slow explosions. Now violently…

Sweeney Astray is a version of the Middle Irish tale, Buile Shuibhne, in which Sweeney, king of a small kingdom in north east Ulster, is cursed by a saint and transformed into a bird at the Battle of Moira. The bulk of the story is concerned with his subse quent life of frightened wandering and…

Although I am taking courses in the language of children, penguin socialization and creative writing, now, in my dotage — dotage, what a striking word — I find myself betrayed — betrayed — by what? Betrayed! That’s what it means to be human. First acceptance, then rage, then reiteration. Once dinner was always exactly at…

That plastic Buddha jars out a Karate screech Before the soft words with their spores The cosmetic breath of the gravestone Death invented the phone it looks like the altar of death Do not worship the telephone It drags its worshippers into actual graves With a variety of devices, through a variety of disguised      voices…