Whiskey and Salt, Whiskey and Chocolate

Whiskey and Salt

A smell of cedar- the sound
of sleet and wind (they roar
and they murmur)- the smoothness
of this glass tumbler and the
quiet fire in my throat. I
haunt the night, and the Spirit
of God is haunting me. He is
not quiet.

Whatever happened to my honesty?
Innocence I never had, but once
I thought I might be honest. What
hand if not mine could kill it?
And if it was I, I am the slayer
of my self. I am the blighter
of the green, and the wicked blade
a-sweeping. I am the mouth of hell,
and I the river Acheron.


Whiskey and Chocolate

A taste of apples and of wood, and
the whisper of a kiss. Think- how was
man meant to be? Poised to fall but
held aloft by heavenly fingers, by
godly grip, by the pleasure and the
patience of divinity. All good things
praise the Lord (und wo ist etwas
Schlechtes?), and the Lord it is
who makes me.

Faith alone can tie sure bonds
and faith alone can keep them.
Faith in love and kith and kin-
faith in right and good and
might- faith in God and in his
Christ. I am empty, but he
is fullness. I have nothing, and he
is all things to me.

Epigram

It is no easy thing,
when cannibal is king,
to burn the dead
and fires red
around them ring.

I Lost

You are all your fingers in my hair,
my curly cap, my darkling dancer,
you are your weight against my thighs.
You are quick, cool breaths against my brows.
You are little lines on my pages,
my America, my new found land.

what masks we wear

you hear my shouting

sibylline and sibilant

made of moving things

we fought, we fight

and still will fight

but death is gone

from our fingers

and hell from our hands

see, see, the cutless

knives

pierced and punctured

lacerated

ragged, raging

broken in splendor

we are the gods

of the underworld

the soiled divinities

olympus in the slums

Vivat Rex

I. I want to wallow for a while.

To wait, to wade, and wander in this

dead man's place a while yet.

But the thumb of God is on

my chest, and the forefinger

of God is at my spine and,

Oh!, how he presses.

II. There is no conscience in

California, no dread of great

moving things, no iron in

its soul. I was made for

colder things and colder questions.

Have you fire? Have you 

furs? Have you flint?

III. "She is all states, and all

princes, I." But that is

a ghost too costly for

the keeping. Bid farewell,

farewell. Princes now

are out of fashion, and so

it seems am I.

IV. My eyes are stupid in these

hours. More streetlights when I 

would rather have the dark. 

The burn scar on my hand is 

faintly shining. I took it on the 

sinister side, and something in that 

is fitting.

Burn and Blister

Still it moves,
Still he grows.

Behold, thou art the
Very image of th' Antichrist.

Most abject shame,
Most utter shame.

The welfare of the city
Where you were once a sojourner.

Seven hills and seven horses,
And seven swords in seven hands.

Not even the earth is still,
It trembles in his grasp.


All things new,
All things new.

Blood will have its blood in turn
As each cries out to each.

Shall the judge of all the earth do wrong?
Who told you, viper, when to flee?

Thou art a villain.
Thanks, and thee.

Let us die upon our knees,
So ends this catechism.

What is the meaning of this dream?
Mourn for holy Russia.

You approach me like the rugged bear,
But will not grant me footing.

All men seek the good.
Thou art blind, old man.

Profundis (oder, Die Wale, Die Der HERR Machte)

Rest not easy, brothers, but

whet the spears and raise

the lances, for the times are

violent and the violent take them

See, see the shining wake!

Wouldst think the deep were hoary

Attend! The sword of heaven

comes now to slay the dragon

that is in the sea 

To slay the dragon

that is in the sea

with his scales

like shields and

his rush like lightning,

be not weary, brothers,

but wash your hooks

in oil and earth and let

your fingers know the spear

The LORD is a man of war,

and YHWH is his name

Agonistes

I know you in my splintered bones-
they burn, they split, they ache.
I have seen you in the mirrored sky,
everywhere near and always distant
(so everywhere mediated as to be
immediate in all things, so everywhere
immediate as to be in all things mediated).

The fathers have not understood
their sons, and the sons have not
loved their fathers. But I am
my father's son.

All things weary, all things die,
all things tend toward dissolution.

When he gathers to himself his spirit
all flesh dies together. But I am
my father's son.

Europa

He used to kiss the girls
He used to fight the men
He used to sing La Marseillaise
Like it was Hallelujah

He used to throw his stones
He used to pluck the grass
He used to wander
Through the corn

He wrings his hands
He taps his foot
He pricks his ears
At sounds that aren't there

He praised the dead
And in the end
The dead received him

Brother Dmitri

And who will deliver us from ourselves
and who will make our strivings upright?

Who will make us die the little deaths-
right shame, right fear, right folly, right hurt?

Who will kiss the lepers,
who will bury all the children?

Who will be the stinging salt
that hurts and heals the wounds?

Who will stand and speak for me
when I have not feet, nor words?

Who will be the fullness
when I am empty-handed?

Who will sow and reap and sow anew,
who will speak and cease to speak?

Who will burn the city down
and build a world from ash?

Neuwelt

Do you ever consider the roads
you drive on? I have been in places
without trees and without hills, where
the earth is like a sea, where there
is only the ripple of tall grass and
the slow rolling of distant clouds, where
the sky looks broader, more immense.

But here, at home, there is nothing like
that, no plains, no unbroken fields.
The roads here bend through thick, close
woods, all leafy trees and soil
underfoot. In the evenings, when the
sun shines down on the drifting, spinning
motes of dust, it seems as though the
trees are themselves a city, these dim
and ancient woods a nation. And sometimes,
where the branches stretch and touch
over the pavement, I feel as though these
streets and roads are the arteries of
some unseen heart, vast and thumping
and, I think, inexorable.

This was the first America, four hundred
years ago. They came to build Jerusalem,
on the shore of the haunted waste. Hollanders
and Englishmen- perhaps some blend of both-
their aims were better than they, and I
love them for that. This was the first
America, and perhaps will be the last.

Mein Schatz, Bei Dir

I like to whistle when
I walk, because I cannot
sing. And I would like
to sing.

I am sitting now, listening
to the little rainfall and
the far-off thunder. My blinds
are down. I cannot see the lightning.

I had a dream last night, and
it was good. So good that the
waking hurt, and hurts.
I hope to dream again.

It is too cold for summer,
here, but I don't mind.
I have been too much
in the sun.

Terrible Ivan

Why grasp and claw and tear
for life? Why run until your
feet cannot? Why pant and
strive and wear us out?

Why not suffer, why not die?
Why not stand and die
instead? Why not instead
accept the blade, the stone,
the shot, the shell? Why not
accept and fall and die?

Why not fall and grip the
grass, fall and grip and
twist the grass, grip and
twist and pull the grass,
and gasp and retch and
breathe your last?

Why not gasp and retch
and wrench and bleed
and bleed and bleed and
breathe your last?
What terror lives in death
and dark, where too the
Word has been?

Falcon and Gyrfalcon

The fire and the knife of bronze

are passing through the fields of corn

the lightning and the sword that winnows

go sifting through the wheat

The fingers of the weaver now

are walking in the warp the

weft the hunter's hands are

shaping horn and hide

The whetstone and the spears appear

and the oil for the shields the tower

stands on spoiled ground and

Abel cries aloud

The Brothers B

Wer kommt hier? Wer ist er,
der in das Reich der Luft und
der Finsternis kommt?

Er, der in dem Name
Gottes spricht und geht.

His ears ring, his fingers twitch
to the stamp and clash and sting of war.
He finds shade in a dry place and eats
his fill of stony honey and cloud-dropped bread.

Yahweh has set on his mouth
a seal, and on his back a sign.
He makes his feet strong and
his teeth like bronze to grind and tear.

Wer ist er?
Er ist Israel, der
mit Gott kämpft.
Und er geht um
die Welt.

Eliot

Frame my heart in paschal blood
and paint signs of warding on my brow.

Es geht dir gut, ja?
Mais, j'ai peur.
Es solamente un sueño.
Stilte. Slaap.

I saw him trampling out that vintage,
saw his feet upon the mountains.

Was tust du hier?
No quiero morir.
Ah, je t'aime.
Quid ergo dicemus ad haec si Deus pro nobis
qui contra nos?

Das Fleisch und Der Teufel

Isaiah the prophet stood upon a lowly hill with
two fists full of earth and fire in his mouth
his eyes abounding with the sight of God
John the preacher went down into the water
and the river curled around his dirty toes
The dead man Lazarus lifted up his cloth-swathed
head and walked into the world
The hand of God is a shaping hand caked
with mud and clay and dust
The word of God is a killing word
and a word of resurrection

Hermeneutics

Time is a tautology
made of moving parts.
Space is a syllogism,
the room for thoughts to play.

Did they ever tell you
otherwise? Did you hear
there was no law for
transients like us?

You climbed up Mount
Moriah and told the
winds you flew. But
where were you when

the foundations were laid
and the sons of God rejoiced?

Reverie

We never made any music
said the man in blue
and shook his curly head

I never wanted any of it-
the stupid pins and
those magnets on the busted fridge

The sun came up again this morning
but you weren't there to see it
I think you were flying home again

We told her the door was locked but she
didn't want to hear it
She had places to be

There's no such thing
he told the girl in the yellow dress
but she only smiled wider

Nachfolge

In one hand, tongues of fire,
and in the other a knife of
bronze, and at your side, your
son, Isaac, the child of the
promise. Your aged fingers have
no feeling, your wrinkled feet
drag and drag. You have named
him, in your heart, the lamb
of slaughter and the price of
God. The seed of your flesh,
the heir of the covenant, the
pledge of the Almighty- and
will he die? Do you dream
that God might turn aside, relent?
Know that God is not like man,
will not change, will not turn.
This you know in your soul and
cannot doubt. Isaac, the son of
laughter, will die this day.
Behold, the fire and the knife.

Der Geist Der Zeit

Time from time redeeming time,
if such a thing can be,
and all the wasted minutes
come and- prodigals- knock at
the peeling door. If time
from time redeems the time,
might it not come for me?
With a soft and wearied
voice start proffering my
name? If time and time
could redeem the time...

The world runs thus away.