1 hill
wide up the ways
from the foot
in a dark wood

there is a mangy
old leopard blocks
my path to make

up into where there
from which
all surrenders come

and hand not makes
but breaks;
and all lips are lovely dumb

. (i wonder where not which
this glad and homely even stitch
such rouge perhaps to be
in golden morn and noontide's lee)

for there is borne upon its breast
that wager which we all must test;
not known but leapt
–from where within–
the leaping that old Denmark guessed.

and walked by nine for harsh travail
rings that cut at entered nail;

O this guide is poet made
who meets me in that sullen glade
and pulls me forth towar' deeper paths
where life is still and sin is paid.

thyme is a mint julep stirring
in my deep hand between
heat and laughter and the cool
                      
                                              
                 ­                             cool


                                              
               ­                                cool                                                          pen­umbra




of the enormous stiff
hot softly becoming
loose with Spring

C   I   T   Y,


carrying a warm shawl
a vapor like
breath of smoothly etherizing
evening coils around
limb and throat
neatly;

the alleys are alive with
old dirt
bent through
a thousand years of sifting
and grip thrifty of
bums

doused in becoming
night (they grouse
and grumble to
find some body
of shelter ,

stealing into the
weave of
can-liners
old breath and
stale coffee            );


life is drunk a little
me with remembering

remembering the
sudden coo of
the city to watch
it grow dark and
ribbed in shadows;

i am a splinter in the quick of the night.

burning with just the tonic
of vital nothing to be between
grass and dirt forever worm
pursued and forgotten of
lip and finger

(it makes me alive to know i will be dead ) someday.

my hands mix and jingle – i feel their blood and course with them.

And the City
is big
it
feels
like
so many daughters
apart and full of
my tongue:
i eat
and
become it;

my mouth is a silent crescent,
it eclipses sound
and does not say a thing.

i sip of the body of my hand

(who is thyme;

who is a mint julep;


deeply                        )


                 .

it's still moonlight–


pushing over a             "Yes"

into "baby please

**** me




harder


                    "

remember, ,Dear
my always
fingers

through tousled
coils of sunhair
rainlight and
damp moonmusic

fold foiling
with heart
to imbue
each crisp
limit of your
breast with
darkness–caving

(in even hollow stress
wear my ardorous dress
though my neat closings near
as like even's purpl'd tress;

moves mouth:
A song through silence peer
immutable sound by guide
to ship of cloaken choler steer
toward harbors safe an' placid tides )

–i shall that lives though but only an instant of bright health
live by light that speaks
sing saying

a chord struck
by divinest stroke

resonating through all your earthly sphere

that and though
i shall die
in your chest
my immortal pulse

will ever lie

i love you that you are like your body;
the hair between lips quick
with thighs around

folded

folding inside–to be

inside of folding lips
upon slick freakness
of dark soul

(the fragment of your mouth does
inescapably the totally arduous
fist of its bulb to spread comely
each instant of pulsing life
with brutal health    .                     )

i love and i wonder
(approximately)
half dead into your
muzzle the painful spurring
of my love root

;

and your neck reaches
,hurting, to your chin
with limbic sweat ;

i love it
and it is like your body
you are

the coiled foiling of death
to remind through immutable pressure
its constant grasp.


i love it
and that occasionally
i am the body

you like to be.

.
























                                       ­                                          t
                                                               ­                as
                                                              ­               t
                                                               ­                 EE
                                             ­                              a
                                                               ­                 C
                                              ­                         h
                                                               ­  feels as shape
                                                           ­    like shape does:
                                                           ­  as like winter fist;
                                                           a juniper wi' holly kisst
            
                                                                ­         Acurled
                                                         ­                w
                                                               ­               i
                                                ­                    th
                                          ­                                i
                               ­                                              n
                                                               ­ a    curl'd   sphere
                                                          ­                   t
                                                               ­          he
                                                              ­   locke o' love
                                                            ­            an'
                                                 ­                         f
                                      ­                                       u

                                                              ­           r
                                                               ­             l
                                                  ­                      e
                                         ­                                       d
                        ­                                                            fear
­                                  

                                                               ­                        et, un deux du pleure fus

                                                            ­ that hands should hurt
  
                                  where love is new














































.

To know life is to understand that we, each of us, is a lover, selfless, kind, demure–but also that we are, simultaneously, haters, selfish, cruel, avaricious; and that in that very contradiction, is life.