1.the blue woman has a child in her belly
TRANSCRIPT
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1.
The BlueWoman has a child in her belly
at night when she wanders
the child whispers to her
she cannot sleep for its whispering
like a wolf, guttural muttering,
like a fox, some wild thing
scratching at moss and leaves of
the forests hide
she is in love
with this moving thing in her belly.
its fists drum a beautiful drum
against her flesh.
Its head flickers
with silver images of the old ones
it is old. it is holy and speaks
to Good and Evil.
it is more beautiful than the Garden
or the serpent it is a light in her
when she opens her mouth
to sing, to hum in the night when she
cannot sleep because
she thinks about it all the time.
its petals are opening it will
awaken in her lullaby of pain.
it will never be hers.
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2.
Blue Woman always coughed
during concerts
the old lady
who sat next to her (smelled of death )
did not mind.
she stretched out her elbows on both sides
so the blue woman must squeeze
her folded arms against her body
then if Blue Woman chewed on her cough drop
very loudly
to annoy the old lady,immediately she was sorrowful
the music existed
only because of the old lady
her elbows claiming a place
inside the sad grey ocean
slipping clinging
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3.
The Blue Womans Desire
as if she stretched out her arm through
a barred window begging for bread
as if she had caught the aria of a
scorned soprano in her fist
as if she had no where to put her arm.
Her desire like a slow drowning,
choreographed of seaweed and grief
like snowflakes, like a sacrament
on her tongue, her desire flew
as egrets doon unwinding ribbons of wind
sleepwalking at a precipice
poised
listening to her heartbeat.
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4.
She crossed her legs twice and sucked on her cigarette
The children mimicked her, cruelly.
Why? she puzzled, her heart fragile as a white dandelion.
The psychiatrist looked away into himself.He cleared his throat.
Its about our shared inhumanity.
And so the children began to see that there was meaning
in the way she crossed her legs and they began to
scratch at the picture of her in their minds as if to
obtain something hoping she might uncross her legs.
her fingernails were always broken; her hands did
not know how to be. The children scratched
with their small nails slowly obtaining
her skin and her blood and her bones.
She knew what the children wanted and smiled at them
and gave them everything.
to the psychiatrist she gave
symbols, signs, trinkets he wanted.
It was never enough so she made more out of little bits
of amazement
She would glance nonchalantly to see if they were all happy.
And then when they were content for a time
she would imagine that she was
an icy mirror, a queen of snow
never to be broken again.She smiled, she laughed out loud and startled herself.
The children would be scratching at the picture of her.
They had already poked small holes.
She sighed in a delighted way if they took her hair,
if they took her skin, her lips,
it did not matter.
She did not need that anymore. she had begun
to live within herself and to listen to herself
around and around
as if she lived inside a conch
The children yawned. the psychiatrist slumped.
she slipped them into bed
she wanted to sing them
with her groaning lullaby,
and to lift the shadows like a shade
on the wavy window.
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5.
The Child
nothing was like it not even smoking
in the convent bathroom.
the child touches your
humiliation
gently just as gardenia
starts succulently then bruises
the nuns sang behind
a translucent intensity
to the child but
no the child was not a saint
black car coming could have
there and then
was a hill of dandelions of cornflowers
there was a piece of white chalk
6.
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The Blue Woman's Sunny Day
probably the UPS man would come todayso she waited in a frail pretty dress
a party dress
to open a package
she would need her hair cutting scissors
and remembered to fetch them
although she felt giddy
The UPS man would come all in brown
except for his endless blue eyes on her
he would wonder why she got this package
but not what was in it
he would narrow his blue eyeschecking out Blue Woman
and deciding what she deserved and what
she would want
If Blue Woman looked very happy
he would be happy
he was so handsome
UPS man believed it was he
who made this happiness
since it was his job
after all
such a nice guy she thought
and then she took the haircutting scissors
and cut the tape on the package
tissue paper puffed out like butterflies
in a wind blowing bubbles
the UPS box was full of light-as-nothingness
fragile as the child holding hands
climbing the stairs with dimpled legs
and the child swinging higher and
higher into the twirling sun
calling all the birds and the bluenessof sky
and Blue Woman's name.
7.
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Blue Woman's Pocket Full Of Posies
She wanted it to always be like this
Where the words were old and comforting
like water in the holy water font
filled with blessing and tears
goodness made her cry
people walking on the stone slab sidewalks
in the old neighborhoods
where grandmother sat on the porch protecting
the chestnut trees
from smudged little boys throwing sticks
where small Mrs. Sabastiano
walked to Mass every morningjust because she loved Jesus
who was bleeding for her
on her flowering bedroom wall.
It would always be like this
in a way of thinking
that was secret and hidden in
the fragrant pockets of her mind
filled with icons of beloved faces
and violets the child brought her
from the woods.
8.
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His name was 'Silence'
leaning against anywhere
smelling of sweat and wine
a lanky mumbling man who wore a dirty white shirtbuttoned up and sagging jacket
used to be a doctor until innocence died
of fever
this is why Blue Woman loved him in an intense
trembling way
and bought him bread
to make him touch her hand with his incongruous
clean fingernails
to make him look through and in her
to see her bleeding
with their gentle and strong silence
they spoke so like prayers to each other
this is why Blue Woman loved him
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9.
Sleepy Time Song
She rocked and she sang
to the full moon
hanging high
the full moon the jewel moon
opalescent as the child's sweet face
the owl hooted and the pussycat rhymed
by the light of the moon
whiteness and moonbeams
lay downy as the pussycatwho licked the milky lips of the child
10.
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Water In The Desert
as if slipping silk over her head
Blue Woman enters
the sun hangs cool and simple behind a knife edged dune
all is a meditationa laughing monk in blood red garments bows
she hears the sand whispering
sand runs through her hands praying a million prayers
like stars in the desert night the monk's laughter
she bows
does not lift her face
because it is not her own face
it is the changing sands of the desert
it does not remember itself
yet she remembers this monk and how his laughter
is like the ocean laughing and his mindfilled with emptiness
how lovely is his presence
Blue Woman reaches for him with her blue spirit
he gazes at her with solemn child eyes
his small brown hand raises to greet her
and to leave her
such things have no understanding
yearning for such emptiness as his
he is the child whispering a million prayers for her
laughing and
laughing
11
Canticle Of Blue
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her glitter eyelid
blinking up at the sky
mysterious she thought,
how some things search you,
blue woman wanted this, to be knownand touched by this knowing.
beseeching this blue
prying till it hurt
as the searching went deep into forgotten pools
darling reflected faces smiling
out of depths half known
dimensions
she entered her own blueness
as if entering a womb
and a tomb
a baby's wail
and the heartbroken lullaby she sang
taunted her delighted her ravished
by illumination
there were no shadows
awful light striking her glittering eyelids
they would not close
so much to see
like a river falling from her hairall her bleeding blueness
never ending birds climbing the light
and singing
forest of souls ascending
solemn paused deer the scutter of small things
under the phosphorescent forest mulch
fall on my knees
there is this
just this
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Some Other Poems
12.
OLD
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old,
old
woman leaning over
the back seat of the
van,
air so hotdry
and wrinkled,
crying mama,
mama
over
and
over
as we walk by;
still crying
mama, mamawhen we come back
13
At A Concert Of New Music
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The audience is suspended as if all their long hair is floating in water
The Orchestra seizes the trembling air and their embrace is a lament
about rivers.
The music knows that it is something else.
It is partly the souls who have died at that moment.It is partly a wolf growling for blood.
The orchestra and the audience are luminous, pale as lovers,
but the music is an old woman pushing naked dolls in a cart.
She grumbles at time and her hunger is of delicate lettuce, dark soup.
God is watching her.
God says she is the same as the dust on her hem.
And yet He kisses her forehead and her lips.
14.
A Frozen Sheet
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The rag man lives
with frozen bits of sheets and broken undershirts
all wound up in raa a ggs a, raa ag ggs a
he calls from the gypsy wagon through glacial teeth;
clip clop
Italian ladies give him rags;
he sleeps in them;
he dreams of love like snow.
15.
A Russian Folk Tale
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My grandmother was Russian.
I lie. No one in my family is Russian,only I. ..
My children are all lilacs and Lithuanians.
They are the color of jasper.
My mother belongs to the Romanian Gypsy Church.She is called Queen
or Little Holy Mother.She must cover her audacious hair
with random wild kerchiefs,and she prays before a flame that we may be changed to swans again.
My father wears velvet slippers and walks in the snow.
He trudges wearily, but see how humblyhe carries the Queen's crumbling train.
My husband went to war. There he slays
winged dragons named in the Holy Book.
He feeds his horses cubes of sugar soakedin whiskey, then, they ride swiftly.I would like to ride so.
If my Russian grandmother had been a CossackI would have had a saddle trimmed with silver bells.
My horse would stride so keen that not one bell would ring.
Now my children have no father.
They nod on their stems and complain like Bolsheviks.
They would be free of their delicate dark roots;They want ponies and beribboned bridles.They forget violets in the woods.
My grandmother, my grandfather, waltz while the doors are breaking.My mother, with narrowed queen eyes says, "I do not believe you."God, who sees all things, and wants all things,
knows I speak in flaming tongues of truth.
My father has beautiful bones that banish me with his tears,
and I run out the door and down the streets crying.
I bless him and bless him and bless himwith my lies.
16.
The Glitter Of The Moon Tossed Carelessly Across The River
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To be the river
is more beautiful than moons, more thani a beautiful drum.
The moon is broken on the river like ourT broken god.
Heart, do not choose the river or theH moon.
To be small,
to be broken as rain.
See how the Heron is brokenS from water and air
One foot, one foot, he liftshis tentative leg across the ashy morning.h He chooses to be small. His shadow
so tenderly unfolded like an antiques wedding veil laid out upon the bed.
There was a man in a brown jacket, who walked downT his street in a sweet small town carrying his groceriesh
home in a sack, A rude pine tree scratched at his
windows and there was no light in them at night
His wife died and one day the man died too. His neighbors were ill at case.
They had known his nameT and, surely they had spoken to him
about lettuce in winter and tomatoes in summer. Still, they were ill at ease
I want to be smaller than I am;
my blood to be red on the white snow as them doe's blood;to cover my head with black silk,t to cover my body with yellow silk.
This is the riddle.T What thing is one
and cannotbe broken?
There, his feathers riffled by air, the HeronT walks on water;
one step, one step, trailing his crooked shadow like another Heron transfiguring in water..
Who can bear it?
A star is colder than winter. God is asA alone as birth.
This is to be incandescent.T No one can bear it.
It is better to be broken.
The dark red heart chooses this.
This is the riddle: What thing is one and cannot be broken?There, his feathers riffled by air, the Heron walksT on water; one step, one step, trailing his crooked
shadow likes another Heron, transfiguring in water.
17.
Poem For The Sparrow
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The people were so needy that the birds
began to feed them,
little by little inviolate
visions and other colors as violent as passion
fruit and yet minute and mustard seed
like (as if to speak), the subtle way birds
can minister to the needy, the heavy and cast down.
It was only the Bird Of Paradise who wept. Still,
others sang more sweetly and clear as if their song
was drawn from a spring in the garden
or through a bell flower.There was a little bird that lay, feet up, upon the cellar floor.
It had come in through the shed door left open
for the garden.
I do not understand; If God observed that sparrow
fall after flying voiceless and thumping in the cellar,
why did He not come from the garden and open
the cellar door and carry the small spent bird
in His hand?
18.
Red Sailboat
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In the corner
of the picture
a small red sail boat
riding on pointed waves.
The boat bleats
in its sails like a lamb
far from the pasturefar from the steaming barn
and its hewn beams low overhead.
As if it were pulled thoughtlessly
like a toy boat, its slicked keel diving
into fathoms.
From shore,
someone is watching
crossing, uncrossing their
arms under the racing greyclouds.
19.
Green RowboatG
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There is a green buffeted row boat
a man in it and a baby and a dog.
They are speaking to each other
with silence.
What they say is very simple and tender;
it is like the oars and the ripplesafter the boat and the resolve of the mans
arms that feel tired but continue into
the deep of the little boats journey.
There are other boats of different colors,
but all small, all flaked and beaten
a few brave objects in them breathing
in and exhaling the soft tenderness
that is known and unknown.
20.
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Wolf
hear the howling,
its sobbing
running in the pine wind
what wild paces in usfear
a ghost in the moon
a white wolf
hand gliding over the corse hide;
the push of power there and weariness
kissing our fingers.
shall we fear him, his gaze.
we must drum in our darkness.
this lusting thief
bowing down casting his shaman eyeshis velvet muzzle
into our hand.
21.
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Underwater
Paper flowers waiting so long.
the mind holds the trembling hand;
the other picking at edges
of paint always crumbling in interesting ways
old house flowers among a scrawled garden
and wavy windowswhat of the
undulating ghosts that send
a crazed kiss waiting
long behind that greenish glass?
22.
Grey Angel
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the bridge staggers beneath
the weight of the swaddled angel.
The earth looks up with questions;
boats in harbor rock on.
The angel is
wrestling a terrible passion.
Beneath, the earth huddles around its people like a soft hen,
they clap their hands to music while the beloved plays on
a marimba full of birds.
the beloved asks the angel to sing
Then no one can bear the sound.
It is like all winds, all bells, all sighs and stars shooting.
bang.
23.
Henry Benner
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lurching down our stone road with his whining
wagon and his chuckle like the rumble of doves,
Henry hoisted us and we road higher than cattails
to our home of summer,
singing
raspberry bushes, peach trees and apples.
Barney and Queeny wheezing and snorting
with the high song of Cicadas.
Sometimes grinding on to fields
of winter wheat where we opened
kernels like rolled up babies there,
wild strawberries deep in the hay.
Four charmed children in sepia light of Henrys kitchen,
a blue flame from the stove where
we watched him heat cowboy beans
still in Campbells Soup can.
Want some?we put our hands tight behind our backs,
but we did want some.
Once when the setting sun fired the school house
windows into gold, Henry stepped out of the burning
globe to catch the wicked ponys reins as it galloped
toward the highway with Sylvia holding on in terror.
Maybe Henry was our guardian angel in those
fading days of innocence.
Sundays, Henry came to supper,
stubble on his face gone and a scent ofhay and pasture about him.
Mother made him sit alone at the small white porcelain table,
giving my father a look and he saying nothing.
Charlie would mimic his gimpy leg,
the soft hummed yes,yes, yes,
that followed Henrys speech.
Maybe Charlie loved him most of all,
but all of us thought we were the only one that
loved Henry Benner.
One day in winter, the trees moaning,
father drove us
to Henrys house. Strangers filled the rooms
touching things.
In a corner
illuminated by a shaft of dusty light
we found a box of letters
tied by ribbons of curlicue words.
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now everyone was gone
these were all they left.
We did not know what happened to Barney and Queeny,
We did not know then, how we had lost a blessing of summer,
but in the way children know things deep and blind,
we knew then why Henry died that cold winter,
and we would always be gilded by something golden and elegantlike the sun shining on the school house windows.
24.
Hearts and Arteries
Doctor:
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I have performed eighteen hundred
tangos like yours.
I swoon with such erotic
Choreography.
(He looks at his antique pocket watch)
Ah, the chronograph, Time is lost in forgotten lives. But I must goso many
Questioner:
do you have an affinity with the infinity of these arteries ?
Doctor:
When I was a child,
when they slaughtered calves in the barn.
I wanted to touch the unbroken glassy tubes.
The quality of crystal, of chrysalis,the tinkle of blue eyed nurses laughing.
My children breathing
.
Questioner:
In the x ray picture they dance
like snowflakes.
Is it you who makes them dance?
Doctor:
I merely oil the carmine metronome. I slice with my silver baton.
(Hello, my child, I am your doctor.
Yes, you may touch my hand.
and
How profound we are, that I may touch the apache dance of your heart.
Yet I am not allowed to weep. My assistant will weep but she does so secretly.)
25.
Questioner
I remember strolling with the dead and they kissing my head. They told me God waits and flees from me . Can
you imagine such humility?
And then we lay under fig trees eating apricots and wanted for nothing not even knowledgeor beauty or love.
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The dead and I lying and dreaming in our one dream. We ate figs and spiced lamb.
Doctor:
I was praying. Yes, often.
You see my hands are stained.
It was Sunday. I thought of your heart. I saw its pain.
I wished not to seethe child that died in your heart.
I prayed to look away, to heal with my eyes closed
or with golden eyes like those
the old people would place before the Virgin,
occhi se miracle
Questioner:
Yes, I remember.
The nurses were laughing. One of them was singing old hymns as if it were a joke.It was Sunday.
she was singing in a high dulcet amusing voice
and the others laughing like glass bells on the Christmas tree, like my children breathing.
I lay in the white bed and thought life
could never be sweeter than this.
*****
Questioner
It smells here.
This instillation of a weary elephant
tethered to a marble column;
dirty straw and excrement smeared around him.
His head sways right and left like a mad man.
He could rage. He could pull down the marble column.
He could rage against art. Is this art?
Doctor
It is truth.
26.
Questioner
You have mutilated my breast. You have balanced my heart
on the paper edge of death.
My heart grieves.
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Doctor
I am sorry.
Questioner
Yes, I can see the adorable sorrow on your face. Your humanityhas become cosmic and unbearable. Yet you bear it. How long?
Doctor
I am sorry
Questioner
His face is like that of a newborn
Questioner
Often in the early morning
I watch the birds carried
on leaps of wind
and heart stopping dives.
If one bird should fall,
I could lift it in my hands
and like a surgeon
I could open the downy breast
and hold its heart and stroke the minute thing
until
it began to beat
the bird to sing.
27.
At Dusk
Children play;
they scream.
Their voices clang iron doors.
Push me
higher.
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Touch the rotting cat
and you can kill
anyone with your finger.
Youre out!
Youre out!
BANGThe air is empty.
I have fallen out
of it.
I press my lips
on the charred sun.
Darkness
licks my neck.
My mother has white socks.
Her pockets are filled with dry leaves
and little mice.I
will break her heart.
If I hide,
if I creep close to the black bark
of sunset,
she will search
the dirty piece of paper street.
She will cry
out all my names.She will kill all the sparrows
28.
A Frozen Sheet
The rag man lives
with frozen bits of sheets and broken undershirts
all wound up in raa a ggs a, raa ag ggs a
he calls from the gypsy wagon through glacial teeth;
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clip clop .
Italian ladies give him rags;
he sleeps in them;
he dreams of love like snow
29.
Garbage Like Stars
Rummaging and Ruminating you will say,
my lovely wildebeest, there are things
here that don't belong,
picking and choosing as you go,
as if this were some literally lousy
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garage sale among geraniums
on a lost rusty road.
Oh look, my buttercup, how I have chosen
each chosen with a caress,
with an audible gasp and quivering hand,
singing each one to sleep
and staining my fingertips
with red wild berries to feed
the little withereds so full of cares
grown antique beyond their years.
You will accuse and harangue
and garble that this is garbage
strewn like stars in a song
where I stroll
arranging just so, and tied with stained
ribbons, love letters, leaves. livres,
lives, plucking: he loves me, he loves me
whynot
So, in the radiance
with which so much verbiage ignites,
who are you to say the unsayable,
the unassailable love he does
or doesn't?
30.
Roberts Mother
grey or blue dripping from the letter
that grief again and her hair I want
to show someone what
the eyes unavoidable like
jealous birds watch from the struck tree
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clouds coiling over
the eyes so obscure closing and opening
cannot read the sweetness if only
when people say dear heart mean
exactly something like fire
oh Robert oh
all the kids come running
because she fell at the sink orwas it over tea
God died and beautiful
and dear heart it is there
there where you, the water lapping
the little dog looking
31.
LISTEN SYLVIA
Blind dolls, bald dolls,
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dirty rubber dolls,d
oh I wish I
could blow my nose on my slip
like Delores does.
The scar-face ladyT Grant St.
has no nose,
has no ears,when they make her cryw
she has no tears.
Some days God
is lying on His stomach lookingi down
when I am on my back looking up.l
(Listen Sylvia
I wish II could die before mama doesc
in the dark.)
32.
Poem For The Sparrow
The people were so needy that the birds
began to feed them,
little by little inviolate
visions and other colors as violent as passion
fruit and yet minute and mustard seed
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like (as if to speak), the subtle way birds
can minister to the needy, the heavy and cast down.
It was only the Bird Of Paradise who wept. Still,
others sang more sweetly and clear as if their song
was drawn from a spring in the garden
or through a bell flower.
There was a little bird that lay, feet up, upon the cellar floor.It had come in through the shed door left open
for the garden.
I do not understand; If God observed that sparrow
fall after flying voiceless and thumping in the cellar,
why did He not come from the garden and open
the cellar door and carry the small spent bird
in His hand?
33.
OLD
old,old
woman leaning over
the back seat of the
van,
air so hot
dry
and wrinkled,
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crying mama,
mama
over
and
over
as we walk by;
still cryingmama, mama
when we come back
34.
OF COLOR
Black man under the florescent lightkicking his feet as he sits on the blue box
outside the supermarket
makes you want to know
the color of his room.
crazed china
blue
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at the end of the hall
that smells of grey
no blanket.
Robert comes back with
the gallon of milkin our green
cloth bag and we drive by him
in the dark
on our way home
35.
But I Digress (Another Folk Tale)
As the seeker in a folk tale ascends glasswithout slipping to Deaths beguiling,
here, within this vaulted glittering with ice
the way Gods eye might glitter watching, watching,
through a crack in the floor of heaven
is the impeccable body.
It cannot be reached by senses
nor five fragile birds on telephone wire.
The poem is of the body
& it is
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the fairest of all.
We cannot stay or rest or delight here long.
36.
The Boy In The Boat
cannot find the
wild fish
there
where the pale morning heron
marks the strange light does
the boy see
that word which blesses
oh does the boy see the wild fish in
the wild word
darkly
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he dreams of the faucet marked
blue
he puts out his hand
and holds it under the amazing
immaculate
he opens his mouth
and tastes
speaking in tongues
tree frogs strum
leaves, leaves
across whiteness of wood
blood, blood
they speak
only in darkness
only in moonlight
as if speaking in glass
as if speaking in breath on broken glass
and the riverexhales its myths
of beasts
the wild fish almost
smiles waits
shivering
in the river's bed
the boy tastes the wild word
it is translucent, alabaster. cold
the heron stretches its throat
to swallow a minnowheart
the green beating
37.
far
the winged fish
the boy casts a dead minnow skipping
the beat
far the wild fish eluding love
loosening the hook
oh does the boy see the moon impaled
the star white hole the
immense
cluttered void
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save the boy
the sycamore sways
the swan
flaps against the water
the sun
breaks brilliantly
the mind is light
light the flesh
of the fish is translucent
only the moon
without flaw
the boy in the boat
cannot find
the wild fish
he eats breadupon water
he drinks
nothing
nothing is
enough
his thirst falls
to the bottom of
nothing
only this
only a boy in a boat
assailing the curving wave
this bamboo flute through semicircular canals
and limpid rivers
38.
imagined deer
sipping at the moon
lie down
pressing damp wild grasses
the leave excrement of wild berries
the boy in the boat is dazzled byonly morning
the wild fish leaps
alone
the sun
infuses the exploded water
the boy is flayed
his flesh is bruised
but the wild fish
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(listen the useless oriental flute and drum
the temple bells)
the wild fish almost smiles with desire
we know not what we do
what have we done
the boy
his alabaster fleshroses stained
hangs above our vision he is
only a boy
his boat is wood
his wounds are almondite
or amaranth
the wild fish leaps
longing to speak the
word
which blesses
save the boy
undo the ribbon
in the hair undo
the hair
undo the button undo
the lace undo
the cord
beloved
the boy is undoneshe lies almost smiling
shivering
wounded
39.
wound in the river
see them
such sadness imaginesnothing glittering hung in
the void
see them simple the boy
and the fish the wild
undo
the far hills'
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intoxicating tangles
40.
My Sweet Uncle
was a young manwhen he rode my grandfather's workhorse
naked and mad
with syphilis
through the small town's streets
the church bell tolling for him
flung himself down
on his mother's sweet white sheets
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too splendid to embrace death
41.
Forbidden Poems
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for Dead Children
42.
A Preface
Their light
falls the way moonlight gentles
the backyard in winter
illuminating the snow from within
and you stand there aware
of shadowy meanings
imagine a Gardenia
what resolve the petals summon
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to open in fierce increments
of time
the hypnotic fragrance, the perfection
which one touch will bruise
Their death is this imperceptible openingand light filling the room
until in the stilled
end
the incandescence of a new star
opens where they lay
surrender of the gardenia
beauty and love are easy words
but they are also flowers and death
and stars
and the way
we in our myriad brilliant paths
are redeemed
43.
when her child died
she closed her lips and would
never open them againthere was nothing and nothingness
something happened but it was nothing
she did not say so
but her stomach hurt and her eyes
were heavy not with sleep
heavy with the burden of this nothing
which had entered the world
like a shadow creeping into the corner
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under the bed or spying through
the slit in the closet door when she had first seen
such obsequious terror
she did not think she was speaking
because her lips would not say
and they did not
even when someone would laughat one of her absurd remarks
but she nodded to herself
knowing that no one could see
where she was sitting alone
on a huge stone and scattering
ashes
singing with her bitter lips
that favorite lullaby
44.
Before children die fearful deaths
God comes to them and carries them in His arms
It is only a game when death comesknock-knocking on the door,
they all fall down
and laugh
and cry out Im not here
Cover
their eyes stern with sighs
of goodness
so like the serpents unimaginable sadness
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when it repented evil..
cover them
with leaves
in mysterious woods
hide the children from boots,
from the nervous handsthe terrorist eyes, blond lashes twitching
through the keyhole
see how He loves the children
who play with His rod and His staff
on the wide green grass
the familiar deep scent of dark loam.
45.
Little Girl Runaway
for Karen
the way her hand touched sweet deathsoft
and unendurable holding.
Little one traveling our street corner
under the maple tree's profusion
she sat on her suitcase
filled with dolls waiting resolute
for everything
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innocence imagining
some winged stranger to take her hand
where the insane foreboding birds would chirp
as if they knew she would come
seducing her to run away.
46.
New Music For My Daughter (for two voices)
of breast cancer 5/22/04
And In Memorium, Adam Ross
by Hari Kari 1988
In heaven
At the concert of New Music
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it rushes like tsunami from
the violin, cello, the flute, the flute.
We are all drowning.
Karen is swimming naked
with Adam. The cello.
Laughing among the rocks Out of the chaotic swaying and swelling
lyrical romance and
they navigate by a swinging electric
light
to his father's kitchen
where he committed
Hari Kari
its passion like flame flower
She does not ask him
Why?possesses us.
But touches the small
bleeding place and tastes.
Red is the color of my true love's blood
He and I are made of mud.
Adam.
Her children,
with their stained
eyes, like a cobra the saxophone sways,
47. one ruby eyeundulating as it muses upon
the unimaginable sorrow
of innocence.
sit at the dinner table
eating lemon pie.
It is good,
The marimba, the cymbals and sticks,
signify nothing.
Dust in my mouth.
He spat into the dust and made Adam,
DUST
the little boys tell Phoebe.
Where is the God of our mother?
Her beauty was the sweetness
in our mouths.
Dust.
In that place in the forest
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The piano is a beast who lies down
with the children
in the dark fragrant grass
to watch the stars.
where we used to go,
the darkness, mysterious
with light,surrounds like Karen's
wild hair.
How mystical is the moon.
Is it not forbidden to sing its name,
seven veiled in beauty?
There wild irises grow.
Adam bends on a slender stem
and plucks one flower for Karen.
She holds it out to me.
The waves lift us; we hear the screaming
sea birds, the Iraqi woman who tears her hair;bodies of exotic children piled among
the minor lament covered with flies...
three quarter notes.
They touch my tears
and taste.
In childhood sleep
the children hear
the delicate song ,
the lullaby Karen dreamed.
48.
From far away she sings
that beauty is more
Over and over again I asked
to play the little piece by Bach until you knew that I
had guessed your secret face
and you ran away among
apple branches to hide your faceagainst Adam.
than pain.
Far, far away
Karen's sweetness lives.
And the children,
soft,
soft as a breath
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Saxophone, cello, violin, making a terrifying
sickle. Tsunami!
Passionate curverising and falling
and the music
stops and stops,
the flute...
She was the sweetnessin our mouths.
are touched
and taste.
49
A little song for Karen
by Evelyn Glennie on marimba
As if during the night of fireflies
darkness so soft your hair spread like a peacockthe echo of you laughter made large and larger O's
and marble saints, laying down their marble hair and curled lips
praised God in language of rain's percussion.
They lower their stone eyes and cover their heads
Grey clouds fly out carried by sad angels
over rooftops closing their eyes
remembering your name on every street.
Your sweetness simple as a wild strawberry and you hands
kissed by mourners
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who listened to your story as if you floated on water
or your sighing floated in the strange place of dreams.
The road of morning lonely
your slender color standing and waving as if
we had just parted after tending the nodding garden
lingering a little while;
the sound of marimba played by a deaf woman;a wind winding through sedge grasses.
50.
Once upon a time Blue Woman
woke and found that she was lost-
she was not.
Not in death, not in a dream where
birds flew up as one angel.
No, not in death although it was dark
and shivering as old leaves silvering in winter.
Blue Woman was changed into something
formless, a swarm of golden bees, a veil
of fog covering a breath held.
Well, she wassomething....
Pain
like an earring drawing blood
it minced through her veinsan aged insect carrying its sack of
venom to her heart. Yet the pain was soft
like no other. Almost beautiful, almost loving
as if she could sleep with such sighings.
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Once upon a time Blue Woman knew
in the vast snow falling halls of her spirit
what must be finally done.
She carried Pain gently and crooning
dressed in a long white christening gown.
Sweet rosebud Pain.
She crossed herself seven times and rippedPain into tiny paper pieces like this...
One does not like unhappy endings
after-all....