Unrelenting pain is so nice accompanied by chords,
The wastes are so beautiful, the dreams
So impossible glitter endlessly across the sea,
As the longing we have for what will never be
Shines just beyond, like a tangible sun,
Resolved in the non-physical by being remembered
In knowing, at last, what it was for, that oakey flavor
That remained a virtue, and was almost the way it felt.
The spring salts spread their bouquet, in an approximation
Of pleasure today, but it was so cold a month ago
My bones could not stay still, and tomorrow I know
It will be uncomfortable anywhere but the water.
It takes such fluctuations to bind us to the material,
To make me as an animal chasing the physical moths
But getting lost still in the fulgurations beyond the bushes
That ease the pains before they bring on fresh new waves,
Something about being lost and alone and not included
In the passing chaos that, as much as it is felt, only exists
To be understood, in that moment.
I may look now like the void in the mirror
But somewhere there's a glass with my face,
And the eyes say: "Why do you live here, where
Rosemary blossoms like a vapor all the way to the lather
Of the shore? You should be waking up now in a lean-to,
Reaching for the day's first match." By the river that shares
So many words, where the ones the sun won't let you see
Are the poetry. It's the urge to find something that is real
Before it burns away in hungry eyes that want so little
So much, knowing it will never come--and so the arms
On the page move in heaven, form holy tones, the sound
Of the lost being left alone. It becomes a towering shadow
And grows into what they call a form, the known sublime,
The immortal, that which has been left behind
For no one to understand.
