The wind — I smile.
The leaves — she sighs.

Some dogs have different-colored eyes.

What else? Live cables, overhead?

Remember Boston!

Boston’s dead.

Inherit this: the Harvard Bridge.
Or half-grey Winslow’s
brackish ridge.

The rotaries along Route 2
look just like his aquarium.
You

must think too long too hard about
the grass in center field,
Mike Trout

and shadows
crossing pilgrim’s graves.
Wild auburn rust —
old Compson’s slaves —

rich men, antiquing ancient Rome
and Maine,
the place that they call home.

New England’s not quite England —
not quite new. Not new, no more.

& when Telemachus leaves Ithaca
stone lions roar.

What’s a toga, but a veil
for Rome
or else a makeshift sail?

Such mantles, Doc.
We must assume
the household gods,
too, Mister Bloom!

Lift down the old cathedral.
Now paint paper cranes all black.

Tell us one last rhyme from ‘64:
bring purple back.

I. Twin whales washed dead
up on the beach —
the living bones of ornate speech.

II. The ribcaged heart that flutters
in her chest — electric mass.

What falls apart,
blood carries on —
recirculates
the last —

III. Whose lyre sang
(in sacred chords)
a complicated man?

A character,
impressed by frets —
amusing
Marianne.

IV. En archie en hoy logos, John!
Go dig a pony, boy!

All melodies begin with God:
play Pindar’s “Ode to Joy”.


TO BE CONTINUED

I. Some Very Bad News

My favorite poet was Edie.
& she said: “even as we sleep
pain that can’t forget
falls —
drop by drop.”

So where do I begin?
“Begin at the beginning.
Go on ‘til the end —
& then stop.”

II. Savage Nature

Between my fingers
& the pen

what rests? The village?
Highway 10?

Or Bethlehem —
one shining face

rekindling
some forgotten place

like Eden:
wand’ring steps, & slow?

I curse the page.
Let cursive know.

III. The Life of This World

… up North daze & miles along, a sunset before we took ourselves up broken to the mountain, to knock in a bottle of sorrow laughter + wine, Z & I wandered the boulevard, from delicatessen to barstool and on down the alley, to a square dreaming park all horseshoed with doorsteps. “Do you want to see Leonard Cohen’s house?” “Yeah, I do.” “Well … here it is”. On the road up through Vermont, we had listened to the man’s late songs — to the sounds of a fevered pilgrim mind, shuffling its cards once more and once last to make a sort of peace with the falling night. I set down lank and curled against the doorpost, gazed at a dead & dried bouquet left weeping on the stoop, and drank in the sight of the park in twilight — maple, gazebo & stone. Z stood laughingsilent for a night well spent, fixed in a beaming grin. There in the peace that was made for us — the sight of something new to take the madness from my eyes. “I thought it was there for good.”

— Tuning Up —

Michael has strange currencies.
John passes funny papers.

The werewolf’s outside Trader Vic’s,
hand-sampling Now & Laters.

— U2 (Live in Tarsus) —-

Lucifer and Ariadne —
Virgil, Mentor, Paul.

Mentat —
Quizatshad-r-ach.

All one,
so follow all.

— He Is Dead —

I could live ‘til 64,
never knowing how old Paul is.

Obla di obla
and coo-coo-ca-choo —
Tag!
Now you’re the walrus.

— You Two Live (in Tarsus) —

Berlin. These boutique references
confuse, and who to call?

The song says we’re all prisoners,
here, so — better make it
Saul.

— Song & Such —

“I guess it’s not our day”, she said,
still watching. No whales surfaced.

“At least not yet”, I thought. She smiled.

Her hair was future perfect.