Normal

That will never happen. You just grew all

Funny. And the faint atmosphere, and the

Moods of nature, and the dropped moon

Spell dimension, purpose, all safely pronounced

By their proper names. As literal as we are,

These excursions on the frightened earth

Let us fall into our dreams again, and the

Polite shadows slide into our ancient thoughts

Like lullabies. The pots and pans, my eyes

Touched by my hair, what, you won’t “love

Me”?  I move the sidewalks around. I take

The next exit to blank time. Now, sitting alone

For a moment, I catch a movement of this

Universe. It’s just some sunlight filtering in.

Mercury

Frailty, who could add anything?

The white-tailed hawk circles in the

Sky, the sky adds its heat to the difficult

Morning. Writing poetry is easier

Than living. We’ve all been added,

Double-stained, faded, and I’m here,

And I do not time what is mortal.

The heart hiding beneath a sleeve,

We are ruled by limit, but also beauty,

And the mercurial glass dreams of

Permanence. Come alive in these

Arms and lines, and the marvelous

Energy you can barely touch is not

Impossible. There is a new way of

Walking in this world, and the waves

And gestures prove continuous. Enlarge

Me, give me an assignment. When I

Look into my cup today, I see only ash.

Grandiosity

Rebirth dragging itself across a mind-space,

An ecstatic, gluttonous coming down. The

Sketches and photos fill up the floor, their

Seamless edges are not an extravaganza. And

If heaven petered out above us, if one bird

Sang, the soul-light peeking through the trees

Would not be abject. Seeing as to what is

Formless, tail lights beaming, this world will

Only belch us like the makers of Twinkies.

Kittens in the wilderness, what is honorable is

Only the translation of gone beyond. Redolence

Of an old aunt’s house teeming with mothballs,

We bid good riddance to the fugue, and smell

What flowers in the natural, the real, the really real.

Dependency

Our lady of dual consciousness, fumbling

Around for your ascension, what happened

To that swan in the little liquor store? That

Is far away. Nowadays, there are a lot of

Surveys, but I don’t answer. Like a frost

Through the winter winds, so much for the

Jobs, so much for everything. I light one

Match, and it goes out like always. See if

You can make that noise again with your

Mouth, said the homilist. This fog is

Concerning.  Into the frills of the culture,

Into the lovers straddling pieces of ice

The streets provide, I go down these numbered

Avenues alone. Alone alone. And with relief.

Wrath

Those nightmare years hurt you into poetry,

But now look!  The sun is coming out. And

The light pouring down is not like blood, and

Things shine beyond description. We forge

Our own iron, a whole vocabulary of iron,

And our riches, bowing to the grass, are not

A metaphor. You have nothing to be angry

About. The endless skin of Being, the rinse

Of Saturdays cobbled in the corners, the evidence

Suggests a firmament beaming with color. Long

Hair falling into the eyes, presumably, the heedless

Stars are not doomed to stasis. The blue blue

Essences, singular in their parallels, are only

Acres of the living, this very learning to be here.