Confessions of a Sinner

As with Pigeons, they Ignore us

What shall we do with the bodies,
all bleach all mud all smeared
in blood? Do we burn, lit aegis-like
their skin, so that black come,
ash come, and effluvium? Isn't
the fire too perceptible, a mark to
say: here, bind hard our hands?
If we wash only and throw their bodies
into water, would traces be traceable?
Traces always carves the same: the same hunt,
the same end: no trial and no listening to what
we say. As with pigeons, there's only ignorance.
Yes: our hands have killed and
killed. But here, in my palm, can you see
what I see: can you see that blood?
What we have done, we have suffered.



A Sinner

If you'd count syllables any day,
any day I'd count, name tiredly
the stars: Pegasus. Orion. Procyon
and Procyon: which have burned out and
have not? At Lake Como, I comb the grass
flat, as if in the starwatching Earth's hands
press me, my body, farther from that
cosmos I reach for, E.T-like, as for doves.
If I have grabbed a dove, felt that crushing
of limbs, have I sinned? If I made red the
palestrea ground, can I be forgiven? Yes, I have
killed, but any day these bleached hands
are like their faces. Can you take, rinse clean
my hands?



Your Servant

Here's a jello, and some pudding. Eat some.
Here's a light, making of my platter a mirror
of gold columns: signals, maybe, from
God. Does it mean he doesn't want us?
As swans, we keep coming back to what
we love with hunger and more hunger.
More to do with the human condition,
than with sin. It's only natural, like breathing
air is, or to fish: that sea, that salt
seaweed,etc. We regard it as privilege
to do what you do, have done, did, on earth.
If to savor for savoring is sin, give us a
sign, not like a threat but like a gift: is it
this light or this wind? I'm your servant:
What you want me to do, I'll do. You
can tell me anything.