from Voca Me (2)

  * * *

“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.”

Note: This is two self-contained sections

from my long poem Voca Me (latin for "call me").

It is one of my "voices poems," in which

each stanza is spoken by a different

voice. More sections to follow.

from Voca Me (3)

  * * *

“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?”

Note: This is two self-contained sections

from my long poem Voca Me (latin for "call me").

It is one of my "voices poems," in which

each stanza is spoken by a different

voice. More sections to follow.