out of the arm of one love
and into the arms of another
I have been saved from dying on the cross
by a lady who smokes ***
writes songs and stories
and is much kinder than the last,
much much kinder,
and the *** is just as good or better.
it isn't pleasant to be put on the cross and left there,
it is much more pleasant to forget a love which didn't
work
as all love
finally
doesn't work ...
it is much more pleasant to make love
along the shore in Del Mar
in room 42, and afterwards
sitting up in bed
drinking good wine, talking and touching
smoking
listening to the waves ...

I have died too many times
believing and waiting, waiting
in a room
staring at a cracked ceiling
wating for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound ...
going wild inside
while she danced with strangers in nightclubs ...
out of the arms of one love
and into the arms of another
it's not pleasant to die on the cross,
it is much more pleasant to hear your name whispered in
the dark.

I

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna;

Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

II

In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned--
A cymbal crashed,
Amid roaring horns.

III

Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.

They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side;

And as they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.

Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then, the simpering Byzantines
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

IV

Beauty is momentary in the mind--
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.

Susanna's music touched the ***** strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

outside, the cosmos swirls on,
in here, the daisies scream
and ask the walls of who they cage
they silenced stand

one prayer was broken,
and one hushed;
one was hazy,
and one too late.
one then, never offered

in the age-slicked thread
of that shapeless rosary
sun on moon falls
with naught a sound
but a sigh.
and moon on sun still

within, a finger, a finger flays—
one nail was chipped
one’s skin too dry
one, imperfect a temptation,
and aching for ache one.
one then,
left alone with a clot

ask the walls
of their unwavering serenity
as hollow, massless bones
they stand

laced with cracks,
with clatter, with
thousands an uncounted
blemished prayer,
and skins as
paints scrapped off—

waiting, waiting;
to smother the daisies
to a quiet marrow

There, she lies on the altar
Almost held the sun she—
almost in her hands
Opened up, a rose-bud chaste
petal by petal by blood, with
a sting, oh, so sweet and sweet, as
sunset reborn a bee; she was
gold and silver and black at once.

Almost held the sun she—
and no wax wings used
Oh, Icarus, loved you did a wild sky,
— yourself a light-licked doom  
as your father cried,
Your father cried for you.
A veil, as purity, as tear-coated eyes, she wore
as wings of wasps
as beetles she giggled—

Icarus, flew that you,
—and with tongue-tied elation too
Icarus,
she rambled on for hours long.
A letter she held in spring kissed of hands
—I will wed you to the sun,
her father had sworn.
The sun—and oh a sun he was,
child of the sea, some sword in honey
dipped; now her awaiting.
And blushed she did herself a dawn,
a fall's first bronze, a flicker's
childish song—

The altar, on the altar.
Almost held the sun she—
Swallowed a mayhem for the father's sin.
Icarus, tell me of the plummet.
Tell me of the greens you saw,
of blues, of whites,
of the whirling world—

Men tread around around her
their leather-hard soles all ready
to crush lost skulls an empty moor.

Twirling,
the dust, like may have, her hair
before the wedding day
Strands and strands, gently styled—
Of rays of stars, blurry through clouds,
of boughs, of wings of swans.

Spears, swords,
rubbed and rubbed to mirrors,
to lakes' lifeless serenity.
Armours, and ships laden with life, with
sails, the fluttering doves;
As the winds dance once more—
as harbours vacated, as waves torn apart for the horde, as move they on— on too the sun— as
She still lies.

Icarus, Icarus, was it the ocean
that cupped its palms, or did the soil cave in
as down into the dark's slick throat you slid?
Surely, was soft
the sea's well-loved mouth,
Surely soft or true

She lies on the altar
a trinket glossy
on a hoof, a ****** in the bell,
how does one say—
the valley of lilies, she grew it inside.
Spilled out on the stones, they are fed
to the flies.
Almost held the sun she—
Icarus, must you know

You did not sleep a wretched silence
within the womb of war.
No crescent blades you drank
down a leaking throat—
She lies on the altar,
Vanquished for moon
— for metal upon bone
for blood, for blood, for blood.

A father’s green promise—
Seasoned to rust before the king
a wilt, a quiet; a plucking, a rustle, a quiet once more as the shore is cleaned—
a speck of brown among
a thousand more
beneath the feet of the sky.

Icarus, on the altar she lies—
as insects swarm about
a ripened land far, far away—
Icarus, Icarus,
on the altar

So now I know why Mars is red...
It blushed when it saw the most beautiful star our there...
And her sweet eyes...
As for Jupiter...
It just melted when it saw those eyes...
The planet started to spin out of pure happiness...
It spun so fast...
It developed rings around its equator...
This proves sweetness brings happiness...
And I have to agree with Jupiter...
For I just can't describe the feeling of happiness when I look at your eyes...
If you see me spinning next time I see you...
You know what it means...
By the way...
My feelings for you are so big...
They will probably won't fit in this galaxy...
I love you S... I really do...

For you, on whose
Oil painted skin the stars did sleep
For you again,
Who wept, wept in vain

I’d tie a butterfly to the unwavering sky
If only as a frail worm to
lure the fish
But did we not swear to leave the winged
alone?

Yet, there they are
Causing a reckless havoc
Trying to tear open the blue
And I’d shoot them down
But the ground is ours you see

Wounded and bleeding
The dying, as a fish, squirms
A broken spear pinning him in place

And I will keep on burning this dirt
To bricks
One betrothed to other
With cement,
Your own strange creation
The one you pour out your flutes
And pluck out them strings
Like fresh born weeds
dried and crushed

Songs upon songs
We set free up the yonder

But here is a bubble that will not be butchered
Like our sacrificial blooms
Ripened and fat,
This untouched pomegranate
Ravages itself

Long did our labor weave tales out ruin
To build us a shell
Within which we now reside

Unhatched

How do we do? It is pretty
A sight
The sky chokes on dirt and dirt
Drowns in the blue
Time, a trapped moth, flutters about
It collides around in its blind frenzy
And will not settle

I keep on
Painting our dry clouds
Birds still peck at gleaming stars
And you
You live, live in vain