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The street is empty as a monk’s memory, and faces explode in the flames like acorns— and the dead crowd the horizon and doorways. No vein can bleed more than it already has, no scream will rise higher than it’s already risen. We will not leave! Everyone outside is waiting for the trucks and the cars loaded with honey and hostages. We will not leave! The shields of light are breaking apart before the rout and the siege; outside, everyone wants us to leave. But we will not leave! Ivory white brides behind their veils slowly walk in captivity’s glare, waiting, and everyone outside wants us to leave, but we will not leave! The big guns pound the jujube groves, destroying the dreams of the violets, extinguishing bread, killing the salt, unleashing thirst and parching lips and souls. And everyone outside is saying: “What are we waiting for? Warmth we’re denied, the air itself has been seized! Why aren’t we leaving?” Masks fill the pulpits and brothels, the places of ablution. Masks cross-eyed with utter amazement; they do not believe what is now so clear, and fall, astonished, writhing like worms, or tongues. We will not leave! Are we in the inside only to leave? Leaving is just for the masks, for pulpits and conventions. Leaving is just for the siege-that-comes-from-within, the siege that comes from the Bedouin’s loins, the siege of the brethren tarnished by the taste of the blade and the stink of crows. We will not leave! Outside they’re blocking the exits and offering their blessings to the impostor, praying, petitioning Almighty God for our deaths. 5.11.1983

Miracle of the children              the brilliant Children           the word Liquid as woodlands              Children? When she was a child I read Exodus To my daughter          'The children of Israel. . .' Pillar of fire Pillar of cloud We stared at the end Into each other's eyes                            Where She said hushed Were the adults              We dreamed to each other Miracle of the children The brilliant children                       Miracle Of their brilliance                      Miracle of

It was homemade and primitive, like pulling a tooth with a string and a slamming door, like taking out an appendix by kerosene light where dogs wandered in and out the dirt-floored room. Nothing for the pain that everyone wanted to examine, the twisted heart they thought they could shout back into place. Moaning and fluttering their fleshy hands on the wind, on the wail of the soul possessed, they certified her in a manner Inquisitional, frantic when she held to the grip of darkness, grimly determined to wait the thing out, something learned from movie sheriffs, white hats ghostly in the moonlight. When she would not answer (though they conjured her by heaven and by the all mighty names they knew), they laid hands on her and shouted down the well of her eyes. Many tongues twisted in their mouths when she went, leaving behind only the smallest tooth of wickedness.

In what way names were applied to things. Filtration. Not every word that has been applied, still exists. Through proliferation and differentiation. Airborn. Here, this speck and this speck you missed. Numbers in cell division. Spheres of doubt. The paradigm’s stitchery of unrelated points. What escapes like so much cotton batting. The building, rather, in flames. Does flight happen in an order. Dates to impugn and divluge. The laws were written on twelve tablets of bronze which were fastened to the rostra. Trembling hold. Manner of variation and shift. Vacillation hung by tactile and auditory cues.

The barstool's capacious, then ever more enclosed, with every beer, as evening erodes. A few capricious tourists off the cozy track propose unbeaten toasts. He'll soon be going back. Mannequin musicians play mandolins or thumb pianos, bleat out a reggae air on ragged banjos. The booths patter with the local lingo. Smattered English polishes the windows. An amble to the john, the mirror's random crack. The urinal's askew. He'll soon be going back. The minimal solicitudes of seven-minute flirts: blurted-out soliloquies, well-trained parting words. Insert pejorative for natives here, before a sputtered call for one more beer. Dusty carnations; carnival bric-a-brac— long-faded revaltions. He'll soon be going back.

From morn to midnight, all day through, I laugh and play as others do, I sin and chatter, just the same As others with a different name. And all year long upon the stage I dance and tumble and do rage So vehemently, I scarcely see The inner and eternal me. I have a temple I do not Visit, a heart I have forgot, A self that I have never met, A secret shrine—and yet, and yet This sanctuary of my soul Unwitting I keep white and whole, Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care To enter or to tarry there. With parted lips and outstretched hands And listening ears Thy servant stands, Call Thou early, call Thou late, To Thy great service dedicate.

For Sam Donsky The airport where all movies end: the scenery’s mobile, the people too (the people want to be moved), and the rounded stairways join set pieces like farewells in a series arc. I don’t understand how you write good scripts without knowing there are gods. I’ve learned the same things we’ve all learned: when a man runs through my hotel suite I can expect another half a second later. Also, tell me why I keep two keys, one of which unlocks something. Also, I know, we know, that you (hell-o) will have vanished before I finish saying this and turn around. “You’ll do that,” I’ll mention to the night, and spin my swivel chair, perusing the moment’s sunkenness. Meanwhile my antivirus angel is checking every file. We both know there’s a place you touch when your plane lifts off (I won’t say where), a little bolt that takes the plot apart, so closure is dismantled, because from here you can admit that nothing’s ever ended well. You have queued to show your documents. You have left behind your possessions for the kind scientists. The stairs have spun away and sunk, and in losing your itinerary your position is confirmed. Like, the first time a woman sees a diamond she just knows.

I stumble down        around torn peaks “Fit the right suit to trick them all.” the questions fall around allure. Poems floated from the hearth sparks out the mouth. I am wound up, bored we are only strangers on our way the hotel                turned slender to mind now written out (sloppy) to music dark brown wood gold mirrors (tight) The drinking songs from upper stories drag us to sleep                 a bend in the basement wall unexplained scorched. pulling on clean clothes I let myself out walk up underground to a far off hill smoke on top “The orchestra of the immense magnified inner life is now prodigious.” the strings sound down make the surface of a mirror & hang the head my forbidden past Rose & Silk the wine is young The brooks still hum with melted snow

The lords of life, the lords of life,— I saw them pass, In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim,— Use and Surprise, Surface and Dream, Succession swift and spectral Wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor of the game Omnipresent without name;— Some to see, some to be guessed, They marched from east to west: Little man, least of all, Among the legs of his guardians tall, Walked about with puzzled look. Him by the hand dear Nature took, Dearest Nature, strong and kind, Whispered, ‘Darling, never mind! To-morrow they will wear another face, The founder thou; these are thy race!’

I Like Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand Upon the desert verge of death, and say: “What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy to-morrow’s wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand? In life’s small market they had served to pay Some late-found rapture, could we but delay Till Time hath matched our means to our demand.” But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, Our gathered strength of individual pain, When Time’s long alchemy hath made it gold, Dies with us—hoarded all these years in vain, Since those that might be heir to it the mould Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. II O Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, And love’s oblivion, and remembering hate, Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight Upon our souls—and shall our hopes and fears Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, And sell us the one joy for which we wait. Had we lived longer, like had such for sale, With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, And all our longings lie within thy keep— Death, can it be the years shall naught avail? “Not so,” Death answered, “they shall purchase sleep.”