ich grolle nicht

there's nothing to blame,

my dearest. nothing to

it's just that there's so little left.

if i were a god i could write in tongues of flame

and i would say in letters a mile wide that it wasn't

...what i thought.

the taste

of a shadow is

something vile.

as if you were vile,

lover,

as if in the depths of your eyes lurked

white, warped things

that not even the sun of your face

could burn away.

white as zinc.

the flavor of a girl.

no longer to taste

the gravel

your steps

touched.

ich grolle nicht

veronica, my star, my sun,

veronica, my root, my heart, my white, my black, my red,

my gravity, my time and space,

my cat, my dog,

my and and the,

my it, my h, my r,

my, my.

(veronica, i was wrong. i was wrong.

but spare me. spare me.

veronica, don't leave me. don't leave me.

think how much i say i love you.

think how much

i love you.)

ich grolle nicht

strange

this search

for a word--

the word

of

looking

gilt

in its face,

or that

of fashioning

guilt

into some sort of

mirror.

i've cracked

in a space

delimned

by waiting

and shards

have fallen

to a pavement,

they refract

light, like

sun on lips,

and the light

shines up over

my face--

almost as if

i can feel

its glimmer,

the image

of

guilt

is my image

and my image

silvers

gilt's

visage.

ich grolle nicht (sonnet-form)

awake again all night
and alone, time thick with shadows,
the t.v. going and the radio, maybe
i am finally distracted enough

to be able to say that, god,
i have known joy in pain but not like this,
every moment jewel-thick with its own worth
and each moment in hell.

(the t.v. going and the radio, maybe,
awake again all night,
and alone, time thick
every moment jewel-thick

and each moment in hell.
and each moment in hell.)

ich grolle nicht

but if i never deserved to feel love the first time, why would i deserve to do anything like love again?  wasn't the first time stolen, against all odds, against overwhelming evidence?  something filched from time, put into place only
by virtue of
a fugitive
will?


there is a song
casting its thin thread
across Stygian waters:

vanesa, vanesa,
i drank
nothing
from the chalice
of your face.

ich grolle nicht

the issues are complexified
by facts i cannot go into right now.

but for an instance:
that labyrinth borges harps on about.
where what's mirrored is wilder
than the image it projects.
and at the same time every double
is as real as that which it has doubled.
because according to some other beautiful culture
there are ways
to get behind
the image
and see the image
behind the image.

my thoughts pathless,
writhing
like a tangle
of black
harp strings.

ich grolle nicht

you thrust deep
into the heart
of each cell
of my blood
a gold coin

so that i am flushed
and heavy
with your
worth

ich grolle nicht

because
i don't know
what goes here:

1 01
11 01
10 11
111 0

1101 1
1011 1
0111 1
1111 00
0001 11
0011 10
0111 00
1110 00
111 00?  111?  11111? 11111111?11111111???11? 1?

1
1
1
1
1
1
1


0...

ich grolle nicht

relentless mouth with your
relentless hungers.

ich grolle nicht

masks

the image is reattached to its meaning, but not wholly, with a certain blank field between itself and its expression.  the blank field is that of jointure, the act of jointure and the exhaustion of its delay.

hence meaning fires into blankness, and the image, tethered rather tenuously, seems to float

like the wild head of a poppy on its spiderlike stem.

the image

floats


on blankness

lifeless, unviable

as a mask tethered to a face.

if the sky
that we look upon
should crumble and fall
or the mountains
tumble
to the sea
no i won't
i won't cry
no i won't
shed a tear
just as long
as you stand
stand by me
stand by me
stand by me
stand by me
stand by me

ich grolle nicht

i have almost nothing.
not time, not anything, practically.
i have nothing but love.

love, and pain.

love, and hope.


and also the inside voices.


not even a poem.
just a collection of sentences.


and the inside
the inside voices.

(and love.)

watch the collection
drift through my fingers.

hey down a down
the inside voices

ich grolle nicht

sway
of
sound

sound
straight through

still behind every cell i look for you
look for you behind every shadow of beating vein
within each fountain of the eye, within each whitecap teeth

i pound of sound

my love my love my love
it is a kettledrum
my love my love
it is a sleeve,
a hide hiding mountables
the soft sinkable things
the soft vulnerabilities

kettledrummed i resound
reresound  beating beating out the tender vein
thick-knuckle down the fountain
the giant envelope of lovesong
a wave so deep i could curl up in
and ride  filled, annihilate,
gone

.  .  .