I’ll follow dreaming down, however deep:
A spider keeps me safe and guards my sleep.
At least, should I misfortune meet
I will not lack a winding-sheet.
A Bedtime Prayer
1
Tag Archives: poems
In Memoriam (two translations from the English)
Dear reader, I’m curious: of the versions below, which do you prefer (if either), and why?
I.
They built a grand monument to the dead
And the place where the stone was quarried
Soon filled up with rainwater
And the young couples would meet there.
II.
Built to commemorate the dead
This palace stands, untenanted.
By the still pool in the quarry pit
The lovers sometimes come to sit.
Two Lives: Caesar / Napoleon
Caesar loved the Egyptian Queen
And conquered Europe to impress;
Napoleon, for Josephine,
Decided he could do no less.
The Roman styled himself divine —
His friends took pains to prove he erred;
For Russia’s lands the Frenchman pined
But he, too, found himself deterred.
Poor Julius! The Senate floor
Was where he met his Waterloo;
And Bonaparte proved just as poor,
For soon enough he met one, too.
Chronic Healing
![epWywuc[1]](https://bagofanything.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/epwywuc1.png?w=326&h=400)
He was always just recovering from
some shit, talking his way back to
normal, learning to live in
the present and yanking
the stuck parts of himself out from
underneath the deadfall
he’d somehow blundered into
again.
The Natural History of the Kraken, part 2
I dreamt I had a hundred arms
And drifted with the algal swarms
On a concordant sea;
Oh, but the Maelstrom reeled me in
To wake here in the deep again
Restless, unfree.
Rodin’s Gates of Hell
The Thinker contemplates a moveless turbulence: men, angels, children, women
agonize eternally, leaping or cast
from shrieking Hell into a lesser torment, seeking what can’t last
beyond this frozen moment. Here are long hands, long arms stretched tight of bone and skin
in knotted ecstasy of pain; tight mouths caught too tight to scream;
sleek writhing forms trapped bursting through the gate that swells and thins to let them pass
for this caught moment, too fleeting for relief before Hell draws them back,
back below the seething gate, back to the wailing dark and the company of the damned.
It must be balanced; an opposing Heaven must exist:
a timeless, flat, cool, blandly pleasant place, where no stark weathered bodies strive
for respite from the blasted murk, that lacks this endless
doomed struggle. Perhaps this is what the Thinker contemplates: that Hell is,
and so Heaven too must be; that somewhere men, in sculptured bliss eternal as
these damned he watches over, are content: are blessed: are not so much alive.
Sestina for Hero and Dragon
I.
Out with you! In Christ’s name, dragon,
Out! Come from your hole and face my blade,
For I would try if dragon’s-blood be truly black.
From grieving lands beyond the sea
A hundred hundred dead cry for your death.
Hai! Out! I’ve not come such a way to face but empty air!
II.
O erring, misinformed! This so-called empty air
Is rank with camouflage, could shelter many a dragon.
Shall I appear? Do you so earnestly seek death?
For face me, and you die — nor brightest shield, nor sharpest blade
Can alter that. Heroes have come before across the sea.
They lie about you: armor shattered, bones charred black.
III.
A cowardly reply for one with heart so black,
A murderer whose very name befouls the air.
Come, worm: between the mountains and the sea
I stand to challenge you! Will you not try me, dragon?
Your claws against my shield; your hide against my blade.
Or do you fear to meet a test of death?
IV.
I having slain a hundred hundred men, think you one more death
Means aught to me? I come. The sea boils and the clouds turn black
Before my coming. My mouth’s a cavern, every tooth a blade;
My breath a conflagration, and my wings breed hurricanes into the air.
Man, behold a dragon.
My bones are stronger than these mountains; my blood is older than the sea.
V.
Dragon, behold a man! The clouds and the sea
That feared your coming shall rejoice to see your death.
These mountains are not so strong as my rage, dragon,
The sun is not so hot, nor Hell as black.
Could you but hear, the wailing of my kindred dead fills the air.
Now they will be avenged. I swear this by my blade!
VI.
I shall unbind your body’s several elements; come, try your blade.
Your bones shall mingle with the earth, your thin, cold blood dilute the sea,
The smoulder of your burning dance inconsequent upon the air.
You speak of death? You have not learned to speak of death.
Death is mightier than your rage, hotter and more black.
I know this, who have killed a hundred hundred men. Death is a dragon.
* * *
The dragon claws for purchase in the sky; the man holds tight his blade,
As clouds scud low and black above a furious sea.
In one of these is death: the dragon’s stoop; the bright sword that cleaves the air.
I Wrestled Fire
I had wrestled fire the day long
But now the sun was gone
And as the night came on, fire grew.
The full moon watched to see what I would do.
And nothing went as I had planned.
The element of fire was out of hand
And hungered for the earth, and ate the air.
The full moon watched to see how I would fare.
I made a wish for rain to fall;
The smutted sky ignored my call.
The flames ate trees and darkness, and grew tall.
The full moon watched above it all
Until the fire was brought complete
To perfect light and perfect heat:
All that was left to gain was my defeat.
I fed the flames myself, and was consumed
Under the gaze of the curious moon.
One day this
One day this
will be recalled (if
at all) by you
as a golden
day a beach of pure
sand and flocks of
majestic white birds that
spreading curved wings
rose at first
imperceptibly then
inexorably into
aching flight as
we watched them knowing
all would be well and
no one will be left to say
that’s
inaccurate
since my present vision of
this will perish
lacking the heft and
polish of history but
for the record here
is what breaks my present heart this
little girl now running across
low tide’s litter now daring
those greasy waves now
scattering the dirty gulls that are
yammering and (I can
see it all
now) about to
take off
clumsily into an
implacable
future.
10 Poems Written with a Found Pen
1.
Between the gray sky and gray
earth the darkling crowds
of those who
don’t and won’t look up
swell the concrete streets but
no cement can hold back time
no built thing can support the sky and
the earth holds me, but
I hold nothing:
holding nothing
back, again,
still.
2.
I can’t even
get lost just once, I
got lost then
right away
did it again. Later
that place I was headed for
changed into another, so
I never found it.
3.
Hip hooray for the Brooklyn Bridge!
A comic book for the Bowery Kids!
Nobody’s lost, nobody jumps,
We all stand up & take our lumps.
From here to Brooklyn, never back!
And into the great wide world at last!
4.
Never can remember
the endings of movies
quite right and then
I’m afraid to watch them
a second time
since what if the whole world
could come undone
just like
that?
5.
I used to love rocks and
talk about them. Now I don’t
remember why
I thought I knew so much, why
I thought the world was all
about the rocks.
Kids, huh?
6.
If the bay froze – right now, right away –
I bet those sharp gray
waves would fetch a pretty penny
you could cut up the bay, not have any
thing left but sunken wrecks and fish
skeletons, and everyone would wish
they’d bought a piece while they could
yeah, you best believe it would be a good
deal while it lasted, buddy
7.
I have this friend
let’s call her Chris I
haven’t seen her in
a while and I
forget if I owe her
a call or if
she owes me so
anyhow it’s pretty
late now
maybe in a day or two
I’ll remember
again
8.
She got her world from
Headlines, so was always in
Despair, or shopping.
9.
That creek meandering through
the grass doesn’t want
a thing and moves
always. That bird poised like
death on the bank
wants what it can
get; it doesn’t move
but once.
10.
This morning she was up
before me, who used to be
my slug-a-bed, my slow waker.
This morning she has
opinions, who used to
wait and see what things
would be like.
This morning as
I reached for my
coffee cup I realized
wait
this is no dream
this thing is real.
Bag of Anything 