Pedestrianism

I think that I am better
in the winter, but
not for reasons you would guess

not because of Christmas
or fires or bowls of soup

and not because things are
dead or dying and the soft
remembrance of death
reminds us that we are
meant to live

but because it's finally,
blessedly cold and I can
go outside in a coat,
my good coat that I
like, damn it

Two Returns

Because I have withered
and felt my withered hands,
and because I have been made
drunk on the sounds of words

apart from meaning,

let me tell you
that the day goes dancing
when you have ceased to sing

and let the strings go quiet
and set the instrument by your
feet. And because I have
withered

and seen my withered cheeks,
I hope that you will listen
when I tell you that
time is still
not a wicked thing, but

time
and the flesh
and the world
return to God who made them
and makes them new.

Kunstmuseum

So I set out to paint you in recollection,

to sketch you in broad strokes: your

hip and shoulder, brow and breast—a

bit less like Titian, a little more

Matisse (for me, I’d be a Hollander).

And you shot me with that withered

gun, so that I can believe you might have

seen the apocalypse in a man’s heart.

A stove-plate etched by Quaker hands

while Cain strikes his brother dead. A

little less like you. More willing to kill you.

And Hirst is another blue-eyed orphan

who foundered in interpretation that

broke beneath him as he went, not

one but two and lightning (three, four,

split sycamore). Institutions will be

sanctified to God, and God will

be a complete sentence among the dead.

Your Keening Edge

There is no comfort with the inward wolf,

no solace in that tender sea

            and the earth is heavy

            underfoot. Who is like the

                        wolf, and who can make

                        war against him?

                                                             not I

                                                             not I

                                                                                and saint grace

                                                                      went

                                                                      trilling

                                                                      in the air…

                                                O clockwork heart, O

                                                sawdust head! hear

                                                how earthy things may

                                                speak! you liquor-eyed,

                                                you petrol-belly boy

           

Attend, all starry powers

                               Behold, you vaunted angels

                                                                 The earth, too, can sing;

                                                                 the earth, too, will

                                                                 kiss the Son

The Sitting Room

I just want it to go

well, he said

It won’t, it never does,

she said, and traced

a sigil in the air

with a burning cigarette

Damn it all, he said—

and the smoke

hung like a

prayer, like a silver-haired

amen

His Shaved-Faced Son

Worm Jacob went about

with knives beneath his skin,

to the city where snow fell

while he had slept.

Snow fell in Boston

and I was not there,

on Philadelphia in the night,

and Worm Jacob did not see.

Snow is and is not grace,

though it writes in

signs we cannot read

and blots out our uncovered heads.

Behold as he reaches out, Worm Jacob

and his span of fingers, reaches

out for the lost bodies of

his youth, intending

but to say “I wish

that I were otherwise, I wish

that it were not—”

Les Droits de l'Homme

Yesterday I stood in the parking lot

and breathed and wished

the air were colder, just a little colder,

and let the coat

fall loose around my shoulders.

In younger days, it seems

to me, I did not hurt

because I did not care.

Gliding in slow rounds,

a dance in unending light,

a reel in frost and fairy-light.

O Absalom, Absalom, my son!

I saw you hanging on that tree—

I remember, once,

you ran your fingers through

my hair and I

said nothing to you.

The man alone wants only

to say something that

means something other

than that he is alone.

All we want is a place to be,

a broad and open land.

All we want is to be

received, a little gesture of welcome

in earliest morning.

Come, put the whiskey

on the table, let

me feel that I

am wanted in this place.

We set our eyes toward

a better country

that we cannot see

where there will be time

again for talking

and where the course of time

will bruise no longer.