The Ancient Mariner slaughtered
this ungainly bird around my neck
like a bridle it directs my days
like a talisman it breeds only doom
the poet acts the marksman
his words aim at the all-seeing eye
to blind it of foreknowledge
to skew its vision toward the western sky

Only the bird hears my words
recited like a child's rhyme
only its wings mute my voice
flapping recklessly on deck
the music of my verse turns to spleen
for the ****** masses who assault me
the albatross a mere distraction
an impotent symbol useless and puerile

The bird's plaintive cry resounds
as the measure of all poetic voices
why speak when you can fly
why land when the weight of the world
propels you forward atop faded alexandrines
you can goose-step from height to height
or slosh through the gutter swishing music
into broken light spying feathers at your feet
biting the bullet of your humiliation
plotting the evil in all things

the surface of the sun erupts
spilling streams of brimstone
into airless passageways
where poets roam

words catch fire orbit the mind
like elliptical rocks mortared tight
they shed more heat than light
pile them high

pick only hard consonants
their Anglo-Saxon pedigree
stirs the lowest impulses of life
use them sparingly

elegance eschews vulgarity
the driving force of the body
the circulation of black blood
swallow it like wine

to name is to own
like landed gentry you parcel out
your words as possessions
****** them from the void

you must climb over the walls
of what cannot be spoken
stitch the sun's lacerations
into the fire of the poem

bonfires seep across the heath
orange flames flit like fallen stars
harvesters rake beds of straw
lay their heads on stone

earth cools the indigo night
heat pools beneath splintered scythes
faces rise in dreams' sure might
light lacquers stone

we have charted nature's hopes
from unloved loss to deep delight
wrapped in darkness we covet gems
buried in rugged stone

your eyes trail me to the meadow's edge
neon colors ooze down the ridge
we paint them as flames snuffed out
in chiseled fields of stone

And so we wait
for the barbarians,
our hearts palpitating
like bleating sheep,
our mouths dry as stone,
our thirst unslaked
by the morning dew.

Beyond the ramparts,
the sun rises blood red
above the hill
where we hunted
for secrets of
the hordes to come.

We scattered high
and low, far past
the statue of Poseidon
that towers
at the edge of
the wine-dark sea,
which unfurls like
a murderous storm
that would drown our crops,
batter out battlements,
power the siege to come.

And so we wait
at the gates
for the barbarians
and the tsunami
that drives them.

There is nothing left
when the snows swirl,
the wizened apple falls,
the hills turn tawny
and dry, our love lost
in the undulant
folds of the earth.
We turn together
in search of the
blessing of the cirrus-
shredded sky. Hawks
soar, return to land,
then swoop away again,
carrying our hearts
in their hypodermic
talons, now heavy
with wounded prey.
Shall we step backward
or forward? Shall we
glide silently away,
or run moaning
to the hills? All directions
collapse into one.
All directions point
elsewhere, never here,
never there, never
where we stand,
never where we stare,
yearning for the steely
hawk's return, yearning
for more than this
chilly impasse, for more
than the frisson of
this no way out.

(After Louis Glück, winner of
the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature)

I rise into the faithful, virtuous
night, misty and mysterious,
illumined by the spying moon.
White shadows point the way.

I am the light beneath the
expansive canopy of stars,
tiny and malleable, trekking
through my limn-like work.

A peak, a pinnacle, a red
plateau. These haunt me,
captivate me. I am the lost
pilgrim, perched on the edge

of expectation, serenaded
by the dark music of loss.
I am open, shapeless, ever
wondering at the capacious

sky. What shall I gain or lose,
bound for permanent separation,
all so my soul may not be
distracted as I limn the light?

Cavernous shadows and clouds encase
the uneven edges of my dream, a dark,
disparate dungeon of beclouded jewels.

No splendor gleams through the pinpoint
gaps. No radiance revels in the penetrating
rays that steadily stalk my internal darkness.

In the deepest center of my dream, I swoon,
wounded by love, which is the light, which
is the Living Flame of Love that sears away

all signs of soot and smudge and stain, all
distorting ripples in the window of the soul,
all disruptive detritus of the dream, its dreaded

diffidence at the prospect of illumination,
of receiving all that it is capable of receiving,
of riding the photons and waves of light

into vast fields of grandeur and affirmation,
of transformation, spilling over with power,
being and virtue, lost in labyrinthine rays

that curve and whirl and roll and plummet and bend
round the center that centers itself outside the circle
of my dream, now flooded with light, an elliptical path

that turns back on itself, leaking through crevices,
slicing up clouds, brimming with the brightest
white, a radiant white aglow with beams of white,

engulfing the bejeweled white that penetrates the center
of the soul, lanced by legions of white, lanced by flaming love,
now penetrated and pinned to the light, until I become the light.