There is no damage here.
The brain is fine. The leaves,
fine. The wine is as black as ever
—
There is a pace
and it slows
and it sees
and it
lows
—
One slickens up to you, all
oil, to assure you of your substance.
This is all all all. Make a note
of it. Herein lies a balance
for yellow birds with black heads
and black moths with yellow heads
and all detritus of coming near
the realm of the dead—namely,
yellow and black leaves softened parting
—
So I am a pairing—I know my rules:
let sheep eat sheep and lions, lions.
Let Latins meet Greeks under patch-
work quilts. Let the vision plaid
for a bit
—
I bit
and the grapefruit had a bit
of death’s black and from my tear ducts
came grapefruit seeds, black
as hor-
nets. Pity
them Lord for they know not
what they do. Pity the lions and the locusts
—
Pity the animals—the day is a raze,
heat and wheat gathered into airy combines
of thrashing. The noise spins lions
in the air. My fair one falls
down to me on black ropes. No
one can see me, and hope is a thing
for birds and fools. I drool
on locust bouquets and steps
of honey. Come
—
Meet your master
in the dust; with his
one tooth, he drains
you dry. May you spin
here, scarecrow, among
the other straw-like things
planted in the dark earth,
swollen with light and time
when for a moment
When for a moment
you eat through
the air to swallow
syrupy red letters
Poe
Poe
Poe
—
And bells could be
jasmine and gold,
bone and soap,
seaweed and ivy
—
Crack dread’s
red egg on
the burning rock
and let your eyes
speak, your hands
walk
—
The lake
unveils its planks;
you find your way
to the red silk pavilion
—
A meal of steaks and pearls
in impossible heat
with cameras at
—
Every angle
and the lions, too,
with watchful eyes—
—
Drain that bourbon
to the red, to the dre-
gs of silt and baboon,
to all animals mashed
and quiet, disastered
and interred, en-
tered in stasis, in
stillness
it would be better if you tasted rain
It would be better if you tasted rain
than this spiced asphalt,
leavened brown horizon and flapjack
blacktop
—
Pollution gets in the skin, spices it
red brown red yellow red brown,
so we
—
Take a swim beyond the dusty chambers of summer,
out where coasts decant coolness and fins rising
from heat slicks reveal cooler depths
—
If time’s a chance to stand outside romance
with the immediacies of never-ending foliage
and mark mark mark yes! our pastures for our own
and forthcoming disasters—
—
Here is a bust that rolls down a hill and breaks the water,
fat with coolness
—
I wanted to know a name; I played sports; I
wore shorts; I had a mother and a father (they did too); I
challenged every bone, went south for the winter; I
ate duck, roasted; I said “quail” (it buoyed in me); I
wanted and I wanted, and I
—
Remained. O Icy water, spilled
like a blade across the neck, I ask
that you do your work, I
am tired and it is hot
and today I
have the energy for almost nothing
we adorn
I ask for the broken ladder to fill my head
for sunstroke, red horns of wheat
for dailiness, let me know particulars
O red horn brightened in my chest,
the hairs are countless, I ask
for lozenges like islands, and the color—
red yellow blue—staining the dark
I ask for daylight, forms noticed, held, cut
down