The Crows that Came to Roost

The crows come to smoke at dawn,
not like any swan but like the swan
by the pond whose wings unfold as to flap

away from the burial of heaps where
the timbers are stained, burried
beneath ashes. The ashes are not really black:

they are blackened like the crows
I imagine at the creation of time were made
soothed by the Greek Gods who also

cupped their liquid to the earth
(as we know as rivers now, as seas)
and moulded the earth to trees /

to mountains as they do with sand
by the beach, the small children.
Was this ever a town to which

the ploughers plowed the fields,
raked the rows by tomato
shrubs, and the woman did their

daily bidding, they who were the
cookers, the spinners of garn
(of wool) for cloths, and the men

the blacksmiths that hammered
to strength the weapons (as in
the stories we know all too well:

swords, shields, a few men, a battle),
the children like tended lambs . . .
Today, in flocks, herons pass as they

would over anything. The village
is ash and smoke, a beaten warrior in a war
that does not end, does not seem to.

Recall, the boars must have left
this place a long time ago; the ravens,
the crows, as to any dying place,

have come to roost. Here is the
abandoned fiddle, here the spinner
from once the women spun wool,

here is the silence of the rooster without voice:

The Greek Gods

Look: the trees are not themselves
today: the boughs / the needles /
the cons do not bend to slap me.
Cattails, in lake Como of seaweed:
of rainbowed fish and blue colour
that is not really blue. I know that.
The lake looks like that—that blue
thistle—because of the wavelength
of the reflecting light. It is not
because of the sky or the Greek
Gods who, in ancient times, drank
from chalices and—fed—cupped,
loosened to the earth the white
wine we know, have known,
all this time, as rain and more rain,
that water we drink from taps
the way bees drink nectar.
We have known and—have imagined.
How wrong we were.

The Body: The Soul

—have walked these grounds, have plowed,
have raked the fields with hands as if tokens
of holding, not loosing as, through my palm,
the earth retreats, slips clean, like sand,
from what tethers. The slipping away
through my fingers is not intentional,
like the slipping away of the soul isn't.
The tethered soul was never tethered
by the body: was caught only. This is
understandable. This is not: the soul
as the body, the soul as what tethers it


/ version 2:

The Body: The Soul

—have walked these grounds, have plowed,
have raked the fields with hands as if tokens
of holding, not loosing as, through my palm,
the earth retreats, slips clean, like sand,
from what tethers. The slipping away
through my fingers is not intentional,
like the slipping away of the soul isn't.
The tethered soul was never tethered:
was caught only by the bodies that,
eventually, laid, not rested, which implies
peace and more peace, beneath earth.
Like sand, the soul slips away from
what this long has caught it. This is
understandable. This is not: the soul
as the body, the soul as what tethers it.

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.

Growing up: Less Imagination, More

Like a bird, any bird: a pigeon maybe.
Or like a volcano, as cold as coins; as
warm as lava. Yes, that is my heart.
It changes, changes the way a swan
does, at first--a swan, then a girl. It's
fairytale, but who said my heart
isn't? Who, aegis-like, as if a cargo
around their mind, think of the heart as
else? A steadiness, a throbbing
(Here, feel it)?
There's only this much truth,
this much imagination. Take what's left
of the latter, given chance, when chance
give it, gave: with hands in air as though
saying, Here, take some.

Alternate ending of Sonnenizio

Sonnenizio

Now he's singing, cadence on a rough sea:
no quiver in the sky, only a rip, as when a violin plays

and it slices the air around your ears now
and now; how delicate his fingers touch

this instrument, these strings that twangs
when he plucks them, one-by-one-by-one.

Now he's stopping, stillness in a rough wind:
it must be hard to imagine

a stillness having fallen in this weather,
like that of a peach's soft flesh, but imagine: this

was what he felt. I cannot, beside him in a lime light,
with legs like a leave, a quivering almost like two Babel's towers,

see another reason he'd stop: to him a peach stillness
to be tasted this long, and this long: momentarily teeth-in-peach.

A Bulb, a Coin, a Column

Today, this is me: a bulb, a rusty
coin; a column, this close to breaking.

Mosquitoes and Wings

I think of mosquitoes when I see wings,

I think of mosquitoes as of wings: like
any wing: like a wing going unnoticed

a pigeon's wing ripping hard the sky's
in the act before ripping the sky

flesh, the mosquito sucks blood apart, in that manner,
the mosquito sucks blood

:you know, in that manner when it bows
as wings suck the sky, its blue brow.

over a certain part of your body,
This is the difference, only:

a needle-like beak eating hungrily your
the mosquito does it with bodies,

blood, there and there, now progressing
with those who plows innocently

over here. The only difference, I guess,
their orchard, those striding

are what they cause: malaria and
through a thick jungle

shapelessness. And how they look.

Like Two Figures Who've Forgotten Where They Are

I have flashes now: a lime light, and a tree
beneath it; a ground upon which lies a dry leaf
like a sailboat, upside-down, or like a leaf
or flower folded into a ship upon a pond. You know
these vessels we make as a child, blowing
at its anchor as if from behind
a waft comes, coming slowly, and everywhere
beside the sound of insects' gossamer wings
brush the air. Yes, the leave like that, but
it's also a leave of the same dry texture
as, say, terracotta clay,that same untraceable
pattern our fingers, each of our two fingers,
touch now and now,like two figures who've forgot
where they are.

The Bow, the String, the Archer

Imagine a bow, the force in the arrow
if the archer let go of what he holds
to his chin: that string which he draws
back with two fingers as if a horseman
or a charioteer controlling his horse,
or the relationship between the poet
and the syntax. To be a good archer
is all about the way you pluck it, the string
you hold, and how you release it: the twang
must drrr as you shiver: a long shaking,
all but strong. Also the eye is important:
For aim, of course: remember to squint.
There's a string, and there's an archer.
Together, you are the restrainer and
the releaser.


/

Imagine a bow, the force in the arrow
if the bowman let go of what he holds
to his chin: that string which he draws
back with two fingers as if a horseman
or a charioteer controlling his horse,
or that relationship between the poet
and the syntax. How far the arrow
goes comes from how he plucks it,
the string he holds, and how he releases it:
the twang must drrr the way you shiver:
a long shaking, all but strong. If the arrow
is the force, the bow is the holder,
the archer the restrainer, the string
the releaser, when released.

God: As with Pigeons, They Avoid 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
as to say: here, bind hard our hands?
If we wash only and throw their bodies
into water, would traces be traceable?
Traces leads to cops. Bad guys.
It's always the same: the same hunt,
the same end: no trial, 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.
Isn't that enough?

God: 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, for any bird whose soft feathers
begs to be patted. If I have grabbed
a dove, felt that crushing of limbs,
have I sinned? If I made red the palestra
ground, can you forgive me? Yes, I have
killed, but any day these bleached hands
are like their faces. I have suffered.
Can you clean my hands?

I Saw a Plastic Bag after The Mall

There's so much beauty in a plastic bag,
I can't stop looking at it, any more
than I can stop tasting sugar or sugar
cubs, pancakes with honey, as if the way
it carves circles into the air when it traces
its own impossible-to-tell-next pattern
is a way that, inevitably, binds you:
in the wind, it rises
and it swirls, is swelling with shape
now, now not, as if having a life of its own
where it falls, where it rises, where it brushes the ground;
hand-shakes the sky. There's so much beauty
in the plastic bag, I can't stop looking at it
without feeling I let go of what we for
so long, but never truly, have called beauty.
I can't turn away as if it never happened,
as if it never happened to me.

The Ordinary Tending of a Garden

She rake smooth again her orchard
yard. Weed must go: clover and bluebells.
Here, in rows in flowerbeds, gazanias, dendrobium
orchids. Chrysanthemums. Acacias
and lobelas, whose blue petals
form a crown over the earth,
which is tended, which she
now waters, carefully,
deliberately, hunching on her heels.
Now she rise; now she stamp
the earth as if the raking
depends on it.

On Leda and the Swan

i. Leda: introduction



Below you below it, this is how she parades on each heat-
crippled field dappled not in shadow, but in sun:
as if a swan, whose wings ascend,
descend,

come away and away in ledaean white,
her feet going, oh how her feet goes
brush/ fail brush/fail in the wind.



ii. Zeus: watching


You watch her from above, already having decided
how fair a swan-form would be. (How lovely still
she is.) What she is, who she is, what does that matter
before seduction?


iii. Leda and the Swan: yearning


Here, on all-dappled field, she in unmoving as a sound
(can it be: wings unbroken, soft, in the air?) severs
the silence. She looks up, she tilts her head to the sky.
How she stare
at you in swan-form, all-white descending

from sky and from them, from all things expected,
half-expected. Part of your point to find,

to damp on someone else your hunger.

How her body shake when you land beside her.

Two Parts of the Very Same Story: Fragments

How the tip of a wing
splits us apart at sunrise;
we are where reality
and illusion meet


¤


How the light of a street lamp
spreads as only itself does;
the man who steps into, now out of
a light we call

Sacred,

sacred
star.

Seaspray

Arcs,
arcs after water against rocks,
creates crescents
in the moonlight;
all left behind
to prove it

is the shapelessness
of broken lines
in air.

If

If the trees' green needles were spikes, if spikes
were melting icicles, I'd be a chariot, I'd be
the one riding the horse like no one else;
if I'd be a chariot, you'd be a fish,
you'd be the iridiscent scale
outside of it.

This is How You Paint a Mockingbird

I bought a harness, I bought a bridle.
A canvas, and a brush. Today I'll be
a painter, tomorrow a horseman.
How my left hand give colour give shape,
how each line, each stroke, fills
the canvas. This is how I paint
a mockingbird. This is how
you shoot it.


(Note: L. 1 from Carl Phillips)