873 Life poems

I create time I cannot create time I’m frozen in place I cannot be frozen I’m moving but don’t notice I notice me moving, I pay attention To the small yet immense yet Small movements that guide My limbs, my hair growth, my joint oils I don’t think about it I don’t feel it either I don’t have emotions right now I see films of divine quality I don’t see any films This black This not black To me I am I am not to me not I walk with this hollowness I walk with this blooming I’m moving outward forever Onward eternally inward I create all objects like shampoos And cats, I create nothing Like space and antimatter I resign to the clocks that keep time I surrender to the clocks that don’t keep time I’m sure about it, the color white I’m not sure about it, what is word? Oh, the loops and unloops Destiny unfolds in my knees I eat breakfast to begin the day

I flew into Denver April. Rock salt and sand peppered the asphalt reflecting myself on a downtown street where I’d paused on my route to smell lilacs. The wanton winds chortled wickedly over remnant snows in gray clumps of doom and my heart soared gladly at winter’s death but an hour later I had whiskey breath at a dead end bar full of Indians. A Winnebago woman waltzed with me and told me how handsome I truly was so I bought her drinks and felt her hips and somewhere between the grinds and dips she lifted my wallet and split.

I forget the date: en route to Austin, Texas: soda on tray. Women at the computer, mexicanas learning to read and write at the same time, a workshop, we exchange stories the crossings: Hidalgo Texas Sonora Zacatecas Chihuahua—I think of my father, for a moment— I see him again, robust, alone, walks to the park, the heat dissolves the avenues. The Nomenclature cuts across the Arctic: snare the oil, gas lines, install the stations, derricks and surveillance towers, surveys, documents, classified pouches. Carry this microscopic fissure into South Asia. Diplomats—they say, so many teams of men, they orbit in silence and loud vests and helmets, they stoop with a sweetness and sift the granules, then, they rise, oblong, hunched, on fire, ready to dig into the ice, a new boundary for the national vortex, this undeclared war; the almost-uttered war, this war begins, listen. Listen closely— I hear a rap song in the distance: "I am standin' in Lebanon watchin' everbody get it on, why am I the only one singin' this desolation song...?"

I found a four-leaf clover and was happy with my find, but with time to think it over, I’ve entirely changed my mind. I concealed it in my pocket, safe inside a paper pad, soon, much swifter than a rocket, my good fortune turned to bad. I smashed my fingers in a door, I dropped a dozen eggs, I slipped and tumbled to the floor, a dog nipped both my legs, my ring slid down the bathtub drain, my pen leaked on my shirt, I barked my shin, I missed my train, I sat on my dessert. I broke my brand-new glasses, and I couldn’t find my keys, I stepped in spilled molasses, and was stung by angry bees. When the kitten ripped the curtain, and the toast burst into flame, I was absolutely certain that the clover was to blame. I buried it discreetly in the middle of a field, now my luck has changed completely, and my wounds have almost healed. If I ever find another, I will simply let it be, or I’ll give it to my brother— he deserves it more than me.

Though half my years besiege the aged sun, I have not lived. My robust preparation Lags tardily behind fit consummation, Droops sweatily in courses just begun. Oh, I have loved and lusted with the best, Plucked momentary music from the senses; I’ve kissed a lip or two with fair pretenses And wept for softness of a woman’s breast. My mind rebounds to nether joys and pain, Toying with filth and pharisaic leaven; I know the lift up sundry peaks to heaven, And every rockless path to hell again. I wait the hour when gods have more to give Than husks and bare insatiate will to live.

I live up here And a little bit to the left And I go down only For the accidents and then Never a moment too soon Just the same it's a life it's plenty The stairs the petals she loves me Every time Nothing has changed Oh down there down there Every time The glass knights lie by their gloves of blood In the pans of the scales the helmets Brim over with water It's perfectly fair The pavements are dealt out the dice Every moment arrive somewhere You can hear the hearses getting lost in lungs Their bells stalling And then silence comes with the plate and I Give what I can Feeling It's worth it For I see What my votes the mice are accomplishing And I know I'm free This is how I live Up here and simply Others do otherwise Maybe

I’m thankful that my life doth not deceive Itself with a low loftiness, half height, And think it soars when still it dip its way Beneath the clouds on noiseless pinion Like the crow or owl, but it doth know The full extent of all its trivialness, Compared with the splendid heights above. See how it waits to watch the mail come in While ’hind its back the sun goes out perchance. And yet their lumbering cart brings me no word, Not one scrawled leaf such as my neighbors get To cheer them with the slight events forsooth, Faint ups and downs of their far distant friends— And now ’tis passed. What next? See the long train Of teams wreathed in dust, their atmosphere; Shall I attend until the last is passed? Else why these ears that hear the leader’s bells Or eyes that link me in procession? But hark! the drowsy day has done its task, Far in yon hazy field where stands a barn, Unanxious hens improve the sultry hour And with contented voice now brag their deed— A new laid egg—Now let the day decline— They’ll lay another by tomorrow’s sun.

I never hear the word “Escape” Without a quicker blood, A sudden expectation – A flying attitude! I never hear of prisons broad By soldiers battered down, But I tug childish at my bars Only to fail again!

I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. “It is futile,” I said, “You can never —” “You lie,” he cried, And ran on.

I saw him walking along slowly at night holding a tray of candy and chewing-gum: a Jewish boy of fifteen or sixteen with large black eyes and a gentle face. He sidled into a saloon and must have been ordered away because he came out promptly through the swinging doors. I wondered what he was doing far from a Jewish neighborhood. (I knew the side streets and the roughs standing about on the corners and stoops.) What a prize this shambling boy with his tray! I stepped up to warn him against leaving the brightly-lit avenue. He listened, eyed me steadily, and walked on calmly. I looked at him in astonishment and thought: has nothing frightened you? Neither the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, by the Romans, by the Crusaders? No pogrom in Russia; no Nazi death-camp in Germany? How can you still go about so calmly?