Were we split or shaken by qualms and quarrels,
Quaked from boughs in bushels no longer cherished;
Were we rocked from resting upon our laurels,
Laureates perished,

Sense would part from substance, go unattended,
Try to sense itself, but not sensing ever;
Substance lacking sense would be left unmended,
Parted forever:

Blue apart from sky, for the air was looted;
Red not rock nor flame nor a beating bloodline;
Grassless green, the sod and the seed uprooted;
Light without sunshine;

Heat without the sun's heavy tide of summer;
Sweet without a tongue nor a licking lapping;
Beat without the blow of the drum, nor drummer
Steadily clapping.

Could you bear to tear our ownselves asunder?
Rather, let us bend at the laurel lightly,
Quiver little to strain not the bough whereunder
Fasten us tightly.

You wake upon a carpet soaked in wine
to feel the walls around you stretch and shrink
and press against the pressure on your spine,
unbed yourself as tucked upon by drink.
Unwind the vise that clamps around the head
and loose the ***** that tightens at the jaw.
You twist the tendons, heavy as a tread
and strip the bolts that drive into your maw.
You wobble, wisen upright with a yawn
and warble, crooning, swooning to the floor
and crumble on the carpet with a coo.
Your cogs are locked; your curtains let the dawn
abound, secured unfirmly as the door,
as bright and strident skewers ****** you.

I walk along a path
I do not know
But falter left nor right,
And, welcoming the light
Of birches, still and white
As sleeping snow,

A raven, coat that shimmers
Soft as coal,
Beside me flutters square
And, drawn like to a snare,
Alights upon the air
As on a knoll.

A ripened chestnut, trapped
Within his maw
And hard as ancient ice,
Is tightened by the vise
And shatters at the slicing
Of his jaw

To crumble into dust,
Which quick cascades
And settles, as it slows,
To carefully compose
The shape of raven toes
Where he parades.

The raven flies ahead
And, with a stamp,
His talons take a grip
Atop a wooden tip
Of birches, dead and stripped
To form a ramp.

I stumble after, fixed
Through field of black
As in a telescope,
And, clawing at the *****,
I climb it with a hope
To touch his back

And ****** a hand ahead
Just as he slumps,
Both limp but stiff, to lie
Upon his side and die.
I meet his cloudy eye
Upon the stump,

Then lift my head to find
A willow sprig,
A tendril hanging free
For me to grip. Indeed,
I climb the strip of tree,
The little twig,

And swivel in the air,
As if by choice.
I hear a humming, low,
Resounding from below—
The raven’s eyes, aglow
With Odin’s voice.

Like lightbulbs flicker, dim
with yellow light,
They sharpen with the tones
That bellow from his bones—
This god and poet moans
His heavy spite:

He damns me to the lifetime
of a bird.
My sin, I do not know
But bear the bitter woe
And close my eyes to focus
On this word:

Saṃsāra. So I feel my
Senses spill
Upon the ground
And flood out all around
And swallow every sound
Till all is still.

Steam cools in cobbles
on thin glass

above dead pressed mulch,
coarse and boggy,

near dry silt laced like foam
on salty sea.

Between one coffee and
the next,

forgotten grounds fire
their broken dust,

remember a hot, earthy cellar,
a clay oven,

in cold water clearing
the cold cup.

ONE

A dense forest, from some
skulking angle, is a vista—

Even this wildly colonnaded temple
has its nave—

If only in dry times
with shrunken leaves

A distant sun, the closest star
or hot words of light surge

As living blood through the
harmless hole in your heart

TWO

As leaves with tapering green fingers
scratch their sisters' backs

Or hard breath rustles them
through a tattered woodwind

Not only friction slides between
these skins — immutable green

Phrases indeed pass: howled
notes of irritated flesh

Or the tissues through which
some sick blood red beats blow