Poetry

— JB, H & Mr. B This is the death of water, the sky gone bad; This is the wall of blurred names; This is the drop of wax, the shined shoe; This is the noise, the wardrobe of no address — And this is the shirt, bone shirt, chalk and chalk dust, Its coat,…

I told you all I know holding on to your arm looking in windows city after city whispering, murmuring with whom and when and the way we did it. You smiled. Desperately unzipping my dress at the school for the blind I show a breast, a thigh, mad eyes, while they march by in twos,…

It’s all because the round man with the pumpkin neck was teaching no one in particular macadam composition, and because a lady giggled like dry fire when the bartender who liked lighting his lighter and looking at it said a fellow wanted to be a vampire to get the inside story but he had bad…

The Holston lolls like a tongue here, its banks Gummy and ill at ease; across the state line, Moccasin Gap declines in a leafy sneer. Darkness, the old voyeur, moistens his chapped lips. Unnoticed by you, of course, your mind Elsewhere and groping: the stuck clasp, her knees, The circle around the moon, O anything….

Sometimes I have to think big, bigger than an airplane hanger, bigger than Lake Erie, bigger than nitroglycerin. When I think that big, I stand in a field and look down for a long time, my crackerbox boots are clumsy continents, I ignore them and look instead at a stone. It is cold, grey and…

I The morning train arrives at two. Be there. I’ll be carrying a briefcase, wearing heavy face lotion. If you get there before I do I’ll be in the second coach, compartment 5. I’ll be sitting in seat 3 facing a fat man. He’s following me. After the briefcase. Discretion. If I don’t descend the…

( – The Horse Latitudes are a region of unusual calm, lying in the North Atlantic Ocean. When sailing ships were becalmed there, the crew used to throw overboard cargo and horses. Thus lightened, the boat could take advantage of whatever wind there might be.) What does the sea want, my clothes, my keys, my…

for Martha A young woman rows to the middle of the river, and plays the violin her father gave her just before he died. She keeps time with her foot, making a wonderful noise on the bottom of the boat, like tapping on a rainbarrel, or a whale’s heartbeat. She plays until almost night. As…

(1) A lot of sky litters my view of home — oh Missed one, lost      Helium balloons spill off the horizon            & knock me backwards Jeolousy is too easy, this easy I miss      a better sentiment, ballooning pride could accomplish      Homesick for your hands, I miss the fragrance of my labors in them: devilish…