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It was overcast. No hour at all was indicated by the gnomon. With difficulty I made out the slogan,Time and tide wait for no man. I had been waiting for you, Daphne, underneath the dripping laurels, near The sundial glade where first we met. I felt like Hamlet on the parapets of Elsinore, Alerted to the ectoplasmic moment, when Luna rends her shroud of cloud And sails into a starry archipelago. Then your revenant appeared and spake aloud: I am not who you think I am. For what we used to be is gone. The moment’s over, Whatever years you thought we spent together. You don’t know the story. And moreover, You mistook the drinking-fountain for a sundial. I put my lips to its whatever, And with difficulty I made out the slogan,Drink from me and you shall live forever.

Torn turned and tattered Bowed burned and battered I took untensed time by the teeth And bade it bear me banking Out over the walled welter cities and the sea Through the lightsmocked birdpocked cloudcocked sky To leave me light on a lilting planetesimal. The stone walls wailed and whimpered The bold stars paled and dimpled Godgone time gathered to a grunt And bore me bled and breaking On past parted palisades windrows and the trees Over a windcloaked nightsoaked starpoked sea To drop me where? Deep in a decadent’s dream.

for Tom Raworth a.    taupe. wald. less.    commas. into.    gelatin. * “let’s.    call. this.” my.    age. leaning.    into. some.    dream. * the.    further. he. moves.    away. the.    more. surfaces. the.    longer. they.    end. as.    her. midst. * my.    nose. of.    all. recourse. (shaped. trouble.    upon. .    siecle.) my.    polk. m’edge.

Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello Mater dolorosa , here I am hungry And ill-disposed on worn flags at your feet. Through high windows wintry sun seeps in And floods the six-tiered polychrome Apocalypse, This Sunday's text in comic strip. That's my son over by the door, impatient To be off somewhere. Other boys pose On attila's Throne while their fathers snap pictures And mothers price lace - clotheslines of lace Strung from trucks selling pizzas. Around the lagoon, your fields have grown wild; Vines redden on half-fallen fences That no longer keep the allotments apart. On some islands the women make lace, punti in aria - stitches in air - Materializing the spaces between things.

in memory of Ted Berrigan Lose a brother? Lose a pa? At the sound of the tone it will be exactly sayonara. Meet me in the lobby of Casa Purgatoria when it's Turkish bath hour.  We will sweat  out  whatever  the  fuck it is that's unclean and inside us, at least inside me.  Round and brown and getting cool. Vestigal  feeling in the monkey I cut off myself.  Having  stood beside the  catafalque  to  nominte  him for  heroism I did not expect a nom- ination  for  tragedy  to be so rapidly forthcoming. You saw as well as I  did  how  the  hot  afternoon  was  grateful  to  him for bequeathing himself  to  its  mysterious  finitude.  Dry  and  bright and breezy and the hours were honey.  The shadow of a fully leafed-out tree over our white  knuckles.  I  would  have  liked  to  have been holding beads to show how humble  and elated I felt.  I talked of farce as if it were life. Life itself seemed  more than ever  high hips in a  form-fitting sheath. I  can  be  restfully  subdued  by  the  sight  of  long  undulant  fingers, please  let  me  show you  my entire body!  Every time  you see me re- call  my  neck  sinews,  my  piano-string  forearm  tendons,  my pneu- matic  sexual flesh,  and  my mild and erotic  eyeballs—forget the shy- ness  about me  that  you can't understand.  You can easily read in my eyes  how  voluntary  my  fantasies are,  and how flattering they are to you. Body. B-o-d-y.  Ah, the bruises.  Later for laying flowers, says the body.  O  body,  O  tough  stuff,  O  body  capable of sleep.  I break  the shaft  of  my  spear  over  my  knee  and kiss a patch of concrete.  Then from  hands  and  knees  I rise  to my full height.

Were there a tear To spare, where better To be sure the gesture Would linger than here In its own little bottle Blown from a hot bubble To mirror a tear. And were there more Than one could bear, So much the better In the hereafter for The begetter, a little Vessel to stopper Sorrow beyond measure. And were there a tear Too few, far better to hire A weeper, for where But in a tearful little Jigger does it figure No one need settle for Less than a fair share.

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame! All common things, each day's events, That with the hour begin and end, Our pleasures and our discontents, Are rounds by which we may ascend. The low desire, the base design, That makes another's virtues less; The revel of the ruddy wine, And all occasions of excess; The longing for ignoble things; The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds, That have their root in thoughts of ill; Whatever hinders or impedes The action of the nobler will; — All these must first be trampled down Beneath our feet, if we would gain In the bright fields of fair renown The right of eminent domain. We have not wings, we cannot soar; But we have feet to scale and climb By slow degrees, by more and more, The cloudy summits of our time. The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen, and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs. The distant mountains, that uprear Their solid bastions to the skies, Are crossed by pathways, that appear As we to higher levels rise. The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. Standing on what too long we bore With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, We may discern — unseen before — A path to higher destinies, Nor deem the irrevocable Past As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain.

Filene’s department store near nineteen-fifty-three: An Aunt Jemima floor Display. Red bandanna, apron holding white rolls of black fat fast against the bubbling pancakes, bowls and bowls of pale batter. This is what Donna sees across the “Cookwares” floor, and hears “Donessa?”Please, this can not be my aunt

Ladies, who of my lord would fain be told, Picture a gentle knight, full sweet to see, Though young in years, in wisdom passing old, Model of glory and of valiancy; Fair-haired, bright colour glowing in his face, Tall and well-set, broad-shouldered, finally, In all his parts a paragon of grace Except in loving wantonly, ah me! Who'd know myself, picture a woman wrought In passion and in presence after pain's And death's own bitter images, a port Of safety where untroubled rest remains; One who with neither tears, nor sighs, nor zest Wakes pity in her cruel lover's breast.

As my mother’s memory dims she’s losing her sense of smell and can’t remember the toast blackening the kitchen with smoke or sniff how nasty the breath of the dog that follows her yet from room to room, unable, himself, to hear his own bark. It’s thus they get around, the wheezing old hound stone deaf baying like a smoke alarm for his amnesiac mistress whose back from petting him is bent forever as they shuffle towards the flaming toaster and split the cindered crisp that’s left.