they stormed out the corners, the screamers, the signs,
all black. but no longer occult.
i tried to walk past all the mourners in lines,
but my heart was my pillar of salt.
can heaven forgive me that i could not come?
please carry my soul to your flame!
i’ll tend to my garden and pray you reach home —
but i know that it isn’t the same.
though clouds round you gather, each knight noble stands;
the rain is the least of the cost.
o sable crusaders, my hand in your hands,
i will march with the ghosts of the lost.

Shall I march into the sea tonight?
The lighthouse-keeper asks.
The light is lit; the wind is wound;
I have no other tasks.
The rains have cycled fifty times
Since they last turned on me;
Shall I bar the windows shut tonight,
or march into the sea?

Who will find me lost at sea tonight?
The lighthouse-keeper thinks,
When shepherds turn their flock indoors,
And the barkeep turns to drink.
I am the lighthouse-keeper, but
I do not have to be;
They'll find another keeper when
They find me lost at sea.

And if the sea won't take me, love,
The lighthouse-keeper sighs,
No candle on my windowsill
Is watched by no-one's eyes —
No shadow's crossed my threshold's bounds
Since I was thirty-three —
With stones inside my pockets
Let me march into the sea.

Give me no pauper's funeral,
The lighthouse-keeper sings,
Though scant be the inheritance
You'll cobble from my things.
If my debtors come a-calling,
Tell them, forfeit every fee —
Or, if they are truly greedy,
Let them find me lost at sea.

this little piece of amethyst
was from a geode broke,
and now, beheld, it calmly sits
as if it were bespoke.
between my palms, my hands betwixt,
the stars are enveloped,
and thereupon my eyes are fixed:
a universe of hope.

follow the tracks to auschwitz.
do not bother to pretend
you see lights at the end of tunnels,
but the tunnel has an end

if your outer world is barren
grow your garden deep within
there are cruel wolves around us and
we must not let them win

hold on tight to peacetime, carry
every memory like a light
through the marching and the burning
find a reason for the fight

when the stones stand to be gathered
when the cigarette is lit
this suffering is the noble task
to which you must submit

there is work that only you can do,
love only you can give
what does life expect of you?
life expects you to live

some folks in this department
are really full of it —
a curse on those who use my poems
for some didactic ****

but blessings on the amateur
who reads, and reads again
and travels where i’ve never thought
to go, or never been

within the walls, between the lines
to make a hidden way
and use my words to say the things
i never thought to say

to make a subtle gradient
between the truths and lie —
and turn me over in my grave
that i may slower die

early to bed
and early to rise
for tonight is the night
that your enemy dies

for not all who wander
will ever be found
and we know time will put
all our foes in the ground

so close your eyes tight
and let loose your sorrow
if they don't die tonight,
they will die tomorrow.

a wasp upon a flowered branch,
around and round she flew —
her carapace electric black,
her wings electric blue.

of nectar-drops inebriate, she
swerved from bloom to bloom;
i tarried from my errand, but
she wouldn't, i assumed,

but for a while. so i went on
and she went on her way;
the busywork of insectkind
their flutterings belie.