Bafflement

everyone died in daylight
hiding behind the shadow of
the big crow on the fence slats
wild man of the town

my neck is stiff, the sky smoky
and we have ruined each other for
this world, there is no cure
but look how it shines

I will swallow that dirt
eat and trust it
let the shape take shape
in my gut

say hello anger
what do you say
come meet my friends
in the hot shade


2012

A Massive Explosion

reason cause justification defense
a note explaining an absence
a list of excuses
each starting the same way

they put me in this place
I wouldn't stop twitching
grumbling, moaning I can't
I can't, I can't, I can't

the darkness is the cause
the ignorance that plunges headlong
into the depths of unknowable accident
the placecard nameless


2012

Arcangela

this evening we shall see stars
and Copernicus and the Spheres and all orbits and circles
and the frozen sun
beneath the black veil of heaven
that we shall learn -- stars, this evening

which when we reach with eyes of wonder
to escape our globe
shall then bind up our hearts
whose memory shall be a weight upon me
an echo of its dawn beyond the great chain of galaxies
until there is one light and one discovery
and one voice
only it and thus the weight
the full moon


2012

An Egg

wunderbar wunderbar
what the world gave up
against a clear sky tonight

with eyes closed, alone
(always here all along)
turning my head all night

whirling away like a dervish
gasping for the truth of this night
the perfect truth
coughing from the chest like a sermon
coughing on Augustine's pages



2012

Atlantis

Then the journey
the journey to openheartedness
on the backs of lakes and rivers and the ocean Orca
that descends.


2012

The German

bringing his luggage into my mind
and the empty home of mind and heart

dropping at my feet what brings
truth yet must soon take leave

claimed by a voice that does not know
this luggage heart and mind be patient


2012

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

Are you full tonight,
my white rising dark-sided moon?
How full she looks,
this sister of this brother...

I will catch it with a fishing net.
Rock and dust and craters.
Then I will stand and reach reaching
through the Holy of holies,
the circling barren star-gazing drifter,
Cardinal Bellarmine.

Oh Orsini forgive me the soul of a man
who has followed the fading heavens,
roamlight blinded,
and afford me a final
wordless silent moment here.


2012

A Meditation on Enlightenment

If these eyes could look inside they would see
the one who watches, the one called me. And then
those inward eyes would look behind where stands
the one with a thousand faces, who is everyone.
Or behind us all where hangs the curtain of
a thousand colours, which is everything.
In the back of a room so large
all time fits neatly inside.

And there I would sit,
spinning wildly through
the ages, skin glowing
with fire and light.

From my mind would rise a bowl to be emptied.
From my heart would rise a bowl to be filled.
And this is when the two awake to each other,
in the air and space of our making.


2012

In Memory (or, The Third Man)

We four in the wake of the rock
that fell in the night in the dark
went searching for Emily Carr's home
in the ground this day (surrounded
by crayons and flowers they say)

Blind as a pair of eyes we entered
into her rest as I took the steps,
walking the grass pushing up daisies
Easter Saturday in the cool sun ("Ah,
I should have brought a paintbrush!")

And she was the waves that crashed
but did not fall, or fell but did then lift
after soaking three days -- Emily Carr!
Artist and Lover, the smallest stone in
the corner, just where we left her

past Douglas and Margaret Helmcken
(they named the hospital after him)
Charlie Moss whose soul is like the
wings of his beloved birds. Norman
Kirk, may your stone tree grow strong.

The bay twinkles with their souls,
bright red sails and rainbow kites.
Your mum pulls weeds, stooped, around
her daffodils. "So pretty," she mutters,
"mmm, there were tulips at one time."

Later we clear the boxes of old frames
and all the devastating, disgusting things.
Journal in arm, knuckles smudged with ink,
a firm, open hand, perfect for a heart:
Don't fall today, I longed, and agreed

Carol Reed's The Fallen Angel did show
a lack of integrity, a happy ending that
did not belong, wasn't right -- not the
mad twinkle of Orson's mysterious smile:
"We're like crows. Anything that glitters."


2012