They cried with one voice as they ran
toward me.
toward me.
"Wait, oh, wait, for by your dress
you seem
you seem
a voyager from our own tainted
country."
Ah! what wounds, some new, some old,
branded upon their bodies! Even now
the pain of it in memory turns me cold.
The Inferno
“Membranes in countless layers, gathered
like phyllo
dough, thick and thin
layers touching—separate, together—
the men in
death—the deaths in men.”
*
* *
“Prepared to swoon into the It
on the
operating table, I laugh,
having been out for a minute
they say was
an hour and a half.”
“A young man, I dreamed of You—
your mirror-ball
lidless eyes,
your smile a gash of scar tissue.
I saw Nothing
in Its disguises.”
“You say you believe in He Who forgets
you said you
don’t believe in God?
Is that it, then, your big secret?
Faith is not
faith, if not flawed?”
“Whose pale beast charges the air,
amazing birds,
churning ashes,
driving the roar of motherless despair,
urged by a
whip made of eyelashes?”
“I’m like an old hissing swan,
with half its
upper beak torn,
flapping up and down the lawn,
lunging in
vain at scattered corn.”
“He asked of me complete surrender.
I was not to
reveal or suppress
myself. I was
only to wonder
what other men
would not express.”
* * *
“For return of the boy, we danced
in the mask
with only one eye;
through its mouth, I glimpsed
bloody hands
and pale blue sky.”
“Seated, screened, I absolve sins
with whispered
sentences of penance.
I kneel like them and He begins
with unseen
mumbling, then silence.”
“They’ve dispensed with the crucifix!
Now we’ve a
risen Christ and cross!
Instead of the Trinity, let’s have six,
and God the
Pope, already the boss!”
“We sit cross-legged on a flower—
ankles rubbing
up and down my back.
We measure our ecstasies by the hour,
her white
flesh slowly turning black.”
“I sit by the bed, comfort the dying,
or their
survivors, know what to say
to those who profess, find myself lying
to the bitter
one gone astray.”
“A coin on my unconfessed tongue,
the host
wouldn’t melt, tasted
of nails, blood coughed from the lung.
So, sacraments
can be wasted.”
“When the person in my eye turns
away, the
breaths gather round—
exhaled fumes from light that burns
the air clean
of sight and sound.”
* * *
“Preacher tells me, ‘Believe in Hell,
where devils
chew on dead men!’
Why doesn’t he bother to tell
me what angels
do with men in Heaven?”
“Off the battlements, the bodies tossed
into the river
Styx. Some float,
some sink, but all are lost.
None find
Charon before they bloat.”
“In Dante, silly demons, afraid
of the living
who pass Hell’s gate,
believe they see Death unmade
when He has
only decided, ‘later.’”
“If I must drink this cup of Lethe,
remember what
I’ve asked Your Son,
Lord—to have His death ensure me
life, to live
in recollection.”
“Wouldn’t we, forsaken, die in Hell?”
Even spirit
couldn’t brook such horror.
So, the truth will be the final evil;
after, we’ll know
nothing more.”
“The house, they said, burned quickly.
His family of
five did not awaken.
Now there’s a new house, I see,
which their
spirits have forsaken.”
“Given the promise ever since birth
of a personal
God with white beard,
outside time, I’ll walk the earth
by roads old
Dante nicely tiered.”
* * *
“The devil, I think, might have sinned,
thinking, ‘I’m
better than my brothers,’
but not when he fought what was ordained—
one son to be
the equal of the Father.”
“As angels, meant to be, not think,
we don’t go
where not told to go.
No wonder some prefer Hell’s stink.
No smell at
all to Old So-And-So-And-So.”
“Parvati, hand poised, the flection
of her hip
sweet, if not demure,
arouses her Lord Siva’s erection,
proving gods
divine, if not pure.”
“I dream the Angel of Death’s love,
the warm
embrace of her plush arms,
her wing’s beat lifting me above
the cold
brain’s vaporous charms.”
“Two of her hands hold weapons of war,
a third a
skull of blood to her lips.
What does she hold in number four?
Her hidden
hand is what we worship.”
“’That which is spirit becomes real
when body and
heart reflect the inner
conflict of the soul,’ says Gabriel.
‘Think!’
shouts the Original Sinner.”
“Angels saw the essential elements
in pattern,
connections objectified
in simplicity, but not what it meant
when I smiled
every time I lied.”
* * *
“Adroitly, starling’s reedy piping
interprets the
dazzle its splashing
in rainwater gives wing—wing,
spray, flash,
wind clashing.”
“The surf churns.
Pocked with fossils
once life, now
petrified, mineral,
gray limestone looses its cells
upon the
sand—final, sempiternal.”
“The bee, fly, gnat, katydid,
populating the
weeds among
The fences, feed the toad, who rids
us of pests
with stuck-out tongue.”
“The lamb spit blood and died,
yet untouched
by the lion’s claw.
I knelt between them and cried
for
strength—found it in his jaw.”
“Fish at the bottom of the sea, bleak
with their
emission of pale light,
each ignorant of his shadow, seek
darkness the
way we seek insight.”
“Answer. On
both sides of a lightning
bolt, blue
beneath a red cloud,
lips smile, poised to sing.
The
sound? Answer! Sweet or loud?”
“Snow falls upon the living side
of death, the
dead stays dry
and temperate.
God called. I died
cold and wet,
not knowing why.”
* * *
“If anything has the capacity to exist,
although it
doesn’t, there must be
something. Thus, what is, mist
or dust, is
mere alternativity.”
“Light transmits the tree to the eyes,
is seen
unseen, God’s mind,
but is not the tree.
The mind lies.
Light comes
between, God’s blind.”
“Vaguely certain kites are flown
between the
wind’s unseen wings,
I fly across my father’s lawn,
thinking, wind
. . . kite . . . not string.”
“Our euphemism for death is change—
what was is no
more because
of tendencies in things to rearrange.
Thus we
interpret immutable laws.”
“The circle’s path turns progressive,
but ends where
it began. Illusion,
too, the triangle’s third successive
span. The spiral unbinds confusion.”
“If forces seek
a lower level,
perhaps we are
collapsed remains
of a universe devoid of evil,
waiting to
collapse again.”
“The speed of an object’s flight
times its
time’s velocity
is always equal to the speed of light:
space, time,
light and gravity
“are products of Creation no greater
than
consciousness, the fifth dimension.
Time may stop, but sooner or later,
I’ll see the sequel to oblivion.”
“What did he see, the man who looked
and understood
seeing was to act,
not simply a reacting to? Crooked
in a placid
pool, God became a fact.”
* * *
“Nothing is far to God, unless
you count the
vacuum of my faith,
which is uncertain and can’t guess,
won’t move
closer fearing death.”
“When, once again, all became clear,
and I knew
myself, my increase
and diminishment, something nearer
said: ‘Do not look for peace.’”
“I nod, head grown heavy in my palm.
The lion
yawns. The Word has covered
my eyelids with its black balm.
‘What,’ says
lion, ‘have you discovered?”
* * *
“On my belly sits some kind
Of man,
scratching his chin, uncertain,
I seem to think, about the blind
horse nosing
my bed-curtain.”
“If God be for us, who against
His will, man
or nation,
dares to threaten our defense—
our church,
our congregation?”
“I stood at the top of the stairs,
looking down
for the longest time,
then I fell. I
felt—it scares
me still—like
the victim of a crime.”
“Some thought me innocent of reality,
touting a god
who wouldn’t turn
his people’s thirst for brutality
against his
enemy—but they learned.”
“‘I don’t believe in Mortal Sin,’
I said. The priest: ‘Of course,
no act is unpreconditioned,
but you are
evil at its source.’”
“I’ve lived here for thirty years.
I eat and
pray, knit and sleep.
At night, I blink back the tears.
Everything I
have I bought cheap.”
“Newly confirmed, fervent, awake,
I clutched the
missal in my hands.
I said a prayer for my soul’s sake
and cursed the
devil in my glans.”
“The nuns taught me to say Hail Mary’s
as a child, to
ensure a good marriage.
I hope that quaint guarantee carries
some
indulgence for my miscarriage.”
“I’m a lonely woman, sick and weak.
The paper boy
is only thirteen,
but he responds to the little peek
I give
him. He says I’m ‘keen’.”
“I took the crozier from the Bishop’s hand,
swinging Saint
Michael and the Dragon
to set a miter on his Eminence’s head and
martyred
him. ‘Again,’ he said, ‘Again!’”
“A god my cock.
Big as a hose.
Almost all
hole. Harder than rock.
Go where the twitchy butt goes.
Snuff what it
wants. Give a fuck.”
“A nice boy, couldn’t make decisions—
he wanted
peace in the house. He said,
‘God loves all men, and all religions.’
He left the
Church. My son is dead.”
“I know He is only a god of what seems,
never of what
is. I lead my flock
in rising, self-abasing screams.
At least it
keeps them off the crack.”
“Perfectly sober, I drove with my thumb,
holding a
Manhattan in my lap,
felt the road crumble, the car jump,
thinking, I’ll
draw my own road map.”
“Armageddon was in Nineteen Seventy-five.
The flag and
evolution are Satan’s tools.
Because it’s ‘Eighty-nine and we’re alive,
the humanist
politicians think us fools.”
“Whom shall I give my small fortune?
The symphony
and the art museum
provide less eternal recognition
than carvings
on one’s mausoleum.”
“All the things that men forget,
I remember
yet. Call me Sid,
who hid in Suzie’s hairnet
‘cause Daddy
did it with his kid.”
“I had eaten, and become immortal,
so I ate
another white tab.
My eye exploded.
Infinity’s portal
soon closed up
and formed a scab.”
“My whore held a Bible by her cunt
as she kneeled
swaying above me.
I said, ‘I have sinned!’ in front
of
millions. Oh, how they love me.”
“Last year I harvested the hay,
left the bound
rolls in the field.
Resting here, I sense their decay.
Why does the
ground go untilled?”
“Not know what covetous meant,
when in
everything I had what
most would not even think to want,
I showed men
what not to covet.”
“That day the snow came down like moths,
and it was
May. I watched a squirrel
nibbling its perch—a twig tossed
by the
wind—ignoring spring’s deferral.”
“He made us like him, not Him,
teaching us to
blink, not think.
One could follow Him, or them.
I too drank
the cyanide drink.”
* * *
“We take a moment to devote
to God, the
opposite of rhyme,
a song, a single silent note,
nothing sung
in metered time.”
“My soul was like a weaned child.
It was He, not
I, who made me.
Just His laughter would reconcile
my rage with
my vanity.”
“I grew to question the pyramids—
poured cement,
not quarried rock.
Unlike Stonehenge’s cold Druids,
I knew the sun
was not a clock.”
“What they saw over Bethlehem
was the birth or
death of a star
aeons before faithless men
could look up
and say, ‘How far?’”
“My fist lay on the filthy shop
floor. I screamed along with
the saw, which would not stop.
Its teeth were
now my teeth.”
“A medium, not a personality,
a receptacle
of others’ feelings,
I discovered my true identity
in
premeditated stealing.”
“Sleep and Death being one,
conscious of
the sliding minute,
I dream to comprehend the reason
unconsciousness is infinite.”
“Dancing to quaint viols, antique
tunes, beneath
the mushroom shade,
we are like forces, strong and weak:
we spin
together, then we fade.”
“I saw three men, treacherous men,
wading a
river, murderous and wild.
It swallowed them, swallowed again.
I saw it
shiver, nauseous, defiled.”
“Upon the city’s grid of lights,
I imposed my
dynamic
rhythm—yellow, reds, whites,
and blues,
opposing, unmelodic.”
“In imitation of intercourse,
bones line up,
teeth chatter.
Fading into its depthless source,
old ecstasies
seem not to matter.”
“My concern is with the minimal
thinking life
in a man, the brute
moving away from its animal
state,
awakening, and still mute.”
“The flat black I painted
concrete,
looked like seeping oil.
I called beauty art tainted,
truth wishful
thinking soil.”
“Each of us is a devil’s penis,
thrusts the
earth above the ground.
Will conscience not wean us
from sex
before the final mound?”
“One of countless sounds, my voice
joined the
crowd’s absurd violence,
unheard of course, leaving no choice,
but proud discipline
of silence.”
“As Christ’s body I lived my life;
did He as my
head have regrets?
I think, whatever comes, afterlife
or afterdeath,
I’d rather forget.”
“He’s committed haram
against the Prophet.
You will not
read! You will hunt him
to the city of
the Riddah, where for profit
he hawks his
words like a mutakallim!”
“What was paradise?
A mere acre
or two? Or a million? And Adam and Eve.
‘This is boring,’ said their Maker,
‘Either you get busy or you leave.’”
“Once, my prayer reversed the negative—
light became
nothing, darkness radiated
life. As I
watched the sun give
off night, my
yearning was satiated.”
“Are dead grins, I used to ask,
more alike
than living faces?
Which is actor, which is mask?
One endures,
the other erases.”
“The little wrens screw up their cheeks,
stifling
laughter as the boy wriggles
up through her cool body. He seeks
her
mouth. She wakes to their
giggles.”
“‘Because you can’t know when the thief
will come, day
or night,’ said Matthew,
‘keep watch!’ referring (to my disbelief!)
to the Second
Coming. Coming for you?”
“Mine the space of those who move
along the
serpentine circle,
the house-born triangular groove.
I took my
space in place of will.”
“As I died, alone, in my bedroom,
he held out
his arms to me, cried,
‘Take the stone from the mouth of your tomb.’
I spoke, ‘Why
were you crucified?’”
“I am old.
Starlight is young.
I was dust
when its flight
began: dust the star that flung
it forth to
die into my sight.”
“What has not the shape of a dog,
can’t lie
quietly there and seem
to be or fly like a rising fog?
Reluctantly, I
change my dream.”
* * *
“Nothing is far to God, I guess.
We move
closer, the closer Death
holds us out to Him, unless,
unlike Death,
we drop our faith.”
“When, once again, all became clear,
and I knew
myself, my perfection
and diminishment, something nearer
said, ‘Prepare
for resurrection.’”
“Call me, says the bare branch to gray
skies. Call me, says the black
smoke to the stars.
Night, says day
To darkness,
will not call you back.”
* * *
“Because nobody loved me, I ate.
I stuffed
myself as though the food
was me, and that satisfied my hate.
Make no
mistake, I tasted good.”
“For months on end I’d barely move,
wouldn’t do a
thing more than eat
or piss or shit, or roughly smooth
the bone from
my stiffened meat.”
“I watched my son become a man,
not me, envied
his youth and vigor,
wanted what he could give a woman,
not me, so I
pulled the trigger.”
“Belief was my hunger, my need.
A god
collector, I was obsessed
with every man’s faith and creed,
feeling
nothing if not possessed.”
“Twelve and trembling behind the fender
of my Olds, he
wagged the twelve-gauge
at his father.
He cried at my tender
scolding. He fired at my rage.”
“I’d dance with old Death’s mother
the dance we
do on knees and chest.
I’d explain I was his brother
and she’d
clutch me to her breast.”
“Suns sit on the shoulders of the sky
no more
imperially than my head
floated above all others. Asked why,
I’d have told
you why not instead.”
* * *
“He-Who-is spoke and I obeyed,
until a second
voice, my own,
louder than the one to which it prayed,
commanded,
‘Listen to me alone!’”
“I loved a bust of Beaudelaire.
I understood
its smile—awake
and lewd. I saw
it everywhere—
idol of man
for man’s sake.”
“Beside the swollen creek, we
swore,
strutting pubescent silk.
When the word was explained to me,
I felt a kid
fallen into milk.”
“I heard Daddy say Goddammit.
I said it
too. And when
he went red swearing and hit
me, I said
Goddammit again.”
“The seventh day was God’s. He rested.
The eighth,
less holy, made a circle.
On Sunday the power of God is arrested.
On Monday a
man can perform miracles.”
“My parents like two grim wraiths
booing each
other, trapped in a fun-
house that once was love and faith,
bicker above
the song of their grandson.”
“After my rape, before my murder,
I saw blue
eyes, a toothy grin,
and pale hatred, drained of ardor,
that didn’t
know where to begin.”
“Unfaithful? I
have never told
another woman
that I love her.
My marriage vow still holds,
though I’ve
had a hundred lovers.”
“‘Thou shalt not lie or steal?’
I bought the
oath of office,
and did both.
‘A clever deal,’
the papers said,
‘A man of promise.’”
“What about my neighbor’s husband?
He considers
me fair game.
Why not the other way around?
The two, you
say, are not the same?”
* * *
“I hear a recurring note’s trace
upon the air,
but can’t for long
hold that sound as I race
to catch up
with the song.”
“It is eternal no.
The no
is eliminated,
so . . .
and we are only yes.
I know
this
this. Is this this also?”
“Today, the swaying tree made
the wind make
birds fly, swell
hearts, and songs of rejoicing fade.
When it
stopped, the birds fell.”
“If the combining of will and decision
is the valence
of faith—the choices
of the past acting upon one’s vision
of the
future—what are these voices?”
“I stood alone in a field of snow
and watched a
tree shatter the sun.
A voice said, ‘This is all you know—
a dream and
its interpretation.’”
“Sedated on the operating table,
I ceased to
be, or to be to be.
Duration after death is a fable,
I later
reasoned.” “But is eternity
time? We think
it with our eyes.
You did awaken
after all.
What, moveless, countless, lies
beyond the
clockworks of your soul?”
* * *
“There is a charm in the taste of tea,
which makes it
seem an ideal form,
that in repetition reveals the
charm of tea
to be the taste of form.”
“Every day I tried to find
one thing
through which spirit
that was my heart or god or mind
could speak
and make me quiet.”
“Welcome, Blossom.
Pink petals—
pale,
pale—white, shrivel
around your spent stigma, settle
into earth
without a shovel.”
“Continuum is continuum—
at each
vanishing point exist
space thought time vacuum
exhaled upon a
single axis.”
“The sun a rock among the canyon
faces, rapids
deafening quiet;
tracklessly, I wade.
The hidden
shadow
trembles. Swifts riot.”
“The breath left my body for the clock
and held it
stopped. When wind and rust
dissolved the clock . . . and our deadlock,
my breath
inhaled the air and dust.”
“Sunshine floods the room and red
birds
flash across the window frame.
There is no ease in joy. The dead
relax. The mind dances like flame.”
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