1

            Waves could wash away certain blue memories but they're too blue. Today I've sat in two places, my heart full of you and how in the night under a half man in the moon too soon, too soon, did love die? Today I've sat in two watery places but the rhythms will never wash away the face and smell and voice of you. Thus, I stand in the sun, like that, the breeze gently tears my beard and life becomes death.

            No, no, not that. A boat being repaired in a boatyard. And think of it! people on the planet earth! And nothing, but nothing, not even tao, is permanent. Whereas for us my dear this is a disadvantage, since I wished to be permanently a member of your arms, for me the individual I do not disappear as long as there is change. Life is like all things that are forever changing but will always remain the same. Love is one of those things.

            From hitch-hiking, as the sun descends I proclaim this, the mystery more powerful than the handshake. Thus, even unto children I have kept my silence, and even unto you I will. The white birch bending over the river fell in. It carried downstream and in one tidal sweep became a great white fish. When the sea dried up this unlucky fish grew wings anyway and became the great bird. The heavens were too small and it shattered into bits like you and I.

            To say I love you until the house falls down. Beyond the row of houses lit by street lamps and into the night I go, with and without you, both. How is it the powerful night attends you like a magician his queen? The way the sun would climb into a bottle to please me.

2

            Under a full night of black night stars, shooting and shining, turning a world of sun worlds, everything universe and cool wind, mountains of dark sound and a stream's breath song, I think often, until dawn, of your strong love. All of these true things becoming mine as a shore. And we inside as a breath baby. Listen, life darling long, four horses grazed nearby my head last night, like good luck. Struck thus I write: your love is greater than the real celestial globe.

            Something thicker and velvet than deep sea foam for you swirl lover. Something true to the events of our lives, the clear mountainous horizon of vision. Over the vast green earth O population of human and animal lovers to chewing very cud, our bond is fulfilled as a mother. A tremendous earthquake couldn't exist without us.

Wherever peaches grow I go and pick 'em.
When they get ripe I try and swipe 'em.
The farmer runs out with a shotgun and wonders where's the
      varmint gone?
I'm hiding by the railroad tracks stacking the peaches I've
      found.

Then a freight train about a mile long rolls by hauling a bucket
      of rain.
I hop aboard while beautiful clouds gather to the north.
I put my peaches in the bucket and lug it to a hidden part of
      the train.
The rain begins, the night looms in, it's summer and it's
      thoughts and warm.

To the clacking rumble and the patter I close my eyes and
      dream.
An earthquake swallows up the people who wear horrible
      masks of fright as their daily tasks are trampled.
In a favorite movie theater an illumined lady puts her hand in
      mine, warm mouths, breath, skin, hair wing-soft, whole
      bodies, wind, bare.
I open my eyes at sunrise there's a steady glow of light
      around.

If you can believe in God, you can believe the mountains go
      from purple to green.
While the last partier meanders home to bed the first farmer is
      up to milk his bread.
Fruit of the world ripens audibly and cities make a silent,
      distant sound.
Lonely guy stretches, rubs his eyes, pees out a passing train,
      has a breakfast of peaches and rainwater.

I see a green tree. It is all I want.
A dry rocky mountain and a hawk
satisfy. To die spiritually in
the hot sun and the body go on
climbing. To take the paths among
the rocks and mahogany bush.
To feed on rock lichen and blue
sky. To not need a house.

To leave my mind in the foothills.
To climb everything but blind. In
the deer shade of the cool aspens.
Forgotten by the work force and the shrew.
Bored as a badger disturbed at
its stream. Free singing as the stream
cutting the gorge. Cool as a hummingbird
in its wet spray. Caterpillar fur.

I stay in the mountains unknown.
The roof soot of the city calls me back.
The museum women shaking their bodies
at the stuffed tigers. The meditating
curators and entrepreneurs. Burro.

            --------------------------------------

Old Basho, early Spring, took fond leave of his friends,
closed his small house at edge of village,
and with one peasant companion climbed the long narrow road to
      the North.

Blessed morning!
      the day I left life behind
            but not this world of dew.

Absolute science and art of being whole
            at one and under no delusion that
                        mankind (or nature) give a ****
                                    whether you amount
                                                to something or not.
                                                            ­Narrowed down
                                                            ­            nothing

nothing but matter matters, matter, content
            of life (serious, love it) hate
                        death, for the hell of it, to
                                    see what it's like in
                                                the heart of
                                                            da­rkness.

Deeper and deeper I go
            but who would bother to **** me
                        or love me? Belonging to the drums
                                    of wooful war I
                                                woof and bay like
                                                            ­every other
                                                           ­             dog.

Down I go to the depths of material life
            the material is spirit wrought
                        by the material world. The
                                    drum and jet plane
                                                the bird and sumac
                                                           ­ the pollen
                                                          ­              seed.

No answer is forthcoming for the young fool
            importunes to ask too frequently
                        the fool's question. What
                                    is my next move. He
                                                steps lightly and does
                                                            ­not seem to care
                                                            ­            quite where.
                                                          ­                          The

material world is reality, my friend
            and sadness is the spiritual root
                        without which the love-nut
                                    may be reached only
                                                by stretching
                                                      ­      the emotions
                                                        ­                bare

raw, where desert delights exhibit
            movement in the sunlit light. Where
                        none find their way
                                    without following leaders
                                                sometimes­ the wrong way.
                                                            ­The path
                                                            ­            is

apart from the dance or the dancer who
            cutting cross country laughs
                        at his perennial fright of being
                                    caught outdoors, out of sight
                                                alone with the wind and rain
                                                            ­for days on end
                                                             ­           in hiding.
                                                         ­                           Up

on the roof, the telephone ringing,
            books getting delivered to the library free,
                        gratis, no fight, no love
                                    a meager understanding
                                                of what rolls
                                                           ­ the earth.
                                                          ­              Gravity

rolls the earth (and may sometimes rock it)
            each of us achieving the gravity of a planet
                        and pulling the world apart with our loves.
                                    Taking existence beyond the limits
                                                set for it, into
                                                            ­the universe
                                                        ­                beyond

We went out beyond the surf
            into the adirondack of trees waiting,
                        wanting nothing, mountains
                                    wanting to grow slowly.

I am feeling the shock of fast change. How to cope with it is of course the question. Listen to Beethoven through the neighbor's window? Look up from the page? Appreciate doves even though they are so numerous? I seem to have limitless choices although this cannot be true. Could I have become a computer specialist? Sure! How to remain still in the ever-maddening mandala. To remain still on the outer edge of the wheel is to ride laughingly and pluck at the gold key. I force myself down into the craw of the black vortex New York until I feel the strong oscillations gather rhythm and expel me or accept me.

What do I find within the black electric walls of this unique vortex? I find there is more space between people than I'd ever dared to hope. That my efforts are unnecessary and hopeless. I cancel my subscriptions and stop eating. I embrace wild roots and run through streets with arm around my girl.

                         --------------------------------------

What is important.
That question.
I part my lips in the middle
      and blow
eat corn chips, dipsy doodles
make love, eat grapes.
                                       In their mere chronology
events have no relation. How was making love
different from eating grapes. Differentiation

is essential to bring order from chaos. The chaos
is the accelerated change created by our own species
whose consummations have a quantum effect
      on the environment.
                                          But the chaos
existed long before, and long after us
in both more serene and violent forms.
Again a duality, but here's why.
                                                       For
each duality may then be said to be in a dual
relationship with another duality, forming
cubes.
             These cubes are difficult to join
with other cubes, unless first they are
somewhat melted.
                                 We were traveling among
these cubes, maneuvering
through a static array of equidistant points
but finding it impossible to avoid striking them.

So why the difficulty adapting. Because no species
before us had to adapt to its own effects upon
environment? No, every species must

but our adaptations (of the world) are so successful
(such fabrications!) One green, one brown

                        Two dead leaves
                              sleep-touching
             ­                       Then a breeze!

                         --------------------------------------

                        L­oveliness and loneliness
                              these periodic
                                    auras
                                  
surrender to greater force, power, strength
        whatever it is called, the clog of heels
                 upstairs to the door, turning of
                          the key, the taking out of the
                                   garbage down below, car
                                            starting, placed in
                                                              ­   gear, cat
                                                             ­             meowing

anyway, for myself, personally, speaking only
        for myself, because although the Parks
                 Department rakes the leaves as it
                          did last autumn, to keep them
                                   from clogging the sewer system,
                                            I am in a heightened
                                                      ­           state of vibration
                                                       ­                   Quivering

like a long steel pipe banged hard against an
        iron beam. The hard hat feels it in
                 his hand (on the gears) but
                          great buildings are built that
                                   nature destroys in time
                                            with a little wind
                                                            ­     water, fire

air, you glide down through the limpid air
        toward the ninety-seven story abandoned structure
                 remnant of an earlier civilization
                          abandoned but not yet entirely
                                   swept away in slow waves
                                            of change.

How cool!
this early summer evening
after a day so oppressive
even we New Yorkers move painstakingly.
The breeze in sumac trees
so why am I not more content?
The electricity went off at the bank,
spontaneous bank holiday,
so I'm broke, drinking water.

All my needs except love
fulfilled. Woman
opens her windows. How cool!
this summer evening
in New York, dense New York
the jets overhead
the people on the ground suffering
and struggling toward vague goals
or goals clear as Harry Helmsley's.

How cool and refreshing
this glass of ice water
after today's hot pavement, clothes.
During the afternoon heat
I sleep in my underwear.
What a city I murmur to myself
looking at its map. Big,
Jamaica Bay to Inwood,
the Battery to Pelham Bay.

Nowadays novels need
a few cities to move the plot.
New York, Saigon, Paris.
The protagonist
does not walk in the park. He
uses his car to get around fast.
How cool this evening in New York!
Lost among the bars and industry,
moonrise over Bronx.

Today is April 1st. Transit strike.
Mayor Koch accepting the fact. Myself,
far from crisis central, in North
Manhattan, measuring the temperature
of my apartment. In the sun it is
warm. The crows have returned again
for Spring.

Today life and the city are o.k. Watching
cat in the morning sun. Drinking tea.
My 1300 dollars will melt like summer
snow, but in the meantime, like samurai
I do not show my fear. I remain still
as on the subway and prepared to fight.

I am sitting under the emergency brake
when a coiffured Latin woman rushes aboard.
The doors close but she decides she wants
out. She bangs on the door as the train begins
to move. I see it happen on her face,
she finds the red cord and pulls,
no hesitation.

Maybe someone's hand or foot was caught
in the door. Maybe she's just selfish and
impetuous, got on the uptown not the downtown
side. Maybe the friends she could have
been with didn't get aboard. Whatever
her reason, she acted and the train obeyed.

Some of the passengers sit through the
whole thing, some of us stand. Myself,
I stand, look for the hand caught in the door.
Later, walk home through the pouring rain.
Today is April 1st. Transit strike.
Sky blue, temperatures mild. Democracy
is great.

While I'm reading a poem about it on the previous page
the girls come over to visit their boyfriends and dance
in high shoes and perfume. Their legs are strong and their voices
      high.
And the guys get high and hard thinking about what the girls are
      like behind their eyes.

That says more about me than reality. And it's exactly four lines.
Ken Patchen would say his angel smells sweet and sassy.
I feel the bony fingers of mine who has been working to stay
      alive.

Enough small poetry. One must conceive of a project -
say a poem about a bridge–or stop writing
and instead walk over the bridge at sunset and see the city in a
      nuclear war
the clocks, the Watchtower and the docks gone and no smoke.

I still exist but I'm late for my job. I'm dressed well
in honor of true love and Spring which both outlast the
      holocaust.
The manager cans me with the cold hard eyes of one who
      accepts the rules entirely.

Goodbye to the rows of dead metal desks and goodbye
to those who can take it longer than I.

The guys downstairs do not read poetry and very little prose.
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money does
      not occupy their minds.
The *** pistils of the mountain daisy is no concern of theirs
and the man upstairs who plays the horn is less than a curiosity
      but makes more noise.

When I feel like this nothing matters and this is good -
get warm with wine, turn out the lights and turn up the radio -
if only there were a woman who liked the down and out life too.

In the end someone sticks a gun in my face in the South Bronx.
How I got among the fire escapes in the sooty alley I cannot say
but it is one of my earliest memories. Perhaps it is my
      grandmother holding my hand
or one of the clowns. I say Drop that ******* gun and he blows me
      away.

I

These days I forgive myself everything. After all
I'm alone and unhappy so I give myself a little treat
whenever possible. On summer nights I remember
the good women who loved me but live with their husbands
      now.

This is not an easy life but I'm not afraid. Despair
leads me to talk too much about myself rather than
be transcendent. I trade push for shove with the world
and sitting above the river feel I could move the globe.

If I could stay out here on the roof all day,
get ****** and read the I Ching, write a few lines
and forget my troubles, I could be happy
today. Then I would go to work tomorrow.

But I rise at dawn and drink some orange juice.
It is good with ice. Buy a newspaper going to the train.


II

In this lousy life we work five days a week.
An Indian could gather a week's food in three days
and go swimming in the hot afternoon. The pleasure
civilization offers is a drive past fast food joints
on Merrick Avenue to a sea food restaurant in Freeport.

Almost everyone I know is dissatisfied with life
as we have been pressed into it. The system gives us
cancer and heart attacks and repressed sexuality when
I was born to be sensuous and enjoy another's body.
Instead I slug the world and the world slugs back.

I have five minutes to finish this poem. I remember
the smooth women I have known, remaining in bed
all morning. Our big ambitions are our curse.
We uphold our end of the society.


III

While it's true that I'm not happy, I'm very amused
at the craziness I have let myself in for.
Hopefully it's only one year of sleeping in my clothes
without a woman and drinking plenty of wine after work.

I listen to someone start a car downstairs, but that
is not my world, nor do I know any of these eight million
I live beside in the crotch of many waters. Above
Broadway Saturday, the geese fly south for winter.

This morning, in twenty minutes, I will go downstairs wearing
a shirt and tie and jacket and carrying a briefcase.
I will tear myself from the pleasures of tea and breakfast
to arrive at the office where each day my happiness is
      challenged.

I accepted humanity as a natural part of nature. When
I did that I had to pay the rent and get a job, too.


IV

A famous samurai crosses a plain in winter
looking for work. He comes to a farm community
but the farmers have no use for his skills. So
he removes his swordbelt and sets to work digging.

It is temporary employment while the seasons change.
The sky is gray and all of the women are occupied
warming their homes. None look up from their work
except to glance at the strong samurai digging.

Why is he digging in the frozen ground? The poet
knows little about farming and less about fighting.
He has put the samurai to work at a pointless task.
It is too early in the year to begin digging.

Nobody pities the pointless samurai or gives him food.
He ties on his sword and starts chopping wood.


V

These bird songs, this January morning, I look
for a way out of life. The Texas woman tells Marc
stories about the football players she's ******.

Although I complain like a blue jay about it, life
has accepted me. Walking uptown with Stephanie it's clear
how much the Empire State Building I've become.

Nevertheless, we make our own decisions. To fight war
or not. They are all my friends, I work for their success,
but choose my poison independently. For me, laziness
and anonymity when I could have been a star.

Newspapers indicate there is much to discuss besides myself
but the Muse seems to disagree. My few friends and the age
will look quaint as a daguerreotype in the light
of the holocaust. I kiss the girl of my dreams.


VI

Again it is almost Spring. It gives me only pain
to think back on past Springs when I seem to have been
someone else. The people who lived then live today
in the same bodies but changed in every other way.

Of course I must continue, with or without good humor.
What was amusing in my youth, that God's finger
could move me to another square, now makes me fear
old friends who are dead to me and yet still here.

The veil of life is thin if one doesn't believe in mystery.
Frequently it blows and reveals the thickening body,
alone, without a soul. One hopes for a consort who
through her own pain has become gentle and simple too.

If only I could share this life with a good wife.
But she would only be unhappy and bring me grief.

Almost Spring but only February
almost February but only January
only January but almost March.

Almost everyday I play my trumpet
almost every night I ride the trains
every midnight I'm on the trains.

Almost every morning I turn on the radio
every weekday I go to work
every midnight I ride the trains home.

Everyday I spend at work
almost every weekend I play the trumpet
Saturday I ride the train downtown.

Almost every night I get some sleep
only everyday I go to work
every midnight I'm on the trains.

Almost Spring but only February
almost February but only January
only January but almost March.

Not enough heat. Snow. Cold. and now rain
on Tuesday morning. traffic sloshes to work.
it is cloudy for the second straight day. the snow
was magical only for an hour. businesses might
have closed. now it's melting in a cold rain.

is the city depressing me? i ride the subway
and the people no longer seem beautiful. the noise
is just noise, no longer the power of God. i sit
slumped, still at ease, but no longer playing
with the eyes of other passengers. glance at the ads
and then go to sleep with my eyes open.

it is winter, and it should have its effect. the
difficult, dangerous season when weak creatures die
and the strong barely survive. why expect
much heat to mitigate it and the happiness of Spring?
accept cold and discomfort and the bad sound made.
it is a poor city, the seasons touch us. there is
not enough heat. snow. cold. and now rain.

I prefer to sleep and dream than face
this solitary room. No pity, I go on
without a drink and look with gay eyes on
my future in a forest or a city, someplace.

It's very amusing, what a middle class boy
like me came to, isolated in the northwest
corner of this island, caught in the deepest
loneliness and yet in my heart all this joy.

Surrounded by buildings I am not at peace
yet strangely I am, not like a zen
master but as a man in the wind who when
most despairing and oppressed is most released.

Old records, old unloved books. Sara's cheek
is a source of pleasure, but she has a friend
with whom to share it and can depend
on him for companionship throughout the week.

So I ride the subway home. I look at faces
and they look at mine, mute, animated spirits.
A crazy woman pushes aboard and exhibits
herself. To her, the passengers' glances are caresses.

I am thinking of the day
                  I came to you
                                  with a yellow rose

a passing businessman
                  said hello to you
                                  you put it in your hair

today is like that day
                  the sun is hot
                                  on a crowded city

we are discovering each other
                  anew
                                  in­ the crowd

Two people cannot see the same way but they can teach
One another their ways. One gives up body and soul
To follow the flow of the historical woman until
He can close his eyes and glide through mountains effortlessly.
He gives up earth and he gives up air, he gives up being touched
But he forgets to give up desiring to be touched. Then
One day the sun is hot or the moon is full, he desires
Uncontrollably to be touched and he flies smack
Into the mountain and never comes out the other side.

You live to prepare yourself to die. You leave behind
A wreck of strewn projects or a few icy pearls.
Incredibly you leave your voice behind saying
Over and over again the same words. You leave
Memories of yourself behind as pictures in the heads
Of people who wish you weren't dead or hadn't been alive.
They wash the pictorial body, shave it, comb your hair
The way they liked it best, cut a little here, add a little there,
Then easily, easily and kindly forget you.

Two hundred years later the wall crumbled and burned.
The ashes were spread logically across the plain,
A mathematical formula could describe the distribution.
The ashes were like seeds and from them
A thousand higher walls were made. It was lovely
To see those walls breathing imperceptibly
Shifting their glances so slowly as to go unnoticed
Behaving as if they were dead.

If I breathe, they breathe. If they are ash, so am I.
Having tried to separate myself and failed
I donate my body to science. The wall needs me
To breathe and hear. It gets my ears and lungs.
Trees need me to cast their night spells.
Are they asleep or are they dancing
A primitive fertility dance in the forest?
I choose trees because they can watch everything
From the distance of longevity.
To them I donate my soul.

Everything should be made of earth.
Earthen walls, earthen homes, earthen bodies, earthen ***.
Nothing should be made of air. Earth should inhale
And exhale air. Air should whip and caress earth.
Air should dry it out and crumble it. Earth.
Water should wet it and dissolve it. Earth.
What is the function of fire? Fire makes earth permanent
And then fire makes earth into air. Water
Makes earth into mud. Mud makes earth into homes.
Homes make earth into walls. Walls make the earth breathe.
Breathing makes the earth crumble. Crumbling
Makes the earth seed.

Peter has gotten a new job
as a bookstore clerk from one to ten
down by the river
in a sunny little house.
I've come to visit and I'm thumbing through
a book of poems
by Robinson Jeffers' brother.
Incoherent but
more interesting than this.

Out of the river rises a *** of a blob
dripping with water and begging a yen.
While he shivers
I call him a louse
and say This isn't Nippon, you!
So off he roams
probably back to his mother.
He was a nut
because he wasn't a fish.

A man and a woman are living
in a jungle. The man has lived there
all his life but the woman is new
so she's scared. The jungle is full
of snapping turtles and they are hunting some.
The man knows how to hunt them
and he kills a huge one. They drag it home
and leave it on a wooden table
in a clearing overnight. He says to the woman
Tomorrow you will clean it and cook it
in a soup. This
will accustom her to turtles
and make her less afraid.

The next morning they wake up.
But when they go into the clearing
the turtle is gone
and there's a trail of blood
leading into the jungle.
The woman panics with terror
but the man is no longer
concerned with that: he grabs
his weapons and follows
the blood into the forest.

Something created. Does the creator think ahead
or spill a storm. Rain happens. We supply the
reasons. Evaporation of water collecting over
huge expanses, condensed and pushed as clouds
over the land. We say it makes us sad or depressed.
We want to cry.

You describe the America you know and if you
are ashamed of yourself for what you see, you lie.
Or don't look. Loud noises of automobiles and
fumes. Today in Riverside Park, leaning on a rail,
the dead leaves and snow reminded me how far
from nature and life I am. The snow blew
in from the west. People passed in a smooth
slow line in front of me. Dogs trailing one
another. People hiding until crises bring them
out. Their dog smells another dog between the legs.
The master runs over to stop him. Maybe he
thinks they're going to fight. Doesn't want his
big German shepherd to hurt her dachshund.

Guy runs past in gray sweats on his tip-toes.
Glances at me. Another passes in blue sweats. Looks
longer. They think I'm a mugger. They are not
sexually attracted. I'm an opponent. I want something
they have. I look surly. Why aren't I out
running, disciplining myself, making myself healthy,
doing something. What brings you out here. You're not
doing anything but watching us and staring at the ground.

            Walking down Broadway I realized I've never lived here and still don't. Two women window shopping is strange to me. They talk about the clothes. They are friends. I slow down, I don't feel so cold. Stroll, looking at people is like a sunny day and it's a carnival. Streets different in different weather. Rainy nights are good. Cold rainy nights. Bars filled and warm. Streets empty and cold. People pass and look as members of a fraternity. They need someone and don't hide it. They will try anyone out for one night. They have tea together. They go for a drink in some neutral place. They go straight to bed in the dark. They can't see the face.

New York City is where people who are
disappearing go. It is very quiet
here, silent. A man and woman
made love below me. I could hear
the bedsprings ringing and the
woman singing in sensual pain.
My thoughts sped up as they ******
faster. Everything is dead in my room
except me and my plants. If I keep
on identifying my feelings with the
feelings of things, I too will be dead.
They are talking and laughing now. His deep
voice vibrates the air. Her laugh
is like water.

thesis: strength endures voids and emptiness.
strength constructs no homes (antithesis:

if your house leaks then on swollen days
in sullen seasons there is no home for you)

there is endless repetitious strength
enduring endlessly there is this paradox:
strength is the void endured and consequently

synthesis: enter everybody's anti-hero cross-eyed,
sees crossed eyes cross-eyed but looking in his eyes
sees straight, sees sick, sees something monstrous
something insect, sees this philosophic frippery:
that is sees man

endures in his mirror that is self-doubt,
his left arm being his right arm
his left eye sees his right eye
and no eye sees his nose right.

synthesis: enter naked the hero's fists blazing
won't put up with that mirror is laughing
smashing his left hand smashing his right hand
breaks his wrath--

enter the dumb smile of blissful blindness or
dumb sadness belting down a drink
enter an angel's colorful rags and bells
enter a man in colorful sights and smells
enter blonde beauty dragging a bulging ****.

there is the entrance where they enter through
the black hole with crescent thin edges
the animal den the fish smell the ocean motion
there is women's strength endures the stretch
forty-eight hours of warm pain
two hours of sharp pain around mid-night
last sight the tippy-toppy veins of its head
bled and blood and body and push push Push -

and the tide goes out,
enter sleep.

You are a cockroach

you are a big cockroach crawling up a pegboard
the kitchen light suddenly shines
and you must get through to the other side
but testing every evenly spaced hole you find
your shoulders will never fit
and to get away you've got to fall.

                                                          ­    fall
or refuse to crawl and wait motionless
until inspiration with an overview filters through
or you die of hunger, lack of love, fear of death
or the outlandish hands of another angry animal
with a wisdom wiser
but infinitely useless as your own.

so you die. but now the big hands are gentle
and you receive a respite of thoughtlessness
and the garbage grave has warm chicken bones
and you don't care what happens to you
or the oldest species of proud recalcitrant insects
or procreating it or foraging a grubby kitchen sink

for food. the joy of making life is new. let go,
and through the night be carried carelessly along.

i like to dress for an imaginary girl
(we will meet each other soon)   by putting on
a silk tie with subtle Chinese birds
sewn in.
she may be picturing me in her mirror
as she applies exactly the necessary line
of mascara to lengthen her lashes and darken
her eyes.
whatever begins as a mystery ends as a blind,
the nuances so well known
that birds chirp violently at their mirror images
but the pools
as they are revealed in the sunlight of
every accidental nod of the eyes remain
calm as a mirror in which there is no
image ever seen.

Whereas last night the full moon made the night resemble a cold day
Today clouds give the night its old shrouded, crowding demeanor.
Ghosts stalk the forest gleaming (at me) from just beyond the circle
      of light thrown by the fire.
You, old night, I wish to make my peace with.
Eventually I know even I (I think, I'm told) must enter naked, a cold
      north wind in winter or a gentle September breeze instructing my
      sole spirit . . . .

There exist powers overwhelming for the human body and mind.
The aborigine's untold night of meditation on the mountain, coming
      away with his life-long totem and power.
The mountains tonight are alive with benevolence that could (for one
      lacking humility and respect or the hunter's perspicacity) flame up
      into insane malevolence.
You, old complete night, I wish to make my peace with
Being utterly a creature of the water and the light.

Night on the mountain, the human animal alone, without cohorts,
      speech and music inane without other ears to listen
Yet blasting, blasting against the night
Even after fire dies, its skin still the halo beacon to nothing in nothing,
Mind pouring on the electricity, outward to friends back in the cities
Receiving in return only strange sounds.

The ear must differentiate and protect.
Just as fluids within keep the body balanced so must the ear when
      the eyes are blinded by night
Balance the mind. Eyes, heroes of the day, enjoying orgiastically
      autumnal delights
Are now slaves to every primeval passion of the mind.
But the ears: it is a sound they have heard before and can identify.

Night, old strange night (were we once acquainted?), I wish to be at
      peace with you by becoming knowledgeable.
Fear like fire clings to its fuel.
I wish to dampen passionate fears by attuning the five senses to all
      that is normal dark and day.
To know the habits and cycles of everything I live beside
And my inner spirit become a silent tide attuned to nature's lunacy.