The Unwrote Poem

She became a poet to stalk me online.
That's what the mad do, they say.
She put in her verse what was erased in mine,
My "blind unkindnesses" and her gun firing lines
Before she falls to her divan to mourn the one
And true liar who tragically walked away
From his only shot at happiness ...

There'll be no self-reflection in this new game
Where disembodied phrases mean whatever pain
You choose in that woebegone moment to feel,
A voice from the bottom of a back nine well that says
"Save me" or "you're doomed" it's impossible to tell,
Like that song on that old record you always skipped before,
That makes the symphony around it sound meaningless now.

All the mistaken formulas for how to murder love;
Do you leave it to rot for the hounds? Stab a victory shot
In its weakest vein? Speak no ill of the living until they are safe
And buried? Or dress the would-be corpse again in the latest regalia?
The mystery roars on, as the bards with their pipes
Pontificate what might have been, under different conditions
Than the ones we're blessed or cursed to forget.

There are no words, there are no pictures
For the twisted postures of lovers trying to keep
The monster at bay and the compromised plans for the day,
There are only the words of the scorned —
Trying to explain to the court they're not wrong
When the only crime the jury wants deciphered
Is how the feeling of forever got away.

Shooting at Pirate Tower

Mussel ledges in the swirl

As pony necks ride to shore

And sluices fill with juices that are

Pulled through arches back

Epiphany of moon spun melodies

That rush to greet each other in

Swollen crests of foam

The stone rolls down

Like kneaded bread

To the edges of the coast

From breezy promontories

Where the eye is filled with sea

The crash of luminescence

Splashing the silver glow of stone

Continues with its aching sheen to the sun’s

Elusive home

Brides and bathing beauties come

To stand in front of lenses

And hold their fronds and flowers

As if they are as ancient as these

Slowly yielding stones

Or at least this dying turret spit

Built to hold a moment

Forever to be captured

In its wake

By those who’d make their vicious mark

With blue and white umbrellas

To set perfection in perfected order

For the vague tastes of man

White flashes like a war zone

Before the ever-decaying phallus

Our correspondents claim conglomerate rocks

To hold the couples' love in endless

Effervescence

The seagulls sneer their squeals at me

As I scribble in their light

They know there is no harmony

On my side

Silence Along the Boulevard

City trees with Christmas lights

And carved initial trunks

Are trimmed to fit in grates and streets

And frame sky thoroughfares …

Still they are as wild as country horses

The way they insinuate in the breeze,

The way their leaves take umbrage,

And how they lean into the scene

With a knowing nonchalance,

Bristling resistance

To the noise of roving question marks

Circling round some secret need

As the sun in dapples answers

And the thinking wind delivers

What can never be endured

As a breath, for their reply.

The Dream of No Meaning

The sun comes to pin us in vacancy
In wind's superfluous fluidity,
We are leaves catching street without care
To some inexplicable command.

To be free on a reef without consequence
Where empty shells rattle out beat,
And sensations turn moments to pleasure
Like an illicit dream, to savor

The magnificent impotence of being,
Where sad faces remain unprosecuted
And the pink trees are like nothing ever seen,
And it's still a secret what makes us laugh and sigh.

Not a place, though, that I can stay
As the clouds of my home appear in the sky
And the people I know refuse to accept
That I can't name what I can't bear to see.

Writing as Survival

I’m always on the other side –

It's all receipts, playbills, envelopes

To my two-dimensional eyes –

What everybody seems to understand

Is incomprehensible to me:

How rivals are one’s only friends,

Where human kindness ends and deals begin.

They come with clippers at whatever I am every day

Wearing a smile, bearing no explanation,

As if someone else knows so well

How I should grow, or how I offend,

They don’t have to even tell me.

It is all, as I said, on the other side,

The why – other people’s unfathomable needs

And the inarticulate desires beneath them,

What always wins, for it represents the great

Insatiable, every person who shares the planet, Each one denied, needing to be satisfied,

The divine voice inside long since silenced

To a life of compromise and shame.

From my side, I have given each one of them,

Out of pity, my heart. I’ve made their beds,

Made their meals, told them tales to make them

Feel a little less lonely, but they seemed to prefer

To see it in terms of the way they prefer it;

They dropped nickels on the sheets,

Sent the meals back cold, said of my stories

I was a liar, not to be trusted, as if the heart
That made me do all those things for them

Was wrong, so that I will try even harder

Next time, in the name of love, one of the mysteries,

That won’t explain how one can only find oneself

After they’ve given all they are away,

Or why the value of things is in how they’re wasted,

Or how the cosmic dice that rolled these pairs

Relies on you to play them.

The Second Half of the Year

The full moon of letting go

Must be as heavy as a medicine ball

To hold the swollen mind.

It can’t even shine through the clouds

Spun in a macabre glow.

The gourds on the vine

Seemingly so ripe

Are the hardest things to free.

The Pigeons of Laguna Beach

The royalty are out in force,

Pontificating like pontiffs

To the pigeons in the trees

And to anyone who doesn’t look away.

They have no parking space to tend

But they’ll take the dimes and quarters

Off your hands. They do not follow orders

Like those hilltop mansion owners

For a view of this last wilderness of water.

And they don’t have to share their ice cream cones

With children or with dogs. They are free

To harangue their way to fame

Like that local hero on the statue,

Who showed everyone that they were wrong

With the force of his incorrigible hair.

The families at the crest of the beautiful

Translucence, the ocean’s endless rhythm of grace,

Who pick at each other like seagulls stab entrails

Look at the way they stagger diagonally

Or sleep without shame on the sidewalk

And pretend to be thankful, for the family meal,

The shared sun, the seat by the sea,

But there’s a hidden envy

Of those beyond judgment,

Who lord over the sand with their

Red robes and Mardi Gras jewelry

As they teeter on the edge of invisibility,

Like any other king or queen at the inconvenient secret,

That these grounds we walk on are not really God’s

But their own.

Crack of Fall

The illusion of physical reality

Flits above the razor grass,

As eucalyptus and bamboo

Swirl in empyrean calm.

Toads cry from the sky,

Lizards disappear,

The tree leaves shake like coins.

Soon in lapping flames of wind

Shadows dislodge from shapes

To shiver away the dust

Of what is seen, and sweep

The residue of being

In an endless empty echoing

Where everything becomes more clear

As it disappears.

Then we are left with

The quiet of the swaying trees

And, slowly, the real is revealed.

Elegies by Hölderlin: Menon’s Lament for Diotima

1800 revision of Elegy from 1799

1.
Every day I go out, and look for the forever other,

     Where she asked long ago, only country paths;

High on chilling hills, all the shadows and the springs

     Visit ridicule on me; ghosts wander high and low,

Begging for rest; so flees the broken game into the woods,

     Where darkness is the only safe place at midday;

But the green retreat never brought back a heart in distress

     And destined to sleep, as it carried the thorn around.

Not helped by light’s warmth nor the cool of the night,

     And in the ripples of the stream his wounds are dipped in vain.

And he reaches in vain for the healing herbs of joyful

     Earth, and his frothing blood slakes none of the Zephyrs,

So too, dear ones, for me, it seems – can no one 

     Take this sorrowful dream from my brow?

2.

Yes! Nor is it worship, you gods of death, when once

     You have him, and firmly hold the vanquished man,

He goes then with the wicked down in the terrifying night,

     Then to seek, or to beg, or be angry at you,

Or to practice patience bound to your abode,

     And with a smile from you hear the vacant song.

If so, he should forget salvation, and sleep tonelessly!

     But a sound of hope rises up in his breast,

That he still cannot always, O my soul, get used to,

     Dreaming in the middle of a resolute sleep.

I have no reason to be festive, but would wear the season’s garland;

     Would I then be not alone? But someone friendly from afar

Must be near me now, so I must smile and be astonished

     How I am blessed nevertheless in the midst of suffering.

3.

Light of love! Do you shine on the dead as well, golden one?

     Pictures from a brighter time, does she shine his light on the night?

The sweet gardens, his, her crimson evening mountains

     He welcomes, and her silent paths of the grove.

Witnesses of heavenly happiness! And her, gazing to the end of stars,

     The consecrated eyes that were granted me then!

You, you lovers, May Day’s beautiful children too,

     Silent roses and, you, lilies! Still I often call!

Springtime surely flows away, one year squeezes out the next,

     Alternates and altercates; thus the ages sound aloft

Over mortal heads, but not with Elysian eyes,

     And the lovers are granted other lives.

For they all, the days and the years of the stars, were

     Diotima! As we merge completely for eternity;

4.

Though we, happily joined, like the loving swans,

     When resting by the lake, or rocking on the waves,

Looking down onto the water, where silver clouds mirror,

     And ethereal blue’s beneath the wake tails of ships,

So on earth we walked. And the North threatened too, the enemy

     Of lovers, riding over their wailing, and falling

From the branches to fly in the wind, the leaves, of rain,

     And quietly we smiled, felt our own divinity

In familiar chatter; in a soul song,

     Completely at peace, wide-eyed and blessed, alone.

But now my house is deserted, and they’ve taken

     My sight, and I can’t find myself or her.

That's why I wander madly, like a shadow, and so must

     Live, a pointlessly long life it seems remains to me.

5.

I would celebrate, but what? And sing with the others,

     But the alone ones can’t share in the divine.

This is it, my affliction, to know, a paralyzing curse

     That throws me the strings, and when I begin, takes them away?

That I sit dumb and idle through the day, like a child,

     Merely see, from my eye, many cold drops slip,

Made dull by the plants of the field and the singing birds,

     For they too, with their joy, are heralds of the heavenly,

And in my shivering breast the vitalizing sun

     Cool and fruitless dawns, like the brilliances of night,

Ah, blank and barren, like the walls of a prison,

     And the sky hangs a heavy burden on my head!

6.

Else I’d otherwise know! O youth! And if prayers don’t bring

     You again, not ever? Does no path lead me back?

Shouldn’t I also have, like the godless ones, the glistening eyes

     As in former times to sit with me at the blessed table?

Though they’ll be overstuffed soon enough, the swarm of guests,

     Now fallen silent, and now, under singing winds,

Under blossoming ground passed by, until one day they,

     Through the miracle of force, are coerced, the lost,

To return, and to walk again on the verdure of earth. -

     Holy breath flows divinely through their light figures,

As the feast comes to life, and the cascade of love flows,

     And the sky inundates, the living stream whispers,

And the night, when it sounds down there, applauds its treasures,

     And the buried gold gleams out of creeks. -

7.

But O you, who were already then at my crossroads,

     When before you I sank, to console the more beautiful,

You, magnificence seen, and to sing of the gods more gladly,

     Silent, like you, as I’d learned from inspiring silence;

God’s child! Do you appear before me now, and greet me, as before,

     Do you speak once more, as before, of lofty matters?

Look! I must lament and cry before you, as if thinking

     Still of the nobler time, and being, the soul, ashamed.

For too long, too long on the muted paths of the earth

     Have I, your familiar, been looking for you madly,

Happy guardian spirit! But in vain, and the years drift away,

     Since we saw the evenings glow with foreboding.

8.

For you, only you, sustain your light, O heroine, in the light,

     And your loving sufferance sustains, O kindness, you;

And you are not even alone! Enough players are sent

     To blossom and drowse below the roses of the year;

And the father, himself, through the softly breathing muses

     Tenderly delivers the trembling songs to you.

Yes! It is still you! Still floating from head to toe,

     In silence, as usual, the Athenian before me.

And how, friendly spirit, from your blithely pondering brow,

     Your ray falls beatific and sure upon the mortals,

Thus you testify to me, so that I can to others

     Repeat, since others as well don’t believe it,

They’re immortal after all, the sorrow and the fury,

     Joy and a golden day, they just end daily.

9.

So I desire, my empyreal, the same as I thank, and at last

     Breathe out the prayer afresh from the singer’s effortless breast.

And how, when I was with you, stood with you on a sunny altitude,

     An uplifting god appealed to me from the temple within.

I too want to live, forever green, as out of a sacred lyre

     Summoned from the silver mountains of Apollo ahead!

Come! It was like a dream, yes? The bleeding wings are

     Already mended, to be alive in all our hopes again.

There’s much to be found, much remaining, and who thus

     Loves, goes, must go, to the gods of the way.

And you guided us, with your votive blessing! The sincerity

     Of youth! O you remain, through our holy intuitions, our

Pious pleas, and our ecstasies, and all our

     Good genii’s, who like to be with those who love;

Stay with us until we reach a common ground

     There, where all the blessed turn willingly down,

Where the eagles and the stars, the heralds of the father, are,

     Where the muses and the heroes and the lovers are from,

Meet us over there, on a thawing island, or here,

     Where our unity was first conjoined, in gardens,

Where the songs are true, and the spring stays beautiful,

     And we can begin again a year of our soul.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Menons Klagen um Diotima

1

Täglich geh ich heraus, und such ein Anderes immer,

     Habe längst sie befragt, alle die Pfade des Lands;

Droben die kühlenden Höhn, die Schatten alle besuch ich,

     Und die Quellen; hinauf irret der Geist und hinab,

Ruh erbittend; so flieht das getroffene Wild in die Wälder,

     Wo es um Mittag sonst sicher im Dunkel geruht;

Aber nimmer erquickt sein grünes Lager das Herz ihm,

     Jammernd und schlummerlos treibt es der Stachel umher.

Nicht die Wärme des Lichts, und nicht die Kühle der Nacht hilft,

     Und in Wogen des Stroms taucht es die Wunden umsonst.

Und wie ihm vergebens die Erd ihr fröhliches Heilkraut

     Reicht, und das gärende Blut keiner der Zephyre stillt,

So, ihr Lieben! auch mir, so will es scheinen, und niemand

     Kann von der Stirne mir nehmen den traurigen Traum?

2

Ja! es frommet auch nicht, ihr Todesgötter! wenn einmal

     Ihr ihn haltet, und fest habt den bezwungenen Mann,

Wenn ihr Bösen hinab in die schaurige Nacht ihn genommen,

     Dann zu suchen, zu flehn, oder zu zürnen mit euch,

Oder geduldig auch wohl im furchtsamen Banne zu wohnen,

     Und mit Lächeln von euch hören das nüchterne Lied.

Soll es sein, so vergiß dein Heil, und schlummere klanglos!

     Aber doch quillt ein Laut hoffend im Busen dir auf,

Immer kannst du noch nicht, o meine Seele! noch kannst dus

     Nicht gewohnen, und träumst mitten im eisernen Schlaf!

Festzeit hab ich nicht, doch möcht ich die Locke bekränzen;

     Bin ich allein denn nicht? aber ein Freundliches muß

Fernher nahe mir sein, und lächeln muß ich und staunen,

     Wie so selig doch auch mitten im Leide mir ist.

3

Licht der Liebe! scheinest du denn auch Toten, du goldnes!

     Bilder aus hellerer Zeit, leuchtet ihr mir in die Nacht?

Liebliche Gärten seid, ihr abendrötlichen Berge,

     Seid willkommen und ihr, schweigende Pfade des Hains,

Zeugen himmlischen Glücks, und ihr, hochschauende Sterne,

     Die mir damals so oft segnende Blicke gegönnt!

Euch, ihr Liebenden auch, ihr schönen Kinder des Maitags,

     Stille Rosen und euch, Lilien, nenn ich noch oft!

Wohl gehn Frühlinge fort, ein Jahr verdränget das andre,

     Wechselnd und streitend, so tost droben vorüber die Zeit

Über sterblichem Haupt, doch nicht vor seligen Augen,

     Und den Liebenden ist anderes Leben geschenkt.

Denn sie alle, die Tag und Jahre der Sterne, sie waren

     Diotima! um uns innig und ewig vereint;

4

Aber wir, zufrieden gesellt, wie die liebenden Schwäne,

     Wenn sie ruhen am See, oder, auf Wellen gewiegt,

Niedersehn in die Wasser, wo silberne Wolken sich spiegeln,

     Und ätherisches Blau unter den Schiffenden wallt,

So auf Erden wandelten wir. Und drohte der Nord auch,

     Er, der Liebenden Feind, klagenbereitend, und fiel

Von den Ästen das Laub, und flog im Winde der Regen,

     Ruhig lächelten wir, fühlten den eigenen Gott

Unter trautem Gespräch; in Einem Seelengesange,

     Ganz in Frieden mit uns kindlich und freudig allein.

Aber das Haus ist öde mir nun, und sie haben mein Auge

     Mir genommen, auch mich hab ich verloren mit ihr.

Darum irr ich umher, und wohl, wie die Schatten, so muß ich

     Leben, und sinnlos dünkt lange das Übrige mir.

5

Feiern möcht ich; aber wofür? und singen mit Andern,

     Aber so einsam fehlt jegliches Göttliche mir.

Dies ists, dies mein Gebrechen, ich weiß, es lähmet ein Fluch mir

     Darum die Sehnen, und wirft, wo ich beginne, mich hin,

Daß ich fühllos sitze den Tag, und stumm wie die Kinder,

     Nur vom Auge mir kalt öfters die Träne noch schleicht,

Und die Pflanze des Felds, und der Vögel Singen mich trüb macht,

     Weil mit Freuden auch sie Boten des Himmlischen sind,

Aber mir in schaudernder Brust die beseelende Sonne,

     Kühl und fruchtlos mir dämmert, wie Strahlen der Nacht,

Ach! und nichtig und leer, wie Gefängniswände, der Himmel

     Eine beugende Last über dem Haupte mir hängt!

6

Sonst mir anders bekannt! o Jugend, und bringen Gebete

     Dich nicht wieder, dich nie? führet kein Pfad mich zurück?

Soll es werden auch mir, wie den Götterlosen, die vormals

     Glänzenden Auges doch auch saßen an seligem Tisch,

Aber übersättiget bald, die schwärmenden Gäste,

     Nun verstummet, und nun, unter der Lüfte Gesang,

Unter blühender Erd entschlafen sind, bis dereinst sie

     Eines Wunders Gewalt, sie, die Versunkenen, zwingt,

Wiederzukehren, und neu auf grünendem Boden zu wandeln. –

     Heiliger Othem durchströmt göttlich die lichte Gestalt,

Wenn das Fest sich beseelt, und Fluten der Liebe sich regen,

     Und vom Himmel getränkt, rauscht der lebendige Strom,

Wenn es drunten ertönt, und ihre Schätze die Nacht zollt,

     Und aus Bächen herauf glänzt das begrabene Gold. –

7

Aber o du, die schon am Scheidewege mir damals,

     Da ich versank vor dir, tröstend ein Schöneres wies,

Du, die Großes zu sehn, und froher die Götter zu singen,

     Schweigend, wie sie, mich einst stille begeisternd gelehrt;

Götterkind! erscheinest du mir, und grüßest, wie einst, mich,

     Redest wieder, wie einst, höhere Dinge mir zu?

Siehe! weinen vor dir, und klagen muß ich, wenn schon noch.

     Denkend edlerer Zeit, dessen die Seele sich schämt.

Denn so lange, so lang auf matten Pfaden der Erde

     Hab ich, deiner gewohnt, dich in der Irre gesucht,

Freudiger Schutzgeist! aber umsonst, und Jahre zerrannen,

     Seit wir ahnend um uns glänzen die Abende sahn.

8

Dich nur, dich erhält dein Licht, o Heldin! im Lichte,

     Und dein Dulden erhält liebend, o Gütige, dich;

Und nicht einmal bist du allein; Gespielen genug sind,

     Wo du blühest und ruhst unter den Rosen des Jahrs;

Und der Vater, er selbst, durch sanftumatmende Musen

     Sendet die zärtlichen Wiegengesänge dir zu.

Ja! noch ist sie es ganz! noch schwebt vom Haupte zur Sohle,

     Stillherwandelnd, wie sonst, mir die Athenerin vor.

Und wie, freundlicher Geist! von heitersinnender Stirne

     Segnend und sicher dein Strahl unter die Sterblichen fällt,

So bezeugest du mirs, und sagst mirs, daß ich es andern

     Wiedersage, denn auch andere glauben es nicht,

Daß unsterblicher doch, denn Sorg und Zürnen, die Freude

     Und ein goldener Tag täglich am Ende noch ist.

9

So will ich, ihr Himmlischen! denn auch danken, und endlich

     Atmet aus leichter Brust wieder des Sängers Gebet.

Und wie, wenn ich mit ihr, auf sonniger Höhe mit ihr stand,

     Spricht belebend ein Gott innen vom Tempel mich an.

Leben will ich denn auch! schon grünts! wie von heiliger Leier

     Ruft es von silbernen Bergen Apollons voran!

Komm! es war wie ein Traum! Die blutenden Fittige sind ja

     Schon genesen, verjüngt leben die Hoffnungen all.

Großes zu finden, ist viel, ist viel noch übrig, und wer so

     Liebte, gehet, er muß, gehet zu Göttern die Bahn.

Und geleitet ihr uns, ihr Weihestunden! ihr ernsten,

     Jugendlichen! o bleibt, heilige Ahnungen, ihr

Fromme Bitten! und ihr Begeisterungen und all ihr

     Guten Genien, die gerne bei Liebenden sind;

Bleibt so lange mit uns, bis wir auf gemeinsamem Boden

     Dort, wo die Seligen all niederzukehren bereit,

Dort, wo die Adler sind, die Gestirne, die Boten des Vaters,

     Dort, wo die Musen, woher Helden und Liebende sind,

Dort uns, oder auch hier, auf tauender Insel begegnen,

     Wo die Unsrigen erst, blühend in Gärten gesellt,

Wo die Gesänge wahr, und länger die Frühlinge schön sind,

     Und von neuem ein Jahr unserer Seele beginnt.

Day without Jews

It's cold and lonely on the day without Jews
Like I am invisible
Without the knowing touch, the wily laugh,
The snow-white expectation of the impossible.

The bread that's broken has a saltless crust
Without the case or song plied for a piece,
Or the knowledge of my absurdity as I ate.

It's seems like nothing's moving
On the day without Jews,
As figures mope like desultory ghosts
And the reason we are doing this together
Seems like an ancient code, not a holy rite.

There is no talk of Chinese food,
Or the reason for the blues,
Or how to ask for what you want
On forbidden avenues,

There's only base reality
Staring back like an electric eye
As if life is for dying.

On the day without Jews
Your only friends are objects,
Which are only what they seem,
And what is can never be seen
As what should be.

It's all we can do to not admit
A family curse still rules us.
It's all we can do to not pretend
We think more of ourselves ...

While the Jews are reading
Backwards in their books
To find their way back here again,
We still look blankly forward
As at a heaven up ahead
We'll never reach.

In a Hot Second

The simmering street lifts into being
As years of stain and tons of tar
     Evaporate like waves,
And each expression has a life,
     Each idea breathes
And the grasses yield such secrets
     For the trees to analyze.
          The colors on the roofs rise
And fountains dematerialize,
The traps of good and bad
     Abandoned by the side.

Lantana shakes the homilies
Of every preacher who ever breathed
     Harmlessly away,
But only to say
     "There's something else,
            Can't you see?"

The Poets of Phenomena

The morning ice plant,
The thatch lair of an unclipped palm,
The asphalt sprouting golden grass through tears ...

Man has such hunger for what isn't there,
Not being aware of what is.

There is only looking.

Effects without Cause

The silence of palm blades
And the neighborhood in gold
Is just that sound

A bluesy caw propels a red dragonfly
Over the green and brown magnolia
To its lotus-boat flower

Which is suddenly
What I wanted to say
As my feet release a leaf  to the sound

That makes the branches shake
And the mind cry
And the winds come

Disappearing on the Third Turn

Material things break, the immaterial 

Disappears, like they are two Buddhas

In disguise, asking which of them is real,

Karma the teacher, or Dharma the taught,

To liberate the student and be true?

You shine your light on the outside shapes to learn

All are separate from you – you will never know

The rivers and mountains, the eyes and mouths,

And because of that you will suffer, as a drop

In a suffering sea.

The voices within call your suffering wisdom
And your heartbreak at a broken world compassion,
And you glow in the pity that you suffer alone,
As the forms you thought were yours
Fall into the void.

But in the nothingness, there’s still an essence

That needs to be expressed – the unreal waits

To be chiseled into shape and then released –  

You act without hope, thus without intention, no second

Guessing, to let the expression breathe.

Soon you cast loose all resistance to the stream,
And the vibration of unity catches, everything you touch
Teaches the beauty of you, the mountains are a mouth
And the river has eyes, and your mercy for yourself
Becomes a cry of love for all,

For all that is comes from the way you perceive it,

As your voice becomes the wind to other people,

And your face becomes the glow on golden walls

And even you believe you'd be more yourself

Never to have existed at all.

Fear and Ice Cream in Irvine

The all-sustaining, all-devouring Job

Wears the robes of God, to render Him

More visible, if no less inscrutable

And just as confusing as to whether it’s

What you do or who you are that adds value,

Or how your soulless task could make life more holy,

Or why if you’re so unique do you find yourself

In a heartbeat on the street.

The chickens and perimeters can watch themselves, it seems,

And money compounds on trees without being told how much

It matters. This thing at the end, the product you've grown numb to,

Is dust compared to your experience in making it;

The lessons that you took are the objective truth

To the bottom line end of the rope’s illusion.

37 Gaymoor

That terrible feeling of not wanting someone to hurt

On a chair in the middle of our lawn,

Nervously rocking as I tried to explain, 

Under her cross-examination, what a heart is

— Instead of asking, for example, why

We’d been divorced for six months without my knowing.

I should have seen, in holy hindsight,

She’d been free of me the whole time, 

To tour the jewelry stores of Europe on my dime

While I cleaned up after the cat

Who'd long ago replaced me in her bed.

My love was real, it turned out, how could I have doubted?

I felt her pain and tried to ease her disappointment,

In that only way that love can be responsible,

But my love was strong enough, in the end, to exist 

On its own, with only shadows to sustain it,

But the somewhere else that was she used to maim me

With words from which there would be no recovery,

For I expected them to turn true, eventually,

When the heart she lacked had had a chance to grow,

What I stuttered to provide her as I shuffled in that chair,

Her cold raised brows as close as another can be ...

There never was a mirror, only a dark obstacle

In another's eyes, and an insatiable need to please.

I couldn’t bear, in that chair, to see her leave, somehow,

And soon I helped her move away, made promises

She’d never keep, signed her attorney's release

And, when she started to cry, after she'd attached 

My last material connection to this planet

In the name of love, I knew that nothing left to steal

Meant there was nothing left of me, and it was sad 

Equally, on this side.

I chased you, Susan, through the ruins of many lifetimes,

But you did not seem to recognize me

When I found you, and saw the scars

You didn’t need to pretend not to have,

And you preyed, as if a moment had passed,

On my compassion again, and through the cracks fell

Not the shiny new coins of this abundant realm

But my hope, the thing that sustained me 

Through centuries of unredeeming fate,

It’s a wound not just in me, but on the face

Of all I see, the wound that I was born with,

Sent to find you in the billion peopled world,

Not to heal, I learned too late, but to tolerate

The truth of pain, the endlessness of feeling.

The Abercrombie & Fitch Model

The eternal rebel kid in your living room
     is the same as the one in the photo
          and the same as you remember,
An archetype
     who held all you put in it,
     into the pout,
          the wind-brushed hair,
                the vampire pallor
-- there was a time
     a look was
          deeper than philosophy
                and just as empty,
When the world had
     stopped us dead
          in our tracks
And all we could
     muster was
          this reaction
Part-Prince, part-martyr,
     all-pirate,
Like the only heroism
     left was to die
          in an original way,
     and be mourned
          by the doomed.

The same extremity that
     drove them to that
Now drives us to envy
     of them,
How the silver plum
     hasn't yet
          crushed their crown
     and the mouths to feed
          aren't yet
          talking back,
Their poses of ancient gallantry
     grow into stone
As our jealousy
     slowly turns
           to scorn
In helpless
     waiting.

Elegies by Hölderlin: Elegy

Every day I go out, and look for the forever other,

     Where she asked long ago, only country paths;

High on chilling hills, all the shadows and the springs visit

     Ridicule on me; ghosts wander high and low,

Begging for rest; so flees the broken game into the woods,

     Where darkness is the only safe place at midday;

But the green retreat never brought back to life a heart

     Destined to sleep, as it carried the thorn around,

Not helped by light’s warmth nor the cool of the night, 

     And in the ripples of the stream his wounds are dipped in vain.

In vain he prepares the healing herbs of the earth

     And in vain the breezes stanch his foaming blood.

Woe! So it is, your gods of death, like that! To no avail,

     Once you have and firmly hold the vanquished man,

Once you have taken him down to your night,

     Then to seek, or to beg, or be angry at you,

Or to practice patience bound to your abode,

     And when you smile on him to hear the devastating song.

For he, like the other, must exist within his laws,
     Forever grow old and never leave the empire of horror.

But still not, O my soul, still not able to get used to it,

     Dreaming in the middle of a resolute sleep.

Day of love! Do you shine over the dead as well, golden one?

     Pictures from a brighter time, does she shine his light on the night?

The sweet gardens, his, her crimson evening mountains

     He welcomes, and her silent paths of the grove.

Witnesses of heavenly happiness! And her, all-seeing stars,

     The consecrated eyes that were granted me then!

You, you lovers, too, you beautiful children of the spring,

     Silent roses and, you, lilies! Often still I call, – 

Your confidant! You living all, once near the heart,

     Once truer, once brighter and more beautiful!

Days come and go, one year squeezes out the next,

     Alternates and altercates; so terribly time passes

Over mortal heads, but not with Elysian eyes,

     And the lovers are granted different lives.

Because they all, the hours and days and years of the stars

     And man, wreathed otherwise and otherwise to desire,

Happier, more sincere, all of them, as true children of the Aether,

     Lived, united in bliss, tender and eternal around us.

But we, innocuous, like the peaceful swans,

     When resting by the lake, or rocking on the waves,

Looking down onto the water, where silver clouds mirror,

     And heavenly blue's beneath the wake tails of ships,

So on earth we walked. And he, the North, threatened too,

     The enemy of lovers, creating distress, and falling

From the branches to fly in the wind, the leaves, of rain,

     And quietly we smiled, felt God and the heart

In familiar chatter, in the bright soul song,

     So at peace, wide eyed and blessed, alone.

Oh! Where are you, now, lovers? You have my eye

     Taken away from me, my heart has been lost to her.

That's why I wander madly, like a shadow, and so must 

     Live the pointlessly long life it seems remains to me.

I would like to thank, but for what? Is it not consumed, at last,

     Even the memory? The lips are taken, then they’re not,  

The better the pain to speak to me, and not enfeeble the curse,

     To throw me the strings, and wherever I begin, take them away?

That I sit dumb and idle through the day, like a child,

     Merely see, from my eye, many cold drops slip,

And in my shivering breast the all-warming sun

     Cool and fruitless dawns, like the brilliances of night,

Else I’d otherwise know! O youth! And if prayers

     Do not bring you again, not ever? Does no path lead me back?

Should it also be me, like the thousands, in the days

     After spring when you lived loving and vengeful,

But on the day of the avenging fates taken drunk

     And secretly guided without lament and song

Down into the all-sober kingdom, where, in the dark,

     Manipulative apparitions float past madly in hordes,

Where, in the slow time of frost and drought they are counted,

     Does man only in sighs earn the praise of the immortals?

But O you, who were still in way of my birth then,

     When before you I sank, rejecting the most beautiful, you,

Consolation, to look too high and to sing of the silent gods,

     Silently, in silence once of inspiration,

God’s child! Do you appear before me now, and greet me, as before,

     Do you speak once more, as before, of life and peace?

See! I have to lament and cry before you, as if thinking

     Still of the nobler time, and being, the soul, ashamed.

For too long, too long on the matted paths of the earth

     Have I, your familiar, gone lonely in your midst,

O my guardian spirit! For like the north, the cloud, the autumn day,

     Hostile spirits scurried from place to place away from me.

Thus melted away my life, O! So it has changed,

     Since, oh dear, we went to that quiet stream.

But you, you received your light in the light, O heroine!

     And you received love for your suffering, O celestial, you!

And she herself, nature, and her melodious muses

     Sang out the belittling cradle songs of home to you.

Still, still she is whole! Still she floats, from head to toe,

     Steering in silence, as usual, the Athenian, in front of me.

Blessed, blessed is she! For it eludes the children of the sky,

     Who even run from Orcus, as from the immortals themselves,

But on your brow, lenient spirit, they are content with the ending,

     As you bless and keep them safe down here, where they too steer.

Therefore cared for, you celestials! In my thanks at last

     Sounds the prayer afresh from the singer’s effortless breast.

And, as if I was with you, stood with you on the mountain heights,

     The heavenly breath enlivened me to strive.

I want to live as well! For the earth’s green paths grow

     More and more beautiful as the sun closes in on itself.

Come! It was, like a dream, yes? The bleeding wings have

     Already mended, to watch over all our hopes restored.

To serve Orcus, whom it pleases! We, who made the silence

     Into love, search for gods along our way.

And you guided us, with your votive blessing! The sincerity

     Of youth! O you remain, through our holy intuitions, our

Pious pleas, and our ecstasies, and all our

     Beautiful genii's, for you like to be with those who love, and

Will stay with us ‘til we reach the blessed islands,

     Where poets of love, ours perhaps, will be, or even go

With us where the eagles are, to the Father’s air,

     Where the muses, and all the immortals, are from,

Where the strange and familiar will astonish us again,

     And we can begin again the year of our love.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elegie

Täglich geh ich heraus und such ein Anderes immer,

     Habe längst sie befragt, alle die Pfade des Lands;

Droben die kühlenden Höhn, die Schatten alle besuch ich,

     Und die Quellen; hinauf irret der Geist und hinab,

Ruh erbittend; so flieht das getroffene Wild in die Wälder,

     Wo es um Mittag sonst sicher im Dunkel geruht;

Aber nimmer erquickt sein grünes Lager das Herz ihm

     Wieder und schlummerlos treibt es der Stachel umher.

Nicht die Wärme des Lichts und nicht die Kühle der Nacht hilft

     Und in Wogen des Stroms taucht es die Wunden umsonst.

Ihm bereitet umsonst die Erd ihr stärkendes Heilkraut

     Und sein schäumendes Blut stillen die Lüftchen umsonst.

Wehe! so ists auch, so, ihr Todesgötter! vergebens,

     Wenn ihr ihn haltet und fest habt den bezwungenen Mann,

Wenn ihr einmal hinab in eure Nacht ihn gerissen,

     Dann zu suchen, zu flehn, oder zu zürnen mit euch,

Oder geduldig auch wohl in euren Banden zu wohnen

     Und mit Lächeln von euch hören das furchtbare Lied.

Denn bestehn, wie anderes, muß in seinem Gesetze,

     Immer altern und nie enden das schaurige Reich.

Aber noch immer nicht, o meine Seele! noch kannst dus

     Nicht gewohnen und träumst mitten im eisernen Schlaf.

Tag der Liebe! scheinest du auch den Toten, du goldner!

     Bilder aus hellerer Zeit, leuchtet ihr mir in die Nacht?

Liebliche Gärten, seid, ihr abendrötlichen Berge,

     Seid willkommen, und ihr, schweigende Pfade des Hains.

Zeugen himmlischen Glücks! und ihr, allschauende Sterne,

     Die mir damals oft segnende Blicke gegönnt!

Euch, ihr Liebenden, auch, ihr schönen Kinder des Frühlings,

     Stille Rosen und euch, Lilien! nenn ich noch oft, –

Ihr Vertrauten! ihr Lebenden all, einst nahe dem Herzen,

     Einst wahrhaftiger, einst heller und schöner gesehn!

Tage kommen und gehn, ein Jahr verdränget das andre,

     Wechselnd und streitend; so tost furchtbar vorüber die Zeit

Über sterblichem Haupt, doch nicht vor seligen Augen,

     Und den Liebenden ist anderes Leben gewährt.

Denn sie alle, die Tag und Stunden und Jahre der Sterne

     Und der Menschen, zur Lust anders und anders bekränzt,

Fröhlicher, ernster, sie all, als echte Kinder des Aethers,

     Lebten, in Wonne vereint, innig und ewig um uns.

Aber wir, unschädlich gesellt, wie die friedlichen Schwäne,

     Wenn sie ruhen am See, oder, auf Wellen gewiegt,

Niedersehn in die Wasser, wo silberne Wolken sich spiegeln,

     Und das himmlische Blau unter den Schiffenden wallt,

So auf Erden wandelten wir. Und drohte der Nord auch,

     Er, der Liebenden Feind, sorgenbereitend, und fiel

Von den Ästen das Laub und flog im Winde der Regen,

     Lächelten ruhig wir, fühlten den Gott und das Herz

Unter trautem Gespräch, im hellen Seelengesange,

     So im Frieden mit uns kindlich und selig allein.

Ach! wo bist du, Liebende, nun? Sie haben mein Auge

     Mir genommen, mein Herz hab ich verloren mit ihr.

Darum irr ich umher, und wohl, wie die Schatten, so muß ich

     Leben und sinnlos dünkt lange das Übrige mir.

Danken möcht ich, aber wofür? verzehret das Letzte

     Selbst die Erinnerung nicht? nimmt von der Lippe denn nicht

Bessere Rede mir der Schmerz, und lähmet ein Fluch nicht

     Mir die Sehnen und wirft, wo ich beginne, mich weg?

Daß ich fühllos sitze den Tag und stumm, wie die Kinder,

     Nur vom Auge mir kalt öfters die Tropfe noch schleicht,

Und in schaudernder Brust die allerwärmende Sonne

     Kühl und fruchtlos mir dämmert, wie Strahlen der Nacht,

Sonst mir anders bekannt! O Jugend! und bringen Gebete

     Dich nicht wieder, dich nie? führet kein Pfad mich zurück?

Soll es werden auch mir, wie den Tausenden, die in den Tagen

     Ihres Frühlings doch auch ahndend und liebend gelebt,

Aber am trunkenen Tag von den rächenden Parzen ergriffen,

     Ohne Klag und Gesang heimlich hinuntergeführt,

Dort im allzunüchternen Reich, dort büßen im Dunkeln,

     Wo bei trügrischem Schein irres Gewimmel sich treibt,

Wo die langsame Zeit bei Frost und Dürre sie zählen,

     Nur in Seufzern der Mensch noch die Unsterblichen preist?

Aber o du, die noch am Scheidewege mir damals,

     Da ich versank vor dir, tröstend ein Schöneres wies,

Du, die Großes zu sehn und die schweigenden Götter zu singen,

     Selber schweigend mich einst stillebegeisternd gelehrt,

Götterkind! erscheinest du mir und grüßest, wie einst, mich,

     Redest wieder, wie einst, Leben und Frieden mir zu?

Siehe! weinen vor dir und klagen muß ich, wenn schon noch

     Denkend der edleren Zeit, dessen die Seele sich schämt.

Denn zu lange, zu lang auf matten Pfaden der Erde

     Bin ich, deiner gewohnt, einsam gegangen indes,

O mein Schutzgeist! denn wie der Nord die Wolke des Herbsttags

     Scheuchten von Ort zu Ort feindliche Geister mich fort.

So zerrann mein Leben, ach! so ists anders geworden,

     Seit, o Liebe, wir einst gingen am ruhigen Strom.

Aber dich, dich erhielt dein Licht, o Heldin! im Lichte,

     Und dein Dulden erhielt liebend, o Himmlische! dich.

Und sie selbst, die Natur, und ihre melodischen Musen

     Sangen aus heimischen Höhn Wiegengesänge dir zu.

Noch, noch ist sie es ganz! noch schwebt vom Haupte zur Sohle,

     Stillhinwandelnd, wie sonst, mir die Athenerin vor.

Selig, selig ist sie! denn es scheut die Kinder des Himmels

     Selbst der Orkus, es rinnt, gleich den Unsterblichen selbst,

Ihnen der milde Geist von heitersinnender Stirne,

     Wo sie auch wandeln und sind, segnend und sicher herab.

Darum möcht, ihr Himmlischen! euch ich danken und endlich

     Tönet aus leichter Brust wieder des Sängers Gebet.

Und, wie wenn ich mit ihr, auf Bergeshöhen mit ihr stand,

     Wehet belebend auch mich, göttlicher Othem mich an.

Leben will ich denn auch! schon grünen die Pfade der Erde

     Schöner und schöner schließt wieder die Sonne sich auf.

Komm! es war, wie ein Traum! die blutenden Fittige sind ja

     Schon genesen, verjüngt wachen die Hoffnungen all.

Dien im Orkus, wem es gefällt! wir, welche die stille

     Liebe bildete, wir suchen zu Göttern die Bahn.

Und geleitet ihr uns, ihr Weihestunden! ihr ernsten,

     Jugendlichen! o bleibt, heilige Ahnungen, ihr,

Fromme Bitten, und ihr Begeisterungen, und all ihr

     Schönen Genien, die gerne bei Liebenden sind,

Bleibet, bleibet mit uns, bis wir auf seligen Inseln,

     Wo die Unsern vielleicht, Dichter der Liebe, mit uns,

Oder auch, wo die Adler sind, in Lüften des Vaters,

     Dort, wo die Musen, woher all die Unsterblichen sind,

Dort uns staunend und fremd und bekannt uns wieder begegnen,

     Und von neuem ein Jahr unserer Liebe beginnt.

Another Sunday Evening Reckoning

From the evidence of the trash, our days are wasted;
How can consciousness account for what it isn't conscious of,
In its victory march of forgetfulness and blindness?

We've done something good for someone, we suppose
But what is known is only desultory,
Connected not by thought but by some instinct

We are right, as shown in our accounting of how the world reacts
To our ill-gotten gains with less than fatal punishments.
The unintended consequences all adhere to our side,

And what was never intended becomes the plan.

We know all this, despite the rolling eyes,

As we say to those we love the damnedest lies.

We're blessed to have forgotten

So we can show again what makes us worthy of this life:

That we can do a better job at everything next time.

How can the sun accept such sadness?

Like the desert dirt – useless –

Finds room for its own – lizards.

The sticks have become bones.

The tumbleweeds wait like haystacks – rough

Becoming – the bushes shadowed with suffering –

The sporadic green screaming and shuddering –

The bleached out sea of sameness of the hollow trees

Who say “there’s nothing there” as if it’s the wind –

The cactus bulbs like bruises, wasting away,

So small they seem, together in such light –

Lone yellow daisies plea for love with such plangency –

The shade blanket dapples the spikes

While the dry bush glows with intent –

Black seeds repeat the day’s frequencies

In a kind of efflorescent death.

Lower and redder, it’s known now by the thistles

Explosive as twilight,

The leafless tufts dangerous,

The bare trees like blood vessels –

The humps and tracks and ridges come to life

As if to grieve what never was.

Then the sun, as if responding

Turns on a symphony of pity

For all it couldn’t say before,

When it said it all,

What the mountains of blue smoke now repeat

Without even knowing.

Recovering the Other

The mind is unkind,

Parts hearts every day

But souls know to roll that way,

Spirits play,

Refreshed in death’s breath

Between life’s strife,

Where what you knew isn’t true

And what you felt melts,

The you who knelt before the blues

Becomes the you who grew

By choosing shoes for new losing

Along the avenues of clues,

Going there to share,

And wear your caring stare,

So the universal brain cell can tell you

Your song is wrong,

Your touch too much, the crying

Nebula eye you rely on a lie.

Everything divides

So the other side can be pried,

The guide tried,

The decider elided,

The larger than life

Brought down to size

So it may rise

More wise next time.

Thus the sublime rhymes

Like breeze through the trees,

The invisible available to feel,

From the unassailable real.

How else could we comprehend?

How thought never comes to an end …

Gray Commute

The white sea appears through gray shapes

As the homeless come first to the streets

Bearing well-stocked carts and a wave

And a name to one another like businessmen

At elevators.

One would think that they’d be free

Of obligation’s evening animosities

But they barely can look upon the world

As it is opened, or the sun as it peeks

Through a wool lapel.

Out of the smoke of hidden motors

The workers come out holding thermos’s

From the secret treatment plant, dazed

From the all-night lightbulbs nestled in the

Rebar and 2 by 4 frames.

Temporaries, pulled from lines, are gathered

Into circles like bonfires for assignment,

They shake their feet and tilt their heads

As if listening to anything in the foreman’s instruction

But the ring of lucre.

The headlights slowly stutter down the hill,

The colors they have can't compete with the gray

Of highway and sky; meanwhile, the lateness

Of the train and the pallor of the hour

Knits furrows onto platform faces.

A curtain of light falls through the clouds,

And a bluetoothed salesman begs a client

To not hang up by holding himself hostage

Pleading all the things he will do and say

To make the day not wasted.

The sky is as metallic as the containers

Where more, in hordes, submit

To the molds that require the mind

To be wound and unwound like clocks to chase

The moments at a distance.

Though the data to extract and condense
Will never relent, they are so slow to act,

Resistant at every step, as they tighten

Their straps, fasten bags, and fidget

Gnashing until dark,

Lost inside and fumbling for each other’s arms,

Which become, as easily as the sun is released,

Something real, not just to be desired, but

As needed as the tracks that bolt

Uncooperative wires for spark.

Billboard on Hill

The wind that whisks the people through the city

Fills their heads with thoughts as well,

The tenuous and discontinuous

Multi-tasked facts, spontaneous conjecture,

Memories conveniently retrieved

And inconclusively released ...

The wind must cultivate these reveries 

In the moment before they flee

As if a needle dropped in the spin

Would reveal a symphony,

But there’s only the bluster of the wind

And the face of Dudamel like an archon.