From Voca Me (3)

  * * *

“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 (2)

  * * *

“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.

from Voca Me

  * * *

“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.”

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.

My Dear Udnie, Part Three of Three

"My Dear Udnie" is one of what I call my "voices poems." (The title comes from a painting by Francis Picabia.) This is part three of three. Each stanza is a separate voice, though not necessarily a separate person. I bought postcards of great paintings I'd seen at great museums and these stacked up on my writing desk. Eventually, I composed this poem with each stanza prompted by a single painting.

IX

I’m in diamonds.  I do my best to provide.

But last night my wife acted out a strange scene.

God knows she was absolutely pie-eyed.

Dressed only in a bow, she grabbed my thing!

Solitaire sprawled on the rug with the dog—

goddamned loneliness, card game, my burnt knees,

the wallpaper samples in that catalog!

He says he’s good when he isn’t with me!

I buy this bird.  It’s dead but soft.  Nice.  Soft.

My woman could make nothing of these others.

So many birds you’ve brought down from aloft.

Shut up!  I don’t bargain with her lovers.

 X

 These women never let us get things done.

It’s such a basic thing to hang a man

on a cross.  And he’s not even their son.

I suppose they must do what they can.

The women weary of calling their men

to lunch they’ve made in the golden hay fields.

Harvest is a working madness for them.

They eat, to the sound of scythes, poverty’s meal.

Hurry!  The night finds the darkness.  The sea

will empty before our lamps are lit!

The fish peck eyes that can no longer see.

Hungry, we work to milk our mother’s tit.

XI

 She is the only woman left who has her hair.

Alone, in that shattered window, she sits,

nourished by food she gets from god knows where,

while I lug starving corpses to the pits.

Come, Perfect Fool!  I’ll tell your fortune,

while my girls cut your purse, pick your pocket.

I predict a fall in self-satisfaction.

You have a brain, but your actions mock it.

The sockets in the skull have been worn to

pinholes.  The jaw is a flower of flakes

in a desert stretched from red hills to blue

lakes, blooming for a dead man’s dead wife’s sake.

XII

See?  Here she is.  No man held her life.

Barbed wire and bullets were to no avail.

How swift a bird to fly above the knife.

Her body is still warm.  Her eyes are pale.

Trees are a curse on the moon, which is far

and updateless, while they stand here and grow.

My eyes stir a whirlpool of dim stars;

Diving for death, I see her and follow.

Udnie, my dear one, I see you idealized—

A fervent virgin staring at a house.

You were more than that, I realize—

A god my fervent prayer could not arouse.

My Dear Udnie, Part Two of Three

"My Dear Udnie" is one of what I call my "voices poems." This is part two of three. WARNING: THIS CONTAINS SOME SUGGESTIVE LANGUAGE. Each stanza is a separate voice, though not necessarily a separate person. I bought postcards of great paintings I'd seen at great museums and these stacked up on my writing desk. Eventually, I composed this poem with each stanza prompted by a single painting.

V

She’s flat-chested and bald between her legs,

just like me.  Not exactly.  More tummy.

But she has three boys who moon and beg,

who don’t even care if she’s a dummy!

Sister says reflections off pump and pearl

will make a window of a girl’s dress.

I know boys who laugh with their eyes, so sure

of success—if not I, then others undress.

Yeah, they were naked all right, the whores,

jiggling, cooing, squatting, touching themselves.

About as exciting as two-by-fours.

I took a big one—boobs like swinging bells.

VI

I stretch every minute looking to see

that we’re still here beneath this crooked butte.

A short nap has creased my unworthy dreams.

Alone, she’d trade the sun her red suit.

I wonder what he’s like on trapeze?

She locks her legs about his waist and must

feel it.  That and the way he grabs her knees

And dives between them, flying with lust!

Later, she said, Lover, you are a top,

spinning madly.  Clear the floor and drill

the points of the compass until we drop

down blurred dimensions, dizzy, almost ill.

VII

Holding hands, the five dancers circle

on rippling grass, naked in spirit.

As the dance turns each dancer’s miracle,

the virgin breaks the ring without regret.

The truest is the dawn dream.  Fair bodies

bathe in cool waters, or pluck roses

for the golden basket.  Stirred, she flees

the crescent-moon-crowned bull’s hypnosis.

The King has said, “Her love is food for war.”

A slut fattens him daily for the job.

How they walk!  Their genitals must be sore.

In the tower, his Queen gives birth to sobs.

VIII

Pregnant, your belly grew longer, then round.

Your breasts too.  Painful for you.  Not for me.

I watched you sleeping nude and listened, found

a new life swimming in an ancient sea.

If there’s nothing but eyes to justify

her expense, what is all this darkness?

She ignores the child.  When I get mad, she cries.

Mother laughs, thinking, poetic justice.

Our breakfast room is a chapel of light

where my husband prays to the newspapers.

It has been years.  We no longer fight.

I serve him currant jelly with capers.