Friday, January 28, 2011

ugly world antidotes

there is a time of castles
in the air
a time when walls
are worn thin
besieged sometimes by
salt rings on shoes
and scum of road thrown over snow

there is a time of things
that will come to nothing at all.
goodbye to you, each one.

there are things that make a day complete
like the letting out of light
like the rustling of the world as she turns
to face a changing sun and you are lost in the wildness of her hair

but mostly like the sound of home
which tonight is
the happy laugh of my littlest child
coming around the corner
to meet me.

sometimes you can delight
by being simply what you are.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

St. John's Monastery, ink and quill workshop after presentation on illumination.

the ink
is ground
soot and water

soot they say
from candles
burnt 200 years ago
when the night
pressed more closely
and light was wavery and
precious

soot from candles
of cow fat
running greasy cross lamp
panes and glossing
roof beams hand-hewn
with marks of adze and drawknife
chewn like bones

i take a turn
at the inkstone
enthralling, black thickening
like blood of light
guttering out

if i were a monk
i would make a prayer of this
and i would grind
till my arm ached

and i would stoop
each day over scraped calf
skin and dip the quill
and bleed it dry
dip and dry
my hand like a heart
pumping soot
into Word of God

for every last dark drop
of light's castaway
say at each stroke-sway
rising and ending
sharp as a knife

so make these ashes
of my life

Saturday, January 22, 2011

the engagement

the couple

crest the ridge

sawtooth mountains


with hope when it is turning to

conviction her eyes

shine deep as the waters

of the glittering lake

Superior from far off

among the leaves.


he fingers the ring

hid in his pocket

the call of birds

and all the empty wild

freedom

young daydreams grown-up

along its outer edge


bound along the inside

what he is beginning

to understand as all

men one way or another probably will

sooner if they're lucky

or later

to love and

whoever you are

no thing more precious

than to be loved like this


Friday, January 21, 2011

why god gave us babies

it was when
we were deceived by beauty
it was when we believed
wisdom comes through the mouth
it was when we became naked to this world

it was when we were
afraid of the truth
through trees hallooing
it was our days slowly
filling with the flicker of death
sick as tallow-light.

God came.

the world in its perfect shards
had more to learn.

by fruit
it would come hard.
by bearing
and caring and toil for this thing
crying through restless nights.

she screamed through the labor.
I ran around helpless and scared.
what new horror afflicted us?
it ended in this
wet little mysterious thing
naked-er than we were.

the first day it smiled
we remembered grace.
we believed in love again
in our broken way.

God will
sacrifice
but first
we should learn
why.

it was to be
by fruit
by labor
by a little child.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

aubade, winter.

children of dust
longing for their mother's touch
garden pressed down
brown in a blanket of time

the windows
grow their gardens of rime

in the morning
in the kitchen you on your tiptoes
reaching for the coffee filters you
surprise me sun
coming out over town

every house puffs
tufts of smoke up
in snow down-slanting
you morning lady with your ear cocked
marry me first by curtain light
today isn't far


Tuesday, January 18, 2011

the incident concerning the papers of Mr. ------

boxes sopped
and hand by hand
lifted out
writings of a self-interested man
there had been a flood
from an ice dam, library annex

library annex, span by span
shelves of paper dry as sand
so swiftly water-puffed writings
of a self-interested dam
strange ink-run runes ice-melt made
man hand by hand
fingers lift not liking their feel

there will be no more saving this
let the cursive scripts run
let the paper have its clotted way
it's twisted way
let the bind and spine splay
let the leather smell it's mournful smell




Sunday, January 16, 2011

Seasonal

how careful is the autumn's farewell
how calm the summer song
how lovely are the words of spring

how cold and blustery and grand
and useless is this wintery thing.

Monday, January 10, 2011

night snow

if i were a greek
i would devise
a myth
to explain its gentle longing

or a renaissanceman
boldly compare
my lady's eternal beauty

or hold this melting
a moment in tranquility
romantically recalled
right wordily.

this snow like
a deeper poem than these
of words from heaven dropping
pitiless and lovely down

high and heartbreaking but
when drive and sidewalk
have been cleared i will go in
sit down a while and beg
last youthful years for clemency

and will not write one single thing
but simply wonder
that i am allowed
to be here.

Saturday, January 08, 2011

dr. clive robert lecter, ph.d.

let me introduce
dr. clive robert lecter
few subjects on which
he is not an expert

if you ask him a question
you think he won't know
he just rocks back a moment
and then oh how he goes

it seems one thing
will lead to another
and if you're certain of some things
you'll be certain of others

things fly into his brain
he's not quite sure how
but once they get in
just as quickly come out

he's got a healthy respect
for the effect
of the way that the words
pour out of his spout.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

for the ones we don't write

and they feel
this expresses well the
empty
tempting of
lachrymal glands

oh the quivering air
with its slivering sands of sun
the successive snow-tipped trees
mastheads: washed up men
wrapped in white sail
and all the stuff they see
oh
mississippi
roll on
for the ones
we don't write
just turn your head
and close your eyes
roll on, roll on
beneath the ice.

Saturday, January 01, 2011

in the season of epiphany

1
the Christmas CD
on its last song
the tree is being unwound

my wife, packing, smiles at the way
this year
my daughter learned the art
of holiday disc jockey

the precise, childish bliss of it

there's something in these things being newspapered
for attic-bound bins
from which they'll come again

2
the tree like winter remainder
undressed in hard sap
trailing needles to the alley

the wind has picked up
its cold for real

3
firmly i plant the tree
in the gobs of icy white
upright
like a living thing
like memory
these needles shiver down
defiant green halo on the snow

4
dry Tannenbaum unchanging cut
left by the garbage bin
this is the season
we need something unexpected