Bells

They swell; they come promenading
into the night, at its thickest. Ding-
dong. Ding-dong. The church bells
barely visible at close distance, if where
I stand is that, if we can agree on that,
each of us listening to its melody, the way
it makes of air broken corners, the way
wind now carries it to plume and pear
and fig trees, softly. I think of it
almost as a shapelessness carrying
another shapelessness as if in promise,
or help, or
both.

Look, we're here, in the sound
and in the touch, I imagine the wind saying
of both, whistling its own version of mezzo-soprano
in belief we catch the message. She
whispers, now whistles, now sings to us in the night-time
fields of vision, but not louder--never louder--than we can
evidently, surely hear the bells' lark-clear song
over the leaves' soft
rustle.

Figures of Old Greece

If grace is defined
from masculinity to femininity, the angular
or the soft, the sharp shapes of male bodies, if grace
is a mirror of ourselves, I'd be the female-like curve
of a vase, I'd be the soft-to-softly-fading brown color inside
of it, outside of it, the postures of Greek athletics--
the bodies they had--bending, modeling the way we
normally see them: one whose head falls classically,

baroequely backwards, his whole

posture as though saying Take me. Take me, fair
Aphrodite, the other whose right arm is an u-shaped
shape around a grey discus, muscles flexed, upper body
arching to one side to give power to the throw still
to be made. Figures, all Greek. All demonstrating
masculinity, I think, inside myself, now imagining
an image of a warrior whipping hard his horse
from his chariot, now two figures wrestling For life For
glory.

About the soft feathers of a wing,

the way outstretched it suggests a softness too
soft to be anything else than female. Does that mean
it's inferior? Does it? Why are you so restless relishing
in your own fucking sex

to see another? To make it equal?

If the Leaves are, A Moment with History

[b]A Moment With History, If The Leaves Are[/b]

On the meadows, a few leaves—. Light spilling
—languorously and slowly, with
the slowness snow possesses—through history,
if the leaves are history, if we can imagine
that, where we lie--or are about to. We lie down, yes, we're barely beneath

the tree's leaves,

we watch the light, the way it splits, then comes
through the tree’s canopy; it is
history, it is history passing us

by. And we, spilling through history, too;

along with it— No: we’re
the spectators and the viewers, the watchers
with a handful of dust in our hands. We
gathered—have gathered—to catch
a moment only, expectantly, of history. Of history
in the shape of leaves.

Figures of Old Greece

Figures of Old Greece


If grace can be defined
from masculinity to feminineness, the angular
or the soft, the sharp shapes of male bodies, I'd be
the female-like curve of a vase, I'd be the soft-to-
softly-fading brown color inside of it, outside of it,
the postures of Greek athletics--the bodies they
had--bending, modeling the way we normally
see them: one

whose head falls backwards, his whole posture

as though saying Take me Take me, the other
whose right arm is an u-shaped shape around
a grey discus, muscles flexed, upper body
arching to one side to give power to the throw still
to be made. Figures, all Greek. All demonstrating
masculinity, I think, inside myself, now imagining
an image of a warrior whipping hard his horse
from his chariot, now two figures wrestling For life For glory.
Is that masculine grace? Is it? I ask, and I laugh
a laugh not a laugh. Frustration. What do they have
that we have not better? This dominance between sexes,
is it right? Is it supposed to be like this?

What about the soft feathers of a wing,

the way outstretched it suggest a softness too soft
to be anything else? Is it female then? Is it? Is it
deemed inferior? Like feelings, can't grace be both? The soft
feathers of a falcon wing, for example, doesn't
they demonstrate a feminine beauty in a masculine
form? Why are you so busy relishing in your own
fucking sex

to see another? To make it equal?

Atoms


I
Here, where the sky sells its soul to the meadows,
we seem dazzled by it, the hydrangea's drawn-out
shadow, the way it lengthens like prayers,
like a priest's welcoming hands, like a dawn reluctant to
end, to loose its vermillion-yellow-blue too soon.


II
Evening song, lark song, dawn song: it
shivers, inside me; echoes, through the meadows.

Soon, you say, and mean it, soon we'll promenade down
a boulevard. And I believe you. And I trust
you. And I want to, I think; I want what we want
as I lie down on what the humans call (as if it were they
who were the world's saviours, lords, or gods
even, when, in reality, they are nothing more
than small pieces in a widening scheme.)
—I want what we want as I lie down on what the humans call Grass.



And softly the wind passes.
Softly the world vows for
silence.


III
In an evolving world we are always
the same: we are
what keeps the world from falling a-
part, we are shapelessnesses within
any abstraction, which you think
could be the wind whistling through
leaves at dawn, the light—passable—passing
from its source, to its target; it could be
time, universe, those human feelings

we lack; it could be

Don't, fretter. Life is too short for small worries.

I

Here, where the sky
sells its soul
to the meadows, we seem dazzled by it
by it,

the hydrangea's

stretching shadow,

(the way
it stretches
like prayers,

like a

priest's welcoming
hands, like

a dawn reluctant
to end

too soon.)

II

Soon we promenade
down a boulevard,
I want to, I remember,
I want what we want
as I lie down on

what is called

by humans (as
if it were they
who were the
world's saviors,
or lord, gods,

when in reality
they are nothing more
than small pieces in
a larger

scheme)

—as I lie down on

what the humans' call
grass.

II

II

In an evolving world
we are always

the same: we are

what keeps the world from
falling
apart, shapelessnesses
within any abstraction,

which
could be

the wind whistling
through the leaves
at dawn, the light

—passable—passing from its source,
to its target;

it could be time,
universe, those
human feelings

we lack;

it could be

Don't: You're

only going
in circles.

Illusion

I

In a world
about to end,

we gather in
the light of
streetlamps,

(how their light falls

like only itself does
through the dark, in time tethered.)

II

I remember
we clenched hands

(for a fleeting,

brilliant moment).

I remember we waited
for the end,

waited

for an end
that never came.