The Mirror

(for Ken Irby)                               of all the places we walked bought or entered householding of, anything from that you wanted to know of the upright, no not even a flag, flagpole over the river, over one open place surrounded by trees this pointer its shadow moving hour by hour around it, trees up, start, cut thru the woods, river & then because we were late to meet you at the bus strangeness of hurrying there & idling back, drove you thru Astor & Delano land but didnt let on, didnt let on if we passed S_ _ _ _ _ _ _'s barn he shot himself in when the tortures bled dry, didnt tell you of the great red barn torn down one weekend we were at sea, didnt tell you of the sea, the mouths of it so variously articulate in me, of all my friends torn down in me, their voices one by one tuning out in despair of an answer, wrack of a gazebo rickety in a back pasture, ruin of a woman in my mind, its lightening rod stiff shiny, who knew she & I h

For B.H. The blues calling my name. She is singing a deep song. She is singing a deep song. I am human. He calls me crazy. He says, "You must be crazy." I say, "Yes, I'm crazy." He sits with his knees apart. His fly is broken. She is singing a deep song. He smiles. She is singing a deep song. "Yes, I'm crazy." I care about you. I care. I care about you. I care. He lifts his eyebrows. The blues is calling my name. I tell him he'd better do something about his fly. He says something softly. He says something so softly that I can't even hear him. He is a dark man. Sometimes he is a good dark man. Sometimes he is a bad dark man. I love him. 

    I can’t touch you. His face always returns; we exchange long looks in each bad dream & what I see, my God. Honey, sweetheart, I hold you against me but nothing works. Two boats moored, rocking between nowhere & nowhere. A bone inside me whispers maybe tonight, but I keep thinking about the two men wrestling nude in Lawrence’s Women in Love . I can’t get past reels of breath unwinding. He has you. Now he doesn’t. He has you again. Now he doesn’t. You’re at the edge of azaleas shaken loose by a word. I see your rose-colored skirt unfurl. He has a knife to your throat, night birds come back to their branches. A hard wind raps at the door, the new year prowling in a black overcoat. It’s been six months since we made love. Tonight I look at you hugging the pillow, half smiling in your sleep. I want to shake you & ask who. Again I touch myself, unashamed, until his face comes into focus. He’s stolen something from me & I don’t kn

In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks. A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit The wax image of myself, a doll's body. Sickness begins here: I am the dartboard for witches. Only the devil can eat the devil out. In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire. It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door, The cellar's belly. They've blown my sparkler out. A black-sharded lady keeps me in parrot cage. What large eyes the dead have! I am intimate with a hairy spirit. Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar. If I am a little one, I can do no harm. If I don't move about, I'll knock nothing over. So I said, Sitting under a potlid, tiny and inert as a rice grain. They are turning the burners up, ring after ring. We are full of starch, my small white fellows. We grow. It hurts at first. The red tongues will teach the truth. Mother of beetles, only unclench your hand: I'll fly through the candle's mouth like a si

Spring rained its icy water on all my unleashed desires, My young sap gushed with the first touch of tender bark. Now in the heart of July, I am blinder than Winter is at the pole. My wings beat and break against the bars of the low sky No ray of sun can pierce the soundless vault of my ennui. What sign to recover? What keys to strike? How can I reach the god of long-distance spears? The royal summer of the South, down there, would arrive Too late, yes, and in agonizing September! In which book can I find the fervor of your reverberation? In the pages of which book, on whose unreachable lips, Find your delirious love? My restless waiting wears me out. Oh, the sound of rain On the monotonous leaves! Just play me "Solitude," Duke, so I can cry myself to sleep.

In the offing: "Holy, holy— Anoint and sanctify." About the edges: "Pray, beseech, give alms, atone by suffering, Penance and repentance. "My fault, My gravest fault, My most momentous, impious, sinful moment." Seek absolution In the Absolute. Aristotle: "There is cause for alarm If either injustice or outrage virtue Has power."                 * * * Vengeance, retribution, Imprecation, malediction— "Lament, lament, But may the good conquer." Guilt through the doing of forbidden things, Guilt by forbearing to do forbidden things— And hope by grief to rid the self of grievances. Estrangement, defilement, sacrifice, Filth, evil, Each idiot, with his special idiom. I knew a man, well-heeled in sadness, And you would be surprised. A stinkeroo he was, and as a guide Exceptionally dirty, a pestilence In his offensiveness. Victim, martyr, guilt, wereguilt, Debt, redemption (that is, ransom from captivity),