The Flame Page 4
and until now, sadder
the flowers hate us
the animals pray for us to die
as soon as i found out
i murdered my dog
They hate us
They pray for us to die
Wake up America
Murder your dog
UNBIBLICAL
I thought I’d get away
But now I have to stay
I think I’d better say:
As usual
It wasn’t up to me
I heard the stern decree
I wasn’t meant to be
That beautiful
Some people catch the bus
They’re luckier than us
In spite of all the fuss
They’re credible
They want to get on board
They don’t like to be ignored
They’re children of the lord
They’re terrible
You’ve heard this all before
I had some but they had more
I was rotten to the core
But merciful
And that was my mistake
I didn’t kill the snake
I gave the snake a break
Unbiblical
WINTER ON MOUNT BALDY
It’s winter on Mount Baldy
The monks are shoveling snow
It’s swinging free, the Gateless Gate
But no one seems to go
It’s cold and dark and dangerous
And slippery as a lie
Nobody wants to be here
And me, I’d rather die
All the food is second-hand
And everyone complains
The priceless shit of yesteryear
Is frozen in the drains
It’s winter on Mount Baldy
The monks are shoveling snow
It’s swinging free, the Gateless Gate
But no one seems to go
Forget about your purity
Your blemishes and stains
You want to climb Mount Baldy
You’re going to need your chains
It’s cold and dark and dangerous
And slippery as a lie
Nobody wants to be here
Some say they’d rather die
You had the Himalayas
And the great Tibetan plains
You want to take Mount Baldy
You’re going to need your chains
August 21, 2015
DOESN’T MATTER
it doesn’t matter darling,
it really doesn’t matter,
and i don’t say
it doesn’t matter,
in order to hurt you into feeling:
that it DOES MATTER,
that it REALLY DOES MATTER.
not at all,
not at all.
i stand beside you
in the midst of this vast enterprise
of human activity and desire,
deafened by the noise
of my own heart,
twisted by an appetite
for justice and for peace,
and i look at you,
the one i tried to love,
the one who tried to love me,
and it comes to us
from the place where we began,
the place where we will end,
a voice that includes
your voice, and my voice,
and we are
gathered together,
we are born together,
and we die in each other’s arms,
and it is heard as a mighty voice,
or a gentle voice,
a whispered voice,
or a thundered voice,
above all,
the voice that we most
desperately
long to hear,
it is the voice that can forgive us,
and it says,
it doesn’t matter
darling,
it is the truth,
the truth of all forgiving.
listen now. listen from
the wreck of your baffled love.
it is the truth,
the very truth
of all forgiving.
it doesn’t matter darling.
it really doesn’t matter.
GRATEFUL
The huge mauve jacaranda tree
down the street on South Tremaine
in full bloom
two stories high
It made me so happy
And then
the first cherries of the season
at the Palisades Farmers Market
Sunday morning
“What a blessing!”
I exclaimed to Anjani
And then the samples on waxed paper
of the banana cream cake
and the coconut cream cake
I am not a lover of pastry
but I recognized the genius of the baker
and touched my hat to her
A slight chill in the air
seemed to polish the sunlight
and confer the status of beauty
to every object I beheld
Faces bosoms fruits pickles green eggs
newborn babies
in clever expensive harnesses
I am so grateful
to my new anti-depressant
ANTIQUE SONG
Too old, too old to play the part,
Too old, God only knows!
I’ll keep the little silver heart,
The red and folded rose.
And in the arms of someone strong
You’ll have what we had none.
I’ll finish up my winter song
For you. It’s almost done.
But oh! the kisses that we kissed,
That swept me to the shore
Of seas where hardly I exist,
Except to kiss you more.
I have the little silver heart,
The red and folded rose.
The one you gave me at the start,
The other at the close.
He waited for you all night long.
Go run to him, go run.
I’ll finish up my winter song,
For you. It’s almost done.
ELEVATOR MIRRORS
My father had a mustache,
But not his father or his brothers
I am very tempted
In the new hotels
The elevators are often so dark
The mirrors are useless
(Like this one)
I don’t want to go anywhere
I’ve been to the Acropolis (1959)
I sat on the old stones
And was photographed with a woman (1970)
Who troubled my life
From then until now (2008)
Dying in reasonable circumstances
Is mostly what I hope for
But here I am on the road
Far from reasonable circumstances
There is a woman I like
She is young and beautiful and kind
And cannot sing
But she wants to be a singer
I used to keep a full picture of her
Hidden on my laptop
Then I thought:
I can’t do this again
And I dragged it (reluctantly)
To the little trash basket
Which I did not empty for quite a while
In the elevator
Of the Manchester Malmaison Hotel
I have to put on reading glasses
To find the button for my floor
The corridors are dark purple
Lit with pinpoint lights
Bass-heavy hip-hop
Dooming the generation
From hidden speakers
You squint to find your door
(The entire enterprise
Of travel and lodging
Now pitched
&nbs
p; As a dangerous erotic adventure)
I’m no one to say
Who can or can’t be a singer
God knows my own credentials
Were not extensive
It was Good Fortune
As success always is
Period
(A really lovely person
I don’t have to introduce
To anyone at Sony)
LISTEN TO THE HUMMINGBIRD
Listen to the hummingbird
Whose wings you cannot see
Listen to the hummingbird
Don’t listen to me.
Listen to the butterfly
Whose days but number three
Listen to the butterfly
Don’t listen to me.
Listen to the one in charge
Who studies your ID
Listen to the one in charge
Don’t listen to me.
Listen to the sovereign heart
Resign its sovereignty
Listen to the sovereign heart
Don’t listen to me.
Listen to the mind of God
Which doesn’t need to be
Listen to the mind of God
Don’t listen to me.
I THINK I’LL BLAME
I think I’ll blame
my death on you
but I don’t know you
well enough
if I did
we’d be married now
For the full enjoyment
(and I promise you
there is such a thing)
it is not enough to read
between the lines
that is child’s play
and we are not that fond
of children
One day
you will pick up this book
as if
for the first time
and say to yourself:
I don’t know how the guy
pulled it off
Line after line
rises from my predicament—
the nerve, you’ll say
the fucking nerve
And strengthened by
your indifference
to the matter
not to mention
the entire question of the
past
You will recall
how good you were to me
how good I was to you
And standing at some
commanding place
like a window or a cliff
you will know
the full enjoyment
MY GUITAR STOOD UP TODAY
My guitar stood up today
and leaped into my arms to play
a Spanish tune for dancers proud
to stamp their feet and cry aloud
against the fate that bends us down
beneath the thorny bloody crown
of sickness, age, and paranoid
delusions I, for one, cannot avoid
MY CAREER
So little to say
So urgent
to say it
NEVER GAVE NOBODY TROUBLE
i couldn’t pay the mortgage
and i broke my baby’s heart
i couldn’t pay the mortgage
and i broke my baby’s heart
never gave nobody trouble
but it ain’t too late to start
don’t want to break no window
don’t want to burn no car
don’t want to break no window
don’t want to burn your car
you got a right to all your riches
but you let it go too far
you sail the mighty ocean
in a yacht designed for you
you sail the mighty ocean
in a yacht designed for you
but the ocean’s thick with garbage
you ain’t going to make it through
never gave nobody trouble
i’m a law and order man
never gave nobody trouble
i’m a law and order man
never gave nobody trouble
but you know damn well I can
ORDINARY GUY WITH PROBLEMS
Ordinary guy with problems
You’ve seen him around
Some of the places you go
He’s not caving in
Don’t have to be nice to him
He knows where to get a drink
He can be alone
Ordinary guy with problems
DRANK A LOT
i drank a lot. i lost my job.
i lived like nothing mattered.
then you stopped, and came across
my little bridge of fallen answers.
i don’t recall what happened next.
i kept you at a distance.
but tangled in the knot of sex
my punishment was lifted.
and lifted on a single breath—
no coming and no going—
o G-d, you are the only friend
i never thought of knowing.
your remedies beneath my hand
your fingers in my hair
the kisses on our lips began
that ended everywhere.
and now our sins are all confessed
our strategies forgiven
it’s written that the law must rest
before the law is written.
and not because of what i’d lost
and not for what i’d mastered
you stopped for me, and came across
the bridge of fallen answers.
tho’ mercy has no point of view
and no one’s here to suffer
we cry aloud, as humans do:
we cry to one another.
And now it’s one, and now it’s two,
And now the whole disaster.
We cry for help, as humans do—
Before the truth, and after.
And Every Guiding Light Was Gone
And Every Teacher Lying—
There Was No Truth In Moving On—
There Was No Truth In Dying.
And Then The Night Commanded Me
To Enter In Her Side—
And Be As Adam Was To Eve
Before The Great Divide.
her remedies beneath my hand
her fingers in my hair—
and every mouth of hunger glad—
and deeply unaware.
and here i cannot lift a hand
to trace the lines of beauty,
but lines are traced, and beauty’s glad
to come and go so freely.
and from the wall a grazing wind,
weightless and routine—
it wounds us as i part your lips
it wounds us in between.
and every guiding light was gone
and every sweet direction—
the book of love i read was wrong
it had a happy ending.
And Now There Is No Point Of View—
And Now There Is No Other—
We Spread And Drown As Lilies Do—
We Spread And Drown Forever.
You are my tongue, you are my eye,
My coming and my going.
O G-d, you let your sailor die
So he could be the ocean.
And when I’m at my hungriest
She takes away my tongue
And holds me here where hungers rest
Before the world is born.
And fastened here we cannot move
We cannot move forever
We spread and drown as lilies do—
From nowhere to the center.
Escaping through a secret gate
I made it to the border
And call it luck—or call it fate—
I left my house in order.
And now there is no point of view—
And now there is no other—
We spread and drown as lilies do—
Disguised as one who lived in peace
I made it to the border
Though every atom of my heart
Was burning with desire.
Sunday, March 7, 2004
IKKYU
Ikkyu
is not a monk,
not much of a poet,
and as a lover,
it’s hit and run.
He’d need
a hundred years of America,
and a long shower
just to keep his hand in.
FLYING OVER ICELAND
over Reykjavik, the “smokey bay”
where W.H. Auden went
to discover the background
of all our songs,
where I myself was received
by the Mayor and the President
(600 miles an hour
30,000 feet
599 miles an hour
my old street number on Belmont Ave)
where I, a second-rater
by any estimation,
was honoured by the noblest
and handsomest people of the West
served with lobster
and strong drink,
and I never cared about eyes
but the eyes of the waitress
were so alarmingly mauve
that I fell into a trance
and ate the forbidden shellfish
G-D WANTS HIS SONG
Vanessa called
all the way from Toronto
she said that I
could count on her
if ever I was
down and out
After I put the phone down
i played the six-holed wooden flute
she gave me
on the occasion of our parting
i figured out the fingering
and I played it better
than I had ever done
Tears came out of my eyes
because of the music
and the recollection
of her extraordinary beauty
which no one could avoid
and because she said
there was a missing song
and I had been employed
ALL HE KNOWS
All he knows
is that this has happened before—
this moment, next moment, last moment.
It is playing a second time,
maybe a third.
Yes, a third time.
He remembers remembering it.
Hydra,
August 1999
IF I TOOK A PILL
If I took a pill
I’d feel you so much better
I’d write you a poem
That sounds like a letter
I’d kill someone mean
And I’d cut off his ear
And I’d send it to you
With “I wish you were here”
I’m trying to finish