‘Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in ampulla pendere, et *** illi pueri dicerent:
Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo.’

                For Ezra Pound
                il miglior fabbro


I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony *******? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
            Frisch weht der Wind
            Der Heimat zu
            Mein Irisch Kind,
            Wo weilest du?
‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying ‘Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
‘Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
‘You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!’

II. A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carved dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
‘Jug Jug’ to ***** ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

‘My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.’

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

‘What is that noise?
                          The wind under the door.
‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’
                    Nothing again nothing.
                                                    ‘Do
‘You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
‘Nothing?’

    I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’
                                                     But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
‘With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
‘What shall we ever do?’
                             The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
hurry up please its time
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
hurry up please its time
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
hurry up please its time
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
hurry up please its time
hurry up please its time
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

III. The Fire Sermon

The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female *******, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

‘This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

      The river sweats
      Oil and tar
      The barges drift
      With the turning tide
      Red sails
      Wide
      To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
      The barges wash
      Drifting logs
      Down Greenwich reach
      Past the Isle of Dogs.
                  Weialala leia
                  Wallala leialala

      Elizabeth and Leicester
      Beating oars
      The stern was formed
      A gilded shell
      Red and gold
      The brisk swell
      Rippled both shores
      Southwest wind
      Carried down stream
      The peal of bells
      White towers
                  Weialala leia
                  Wallala leialala

‘Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.’
‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised ‘a new start’.
I made no comment. What should I resent?’
‘On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of ***** hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.’
              la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
                                A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
                               Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock wi

Twelve o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street lamp sputtered,
The street lamp muttered,
The street lamp said, ‘Regard that woman
Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.’

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street lamp said,
‘Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.’
So the hand of a child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.

The lamp hummed:
‘Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and old Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain.’
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.’

The lamp said,
‘Four o’clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.’

The last twist of the knife.

Honourable Younger Sister,

This village is a world of stone. Lanes, houses, courtyard walls, towers, pavilions, tables, benches are all hewn from ancient red rock. The stone streets are lustrous with the passage of feet and shine in the moonlight; tomorrow they will glisten in the morning rain. After six days on the path into the mountains I finally rest at this inn. Here I can buy light: to write in this loft whilst the house sleeps, though a dutiful daughter dozes against the foot of the stair-ladder to serve me should I require sustenance. Frightened by my ugliness I summoned up my sweetest voice for her and soon there was a shy smile and downcast eyes. These are long nights for the village poor, but few here as poor as those whose shelters I sought on the path. Tonight I miss the steaming breath and ceaseless rustle of the animals brought indoors for warmth and security. My travelling robes are already filthy, but my body remains clean. As soon as I depart each night’s shelter I search for a stream to strip and wash thoroughly in the ice-cold water.

Dear sister, we have both been taught that the function of letter-writing is to unburden the mind of its melancholy thoughts in the form of elegant colours; its purpose to state one’s feelings without reserve. My thoughts turn constantly on whether I have it in me to ‘summon the recluse’. Have I the stamina, the patience, the resolve to seek out these elusive souls? Such thoughts induce fear rather than melancholy, fear of failure.

Already my journey into these mountains has crossed the season of late autumn into that of early winter. I am told the russet-red leaves and pink berries of the Ash, the deceptive Rowan and speckled-leafed Lace set the mountainside alight as the sun rises into a clear sky. For me clouds hang all day in the steep valleys, and so hide the heights where the solitary ones are believed to live. They alone see with the dawn the mountain peaks aflame   It is only in the very late afternoon that the sun melts the clouds, breaks through, and enlivens the landscape, turning it gold, then amber, and a final dull red before the blue blackness of dusk descends. Beyond this village my sources tell me there is real wilderness, and paths are few. I am to be my own guide.

You and I are so adept at the play of words. Our honoured father encouraged us, and as custodian of the Imperial Archives he knew how words could be arranged to both conceal and reveal; we played with the characters as other children played with coloured stones. So with the poems we call “Chao Yin”, let us play with verb “Chao” as both to seek and to summon. Chu Hsi, a courtier of that prince of Huai-nan, was sent into the wilderness to summon an errant official back to his post. His poems speak of terrors of the mountains, their ‘murky depths sending shivers of fright’ of ‘the caves of leopards and tigers’, and of the deep forest where ‘a man climbs from fear’. The poetic form uses “Chao” as in the ancient ceremonial song “Chao ***”. This calls on a dead person’s soul to re-enter the body, so ‘a summoning of the soul’. In those times such poems argued against the recluse, the withdrawn one, and sought a return. Today there is this feeling abroad that we need to consort with the recluse, to taste his solitude. Does the solitary life speak of the ineffable Way? Or is it in the search for the solitary one that a moment of enlightenment may present itself? As the saying goes: ‘to travel one must surely uncover truth’. In my bones I feel ready to invert this old poetic form. I must summon the spirit of the recluse out of the mountain fastness, but not seek his return. I need to touch his ways, see evidence of his mountain life, for a while to walk his paths breathing the same air. In my heart I expect nothing but his absence. I foresee I may reach his shelter and find his gate ajar, though the embers of the hearth still warm. He will be on some distant peak gathering herbs. If on a precipitous path I was to turn a corner and find him before me I have no words prepared. For the moment it seems I am exploring an idea through this summoning and seeking, not a living, breathing body.

Tomorrow I shall reconnoitre. My official hairpin and staff will command any audience, but for reliable answers, I am far from confident. There is always talk, rumours, sightings. The common people respect these beings as kindly mountain spirits and guardians of the wilderness. At the fork in a path, by the crossing place of a stream, corn, persimmons and millet are left for them. Such offerings will be replaced in time by the rarest mountain herbs, wild fruits, the skin of leopard or bear.

Your last letter spoke of ‘following my path into the mountains’. You have always defied convention, so it would be no surprise to find you here on my return, although I think your Lord would not sanction it. He would find such a request unfathomable. I am still perplexed at your situation, that you, the most homely of women should be so favoured, so adorned, and yet so free. It is that confidence you hold to yourself.  

To me, you have always been the essence of woman. What knowledge I possess of your kind comes from you alone. The infrequent gropings that occasionally present themselves I have only dismissed. An hour in your company smoothes and stills both soul and body. Your movements and gestures are always quiet and true, as are your woven words that sing in my memory on the path.

I read your letter
And savoured your words,
Your sorrowful songs of separation.
I can almost imagine your face before me
And I sigh and sob out of control.
When will we meet again
To amuse ourselves with prose and verse?
How can I tell you of my misery
Except with these woven words?

Have I remembered your poem correctly? I expected no response to my own lines on our separation. On the very morning of my departure your scroll arrived. I delayed to read it, delaying further to know your words: to carry them in my memory on my journey. In our respective verse we follow the way of tradition: the lonely woman in her room; the man travelling far from home. How many thousand poems describe this antithesis?

My life has always been sheltered by the expectations of scholarship, the requirements of official rank, and more recently acclaim due to my songs and poems. This journey begins a new page, as a seeker and summoner. Follow my path deeper into the mountains, be at my side when I rest, calm my fear of the heights and the depths of dark ravines, reveal to me the words to paint the scene. Know that I share with you everything that is to come, without reservation.

Remember the words of Lun Yu: ‘The good man delights in mountains. The wise man delights in water’. In these mountains the sound of water is present everywhere.

A stony spring rinses bits of jade
Minnows now and then emerge, and disappear.
Here what need of my silk-strung gujin? –
The mountain water has its own crystal song.

Your brother Zuo Si

She gives him his eyes, she found them
Among some rubble, among some beetles

He gives her her skin
He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her
She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment

She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists
They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over her

He has assembled her spine, he cleaned each piece carefully
And sets them in perfect order
A superhuman puzzle but he is inspired
She leans back twisting this way and that, using it and laughing
Incredulous

Now she has brought his feet, she is connecting them
So that his whole body lights up

And he has fashioned her new hips
With all fittings complete and with newly wound coils, all shiningly oiled
He is polishing every part, he himself can hardly believe it

They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily
To test each new thing at each new step

And now she smoothes over him the plates of his skull
So that the joints are invisible

And now he connects her throat, her ******* and the pit of her stomach
With a single wire

She gives him his teeth, tying the the roots to the centrepin of his body

He sets the little circlets on her fingertips

She stiches his body here and there with steely purple silk

He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth

She inlays with deep cut scrolls the nape of his neck

He sinks into place the inside of her thighs

So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment
Like two gods of mud
Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care
They bring each other to perfection.

In the beginning of the college class semester we all were asked to read and inter operate:) a poem and at the end of the semester we were asked to re-inter operate:) it and see how all of our thoughts and feelings were changed after taking a class on Death and Dying. The poem is called “The Angel of Death is Always with me” by Morton Marcus. My thoughts did not change and I took over the class with my interpretation because everyone else said it is something like a reaper knocking at your door ready to take you away.

THE ANGEL OF DEATH IS ALWAYS WITH ME

The Angel of Death is always with me
the hard wild flowers of his teeth,
his body like cigar smoke
swaying through a small town jail.

He is the wind that scrapes through our months,
the train wheels grinding over our syllables.
He is the footstep continually pacing through our
chests,
the small wound in the soul,
the meteor puncturing the atmosphere.
And sometimes he is merely a quiet between the start
of an act
and its completion,
a silence so loud
it shakes you like a tree.

It is only then you look up from the wars,
from the kisses,
from the signing of business agreements;
It is only then you observe the dimensions
housed in the air of each day,
each moment;
only then you hear the old caressing the cold rims of
their sleep,
hear the middle-aged women in love with their pillows
weeping into the gray expanse of each dawn,
where young men, dozing in alleys,
envision their loneliness to be a beautiful girl
and do not know they are part of a young girl's dream,
as she does not know that she is a dream in the sleep
of middle-aged women and old men,
and that all are contained in a gray wind
that scrapes through our months.

But soon we forget that the dead sleep in buried
cities,
that our hearts contain them in ripe vaults.
We forget that beautiful women dry into parchment
and ball players collapse into ash;
that geography wrinkles and smoothes
like the expressions on a face,
and that not even children
can pick the white fruit from the night sky.

And how could we laugh while looking at the face
that falls apart like wet tobacco?
How could we wake each morning
to hear the muffled gong beating inside us,
our mouths full of shadows,
our rooms filled with a black dust?

Still,
it is humiliating to be born a bottle:
to be filled with air, emptied, filled again;
to be filled with water, emptied, filled again;
and, finally, to be filled with earth.

And yet I am glad that The Angel of Death is always
with me:
his footsteps quicken my own,
his silence makes me speak,
his wind freshens the weather of my day.
And it is because of him
I no longer think
that with each beat
my heart
is a planet drowning from within
but an ocean filling for the first time.

And This is What I Told the Class….

Adolf ****** and the **** SS come to mind after reading the clue riddled poem, “The Angel of Death is Always with me”. Hiding between the lines I find there are many reference points to the holocaust and feelings of how it might have felt from a prisoner’s point of view.

If my assumptions are valid with this interpretation as far as the relationship of “death to Life” is concerned, one would think that after witnessing all the atrocities that one saw in those concentration camps, one would almost welcome death as soon as possible as a way to escape from their living nightmare and be welcomed back into being a part of the earth so they no longer have to whisper softly, “We are the dead” and pray that they become a victim of an accident of birth.

I normally don’t comment on other people’s works in poetry for the simple fact that I try to jump into their shoes and try to understand just what it is the message they are diligently trying to convey to the reader, and in the doing of so, I feel that I might misunderstand just what it is they are trying to tell the world and in the doing of so I would then not be able to make the ranks of a poet with originality.
(SirCARSr. 4-7-14)

Some people are of God,
The thinning of their sole, torn shoes and worn clothes tell the tale only hearts of God hear. How blessed, for their treasure lies within, no fear of loss, no fear of pain because the glacier of faith they carry within is too magnificent to be beautified, yet too fearsome to let any fear linger around the edges.
Everyone of us is a keeper of that glacier. It's only, that the burns sometimes melt the forted edges of  iceberg of faith. But the keeper knows exactly when it happens, and when it can happen. And do we not sometimes melt and do we not always gather our blistering crystals, do we not bear the burns on our palms and yet we stand strongest after the burning waves of fate pass on? It melts, it smoothes, it shapes and after all the carvings in the keeper's castle, makes him even more majestic.

I get pulled out of class every Tuesday and Thursday to basically face my fears. The nice, warm, voice of the speech therapist smoothes my anxiety as she begins to tell me about how she can help me and shows me how our body is like a seed, water is the soul and our minds is like roots on a tree. My spirit feels safe. Then, she pulls out a passage to read....

(The room was filled with laughter,
The room was filled with laughter,)

Instantly, my nervousness comes back and I begin to choke on every syllable and adverbs. I sigh in a hopeless depression because I'm trying my best to fight against ... Myself.
The speech therapist tells me to try again... No matter how many times I messed up it seemed like she was always  there to guide my way to increase hope even though I felt powerless. I never stop trying. This moment made me feel like everything will be alright and I can push through anything, even though it might take alittle time because of what I have, as long as I keep trying, I can take that fear, destory it, use it to my advantage in the future and maybe be an inspiration to others that went through a similar situtation.
Welcome to chapter 2.

It was the winter my mother discovered her identical twin sister was dying. It was a season of falling into knowledge of another's body failing; the body you were born with. All that had been sculpted in a body was slowly being chipped away at day by day by day. It was a season of maybes. Maybe she tasted Ohio snow instead of morphine. Maybe behind her eyes lies another world no one has access to. Maybe she is already gone and what remains is pantomime of living. Maybe she will die before Christmas.

It was the winter I saw my mother touch someone on a regular basis. She smoothes and strokes her sister's arms as if they were soft sheets. Through sunset in the eyes to moonlight in her hands, she does this. Maybe she even whispers "taste the snow". How literal we take our lives when they are taking us on our final journey. Where do we receive direction on what to do. We don't. We go on nerve endings and will power and love we contain in the corner waiting for moments like these.

These are contained, constrained paragraphs - no combustibles here. Precise and to the point. What snakes beyond the lines that are laid out? That is the real saga. It is winter and there are a city of birds outside the window. They flock when my sister-in-law arrives with her bread crumbs. This is a parenthetical detail to the main narrative. But surrounded by family and hospice workers. Women brush their hair, people buy tickets to movies, fill their cars with gas. She does nothing but walk towards herself. Sometimes slower than before. This is her task. The dark wing she flies under and the walking, walking, walking, walking. No cold ash in the mouth here. Yes, Ohio snow and the scent of flowers in the room.

It is morning and she lies in her bed. It is afternoon and she lies in her bed. It is evening and she lies in her bed. Some say "resting" but I prefer ruminating in a roomful of memories. You are thinking that death is delicate, soft and slow and nothing dangerous about it at all once you have decided it is the road you will meet yourself on. This is no abstraction for you nor art one must be taught. Instinctual, the I in you meets it full faced. The moon glows from the bulb in the ceiling, silver speckled stucco are the stars you peer at. You do not question it. A thousand windows ago were birds water rock sand desert wind. Now there is your own pale reflection where once there was the world forever, I shall not entirely be emptied of beauties, the gift of your small breath, the drenched grass, smell of your sleep, lilies, lilies ...planetary wanderings through the black amnesia of Heaven. You touch still remember still feel still. Ambivalence rests in your red needle slammed arms. But there is beauty in blood too. The pulsing, veins and rivers of it. The deep underground river you sleep in. You there on your back eyes to the moon lit room, not a relic but a woman avoiding death's lip to her ear, the shadows on a face, the abyss of absences. The moon mingles with the image of a woman warm and flushed with life and history and future.

My aunt remembers names lucidly. The keeping of names is sacred. Before naming things and people was wind stone snow.

How to explain there are the perpetually open graves. One need not give oneself over to death. Fluid in the brain circling like liquid around a planet need not destroy you. Your bones might turn to tin but it still does not claim you. Creaking when you breathe means you still breathe. Yours is not the stone face of the woman who does not feel. The mirrors may seem to fail you, but you face them anyway. You live now in a ponderous house, with strangers, family, friends, co-workers flooding in. "Where am I"? you ask. In the citadel of love.

she sits at the dining table
afternoon sun streaming in
doing battle with the cryptic crossword
cursing the old woman she has become when words elude
the hand holding the pen wrinkled like the armpits of the of the eucalypt branches in the garden belongs to the same old crone who uses the walking stick leaning against the fading arm chair
once upon a time she held court
powerhouse of the labor party
corporate tiger
made her fortune from men in suits who cowered before her fearsome glare perfected in the bathroom mirror along with her makeup
mother, wife, business woman
she did it all and had it all
but time passes slowly with each orbit around the sun
time smoothes, soothes and wears away the edges of youth
luring you towards the twilight of lifes great destiny
the glare faded along with the eyes that now need glasses and a reading light for the evening paper
where once she stood tall against destruction of the environment
now she leans on her walking stick advocating Philip Nitschke and her right to exit at a time of her choosing
the ache in her heart for the lost vibrancy dimmed by the arthritis that makes climbing the stairs an exercise of will
prada heels and armani long ago gave way to swollen ankles, dr scholls and elastic waisted slacks
a life well lived does not make growing old any more appealing
she monitors her own decline as her friends pass away around her one by one
lingering at lifes edge as she tries to convince them its ok to go
wondering when her own turn to go will arrive or if she will find the courage to bring it on before her mind or her body betray her
taking mobility and choice in equal measure

I stood waiting for her I was told she would come
I stood waiting cold and numb
Numbed by the pain, tablets and lotions
Numbed by the hope of a notion
A notion that said I might find a cure
A cure that would let me lead a life I could finally endure

For my life has been one of repeated pain
Pain from the physical, emotional, where there is no gain
A life that is lived in between, of darkness and then sparkle
A life that is to my own heart no more than a debacle

I was told If I met her she could help me create
My own alchemy, a precious recipe that would make
A remedy that would soothe my soul allow it to rest
Allow my physical body to stop undergoing this continual test

I heard movement come through the blackness
Towards me to meet, a beautiful figure, dazzling and complete
Her beauty was breathtaking her adornment a delight
She illuminated my world at once and reignited my own light

She has a familiarity that my body recognizes, a bejeweled
Being who lights up my world with her smile and surprises
Even me as I watch and stare as she moves through the darkness
With such knowledge and without care

I follow her light down passageways and past keeps
And notice parts of my body awakening like from a sleep
A body that wants to talk to me and say
That authenticity is the alchemy from which you have strayed

Your body has such wisdom its waiting to be read.
This is the alchemy you search for, its that voice in your head
It is an illuminated manuscript  gilded with the finest gold, gold of your own making
your life experience is the beauty you need to hold.

The magic is in your intuition, that you hold deep within yourself
You follow this beautiful lady and yet she is a mirror of your own self
She came because you finally called her and she sits in front of you now
Administering her balms that lingers on your skin, it caresses the pain you feel
and smoothes you from within.

But this is a balm of your own making , made out of all your own pain
It sparkles with the light you have been seeking it is your own beauty,
Hopelessness and pain.

So look no longer for the alchemists hand, behold what you see in the
mirror and be glad that you stand, for you are a beauty to behold, a life
to be treasured, a life that is lived in, a life that can be measured.

The Universe has a vision for me, of what I am to become and Life is the artist, the sculptor. Everyday it chips away parts in which I don't need. It refines me n smoothes my sharp edges, it carves into me intricate details which will grow to define me. Everyday a part of me dies, but only to be reborn as a newer more refined individual.  Every strike of the chisel hurts, but pain is required for growth so I embrace the pain I embrace the hurt cause ultimately it will help me grow. I'm not completed yet so the blows still come, I'm an unfinished work of art. Half a stone tablet and half a man.

Blink.
And this moment will be gone.
Washed away in the tears sliding down your cheek as
We both breathe in and let the lyrics of silence
sweep up To the rooftop like billowing smoke
Spilling over the lips of
my f.m. radio because they are too
Afraid to part from our tongues,
filling our lungs with the truth we’re terrified to release,
As if speaking the words might shatter the
promises we spoke to one another in the dark
So many nights ago
Skip.
Heart beats.
And radio songs.
Until the clichéd notes embody the danger of understanding
Held behind our irises
the bitter winter air
frosts the back of our throats
Into a dagger of honesty.
Let’s both just blink and fold our hands into
Prayer, begging God that the
Stars won’t fall from your eyes because those
Were the only ones I’ve ever been able to see clearly enough to
Wish upon.

II

There’s a sliver of moon
Slicing across your face
Changing shape as you blink.

Changing shape as we change.

Each blink revealing more light until
The crescent smoothes out and
Wanes into life.

Please,
Don‘t let those tears fall from your eyes,
They carry too many promises and,
Moons aren’t supposed to melt down faces,
They’re meant to whisper hope into dreams

So blink,
And hold back your sorrows because
Tomorrow is only hours away
And the sun is rising into
The daylight that’s truly
reflecting from your pupils.

The moon is only a mirror.

III

Honestly
This moment doesn’t really matter.
You’ll blink
And it’ll fade into the next.
You’ll blink
And my wishing star will fall from your eyes
You’ll blink
And seconds pass
Into minutes
Into hours
And eventually
you’ll blink
In a new day.
A new month
A new year
Until the tears that once fell are only memories
Until the moment was just
A blink

You’ll clear your eyes and realize
You’re exactly where you are supposed to be
And the tears that fell in blinks
Watered the garden growing in between your toes and
Up to your chest
Allowing you to blossom and
Stretch the flowers held in your
Fingertips up towards heaven
To kiss reality with a smile.
You’ll blink
And you’ll have wings to fly away from all of this

I will know I played my part that night

IV

As the car filled up with our breath that night
Our eyes were kept open
Unable to shut for even a moment in
Absolute fear that if we did
The other would disappear
Beneath the shattered window of
Every word we ever spoke
Every safe retreat we built upon
A simple embrace
The simple act of blinking
Never held as much significance
As it does when grasping at terrified eyes
Peeling back to expose vulnerable
Pupils
Desperately trying to reach out its arms
And embrace some form of light

But that night
No stars were shining

And as you buried your face within
Praying hands
I learned how to blink again
Blinking
Blinking
Blinking
As I waited for everything to pass
Until I could blink
And you’d look up at me with
Sun lit eyes
A smile held against your
Irises
And I could blink
Knowing the light was coming
To wash a glow upon your face
And we could meet the sunrise
With something beautiful held in our
Hands like a surrender flag.

V

Five has always been my favorite number
You’ve always known that.
Even before you knew me or
My favorite anything
Even when we were children and you wouldn’t recognize
The shape of my face until
We made that first introduction
Blinked
and you learned my name under
The sun lit circle

We both sighed relief
As smiles crept across tight skin
Because the realization seeped into our bones
That you’ve always known
that five was my favorite number

Probably because you’ve always known me
Even when you thought you didn’t.

You did.

We were always crawling towards this
Meant for this.

Love isn’t something that appears to
Disappear.
It is a growing thing,
That starts at the birth of our toes
And wraps up each limb like vines until
It becomes apart of our voice,
And when we speak
It forms wings to kiss heaven and tell God of
Our triumph.
And just like you’ve known my favorite number was five
Before you even knew me,
Before you even realize you did,
There’s always been this love
Blinking out from our knowing eyes
And fluttering on the wings of butterflies into
each others out stretched hands.
And although the signs may have been misread
And we turned right when we should have turned left
There’s still love on our eyelashes for
One another,
But blinking only shows change
And although love doesn’t
Dissipate
Blinks can etch it into
Something we never knew existed
So blink,
And embrace the revolution
Because we both know Five is my favorite number
But there is more to this than that.

The sun still shines,
And the growth that is
Rooting between each ventricle of
Our hearts is
Leading us along the right path
Still connecting us deep beneath our
Running feet
Even if we run in different directions.

Blink.

Close your eyes just to open them
To something beautifully new.

And I will blink with you.

Trance me up, push me 'round and bring it down
Beat me a new song, pound it out, my soul to be bound
I am so wicked, so lost in your rhythms I can hardly breath
Chain me, cultivate me, give me your **** release
I am so hot for you, for your song of thumping sound

I can hardly contain my ears, my body is on fire
Push it, pound it, of your hotness I won’t tire
Your muse, your hotness I cannot pass
I wanna spank your sound

Push me to my new limits, pleasure me with your ingenuity.
Intellect my brain, pulverize my pain as I watch the world rot away
You ooze mastery, the rot of your rapaciousness, so succulent, so free.
Consume my head, feed my ears, ****** into my chest
Feed me your lust, your craziness, I am such a freakin' mess

Dance it off, sing it away, swing it 'round, I float on the ground
Your magic fingers, the smoothness of your beat, masters me
I need you, your fantasy is mine, I am yours
For now you control me

You course through my being, my chest thumps to your flashing sound.
Command me, consume me, do not let me go. Spin it, make me found
Your ethereal edge smoothes me out, makes me right.
I bed your music, my feet clap your fame, this night
But tomorrow when I wake, I will forget who you are.

"where the sun smoothes the dust-dry earth"  

the summer is not poetic,  
what is there in the gold
of the sun to write about?
just the heat and the stones
washed flat.  
the signs say you can't swim.
everything has stopped.  
there is no music in the air,
the mornings shrill and hum,
the afternoons drowse with beer.
is the ocean going to wake for me?
will it dance like a flower?  
along the dust black roads
the tarmac starts to sweat.  
torn open the thundering roads,
there is no poetry in them either.  
everywhere there are green leaves
and little drops of peace in the shade.

Fleetingly, in passing
A tremor of her lip, I see,
An anxiousness about the way she moves her eyes, averted now
And smoothes her dress as if to say…”How can this be ?”
Quietly so, in shadows, so anxiously.
Alone, so alone amidst the surging crowd…
Who throng, unaware of the quiet agony of she,
She who sits so quietly in shadow all alone….
Completely unaware the throng
And they, untouched,
Opaquely, move along
For they don’t care.
They don't care.

M.

She adjusts her veil,
smoothes her white dress of lace.
Touches up her makeup,
hiding the bruises upon her face.

He drinks all day;
barely ever makes it home.
She has someone who calls her "Mama,"
But she has never felt so alone.

The little girl hides under the table,
her tiny hands covering her ears.
Blocking out the angry screams,
and all the fighting that she hears.

Each slap gets harder,  
etched into her soul,
Mama wants to leave,
but where would they go.

Every hideous word uttered,
more stinging than the last.
What did I do to deserve this torment,
her Mama dares herself to ask.

One day it's too late,
her mama dies by Daddy's hand.
Soon the sirens fade;
the little girl never sees him again.

Mama's little girl grows up thinking,
this is how love is supposed to be.
She finds a man like Daddy,
and soon, history repeats.

First he called her ugly names,
his true colors began to show.
His words she believed,
because what other way did she know.

Mama's little girl,
now has a baby of her own,
A blue-eyed little girl,
to follow in her footsteps when she's grown.

Angry slaps, another curse.
His fist goes through the wall.
The little girl stares in horror,
"Mama, this isn't love at all."

Another fight and shameful bruises,
each word uglier and louder than before.
The pieces of her heart, jagged and torn,
she vows to fix her broken soul.

The girl packs their bags,
running away in the murky night.
She hugs her own little girl close,
as they drive out of sight.

Houses fade in the rearview mirror,
she tosses memories into the wind.
Makes God a promise,
no one will ever hurt Mama's little girl again.

She gives him his eyes, she found them
Among some rubble, among some beetles

He gives her her skin
He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her
She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment

She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists
They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over her

He has assembled her spine, he cleaned each piece carefully
And sets them in perfect order
A superhuman puzzle but he is inspired
She leans back twisting this way and that, using it and laughing
Incredulous

Now she has brought his feet, she is connecting them
So that his whole body lights up

And he has fashioned her new hips
With all fittings complete and with newly wound coils, all shiningly oiled
He is polishing every part, he himself can hardly believe it

They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily
To test each new thing at each new step

And now she smoothes over him the plates of his skull
So that the joints are invisible

And now he connects her throat, her ******* and the pit of her stomach
With a single wire

She gives him his teeth, tying the the roots to the centrepin of his body

He sets the little circlets on her fingertips

She stitches his body here and there with steely purple silk

He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth

She inlays with deep cut scrolls the nape of his neck

He sinks into place the inside of her thighs

So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment
Like two gods of mud
Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care
They bring each other to perfection.

He opens the drawer to the desk his father once owned,
that antiqued monolith from a man he never knew,
and removes a sealed, crusted envelope, his father's name
neatly penned in his mother's refined script.
He carefully slides the yellowed letter from the envelope,
unfolds it, and lays it upon the desk. As he smoothes
wrinkles from it, he reads the contents slowly, savors
the words like he once savored his mother's homemade fudge,
allowing the prose to seep into his mind
like the mellifluous melting of chocolate down his throat.
As his mother's words resound through his mind,
he recalls the austere diction of her voice,
the matter-of-fact, demanding pitch that he, as a child,
cringed in corners, hands over his ears to drown out the harshness.

The words he now reads upon faded gold sheets,
the tone of one in love, an air of magnetism and dignity,
are not words the mother he knew would convey.
And he ponders the man who left her,
why he never opened the letter from his wife,
if his coldness froze the flames of this woman
leaving her as frigid in life as she was in love.
And he wonders of the man knew a son was left behind
to pick up the icicles which fell from his mother's eyes
each time she gazed upon the photo of her husband.

He folds the letter and places it back inside the envelope,
lays it on top of a stack of his mother's mementos,
and as though to return passion to his own life,
tosses the entire contents into a waste basket, ignites
the icy memories of his family's past and watches
as flames rise, consumes, and turns them to ash.

If I could hold a word,
I'd have quite a few in my palms.
The clamminess of my hands
would dissolve them,
And they might imprint themselves
deep into my skin.
I live with these words,
I live with these women,
I dwell with this strange
reptile that can't
seem to behave.
The grains of time
continue to sift through
me.
My head is strained.
I'm breaking my wrists over the
hopeful bend
of space,
And my fingers won't stop twiddling
And now I'm driving 90 down the freeway
screaming at myself and the road.
I have a rage inside of me that's barreling its ugly face
Straight into the jaw of some unlucky recipient.
And I envy everything now,
And you're going to wish
you had seized me
right as the flower
curls over,
and smoothes out in subtle death.

Feel my breath as it smoothes over the nape of your neck
like a fog, misting our windshields as we forget our sense.
We are the closest to dependence in this small world here,
than we will ever be in a Hyde Park bench relationship.

Deuce Brother States, embrace your own Define
One which assigns your Profile to be Real
Another, by flip belongs to your Lime
Which in your Comfort does merrily Steal
Is this such Bulb, which you chose to Enjoy
Even though its Pockets carry a Plague
If, by Tempt's timing by reason deploy
Morning smoothes a Tan; Evening crumps an Ague
For a Coin as Janus begot is Enough
Even as it Matures your Chronology
Would better the Memoirs be Pure though Tough
Multiply this Peace your Anthology.
You're Ripe enough, at least in your own Crop
Whilst waiting for the Owl to perch its Drop.

i stay hungry
so knowledge will feed me
but you stay full
on the tainted process
of contaminated lies
what they feed you in these pages
a rodent wouldn't touch
but you digest it happily
for it smoothes your troubled lines
and everyone knows

lines leave wrinkles

the hint of summer on your breath
is calming still -
it lingers in the air in front of me
follows down the empty halls
fills my room

that sweetness in your voice
is calming still -
the sound rings in my ears
smoothes the ripples of my thoughts
to the rhythm of your heartbeat

and as I breathe in the
cliché of your intoxicating scent
I forget to exhale
because air seems endlessly satisfying
with that shadow of you.

I wake up, surprised
that there's light
outside my window.
The light breeze floats
something of you towards me,
and before my mind breaks
through the haze of the morning,

it's as if you never left.

We never truly get over
the great loss of life.
Like water smoothes and
shapes a rock over time,
loss carves and shapes
the soul into a much kinder
more loving person.

At least! There is no more soul to please
And I canst fly all about, as I wish;
And fantasize that the Night fakes a melody
Instead of a poised scream to me.

At least! There is none else I must be
For thou shalt, again, no listen
For such reasons are but quaint;
They all may think that I am insane.

And so, I am done thinking
Of all these twisted imaginations;
Thinking that roads are destinations,
Whilst they are just singing.

And so, I am done reading
Of the mind and my destinations;
For such pictures are just futile,
With hearts and fetal words dangling.

And who shall still strive through;
Watching over my thorough questions,
Whilst sung chords are no longer a melody,
And a melody leads not to love.

I cannot live meekly, and yet to leave;
I hath many aligned questions yet to give,
And the hardest things that are yet to say,
Although I cannot hear, nor stay;

I am the sickly sweet conundrum;
I hath only the sweetness of a poem,
And yet, not the intelligent I am,
None knows my soul, nor my name!

I am the freshly painted vision;
And yet to be, I am a *****!
None hears to glimpse, nor to listen,
The sweet of plain, poetic movements!

But yet! To be with the Moon to please
And as love remains the hardest Night;
Perhaps I am not the opulent Light,
That they shan't embrace, nor disguise me;

But yet! To be with Life to see
And yet none of these souls want me;
Perhaps all that are alive keep no virtue
Not that they shall sail again, anew.

But yet! To be with Life, and be
The sleep that smoothes all the Snow
And be there with endless time,
Be the one who knows all at once.

But yet! To be from my heart there
is but a constantly perilous fate;
Yet I shall not belong anywhere,
Nor that my ends shall be met.

But yet! To be from my heart apart
None of the banters ahead are virtuous;
And from tomorrow, chaste delights shan't grow
To be pure, to be in the know;

But yet! To be with Love and its Sigh
No wonder is bound to soar so high;
No power shall reach the greatest height
No truth shall be heard, nor bright,

But yet! To be with Fate and its Night
Our loneliness is the faintest friend;
And homelessness is the crude merit,
In the wait for new awesome clouds.

But yet! To be born anew, alight
Beside such fantasious rights, o thee;
For such feelings should be guilt,
And guilts are, normally, tight;

But yet! To glow as this sunlight
By the side of fabulous dreams,
Being the armour of loveless screams;
And such feelings, bold and contrite.

But yet! To sparkle at the bored Night
I might need my destroyed candlelight;
Although none shall attend to me;
Nor caress me in the heart, and be;

But yet! To bend at such glorious sights
And dance in imaginary beams;
Like there spread a thousand circles
With a hundred young poems, and gifts.

But yet! To glance at the sun, and feel
Such waves of poetry arise in me,
That only my words are my cold shield
With no rhymes to speak; nor to love me.

What is it that you do to me that makes me gone for three
Could it be your touch the smoothes my pain or could it be your smile that steals my heart
What beauty is before my eyes that is unlimited by pains or cries with a little that benefits a queen
Sweet baby your so fine
So sweet than sweet wine
Can I touch you and make you mine
For I want to love you till the end of time
But if the love I feel is a sin may I be commited to eternity of pain for I cannot live if thy doesn't bring the love I nedd to breath again abd again
What is it that I feel so strong. That feels to good to be wrong that makes me certain that you and I were meant to be to together for all eternity

He can play the violin
catch it up in your heart strings
The old girl has a lot of life in her yet
Riding ******* through desert storms
smoothes the wrinkles of time from her skin
Now we have electricity I can just flick the switch
and turn her on

The man who hated summer
smoothes on sweet scented lotions;
his body glistens like a waxed table.

Jobless and listless, he soaks in
lemon yellow afternoons
and smiles at the irony;
the season he's never sought
is the only one he has.

Now he never reads a paper
or greets a neighbor
or mows the lawn.

Instead he simmers on a chaise lounge
in a nest of mosquitoes and heat,
his flesh taut like sutures,
his eyes drawn shut against the sun.

Darkening under a paper white sky,
he holds his breath
while the phone rings and rings and rings.