3. the unpaved

new monster

new monster

there is no revelation

besides remembrance.

there is no tide

aside from blood

and all about

in the sick dark

there is a pull--

as if new beasts

stretched their mouths,

there is a rhythm

to this rotted-sweet

lack of light.

raucous freshness

this is a story i have told myself already:

but a hand reached out

of that fiery, turgid depth.

it was a shaken and pale shoot

and it was mine.

i looked at it. it plunged into

the presence of you as if

into water.

as if

into

water,

distilled

and shattered

against

a pit

of glass:

smooth

and clear

as inverted

sunlight.

my love demands

what it can:

this

very heart

is yours.

save

me

from

my own

flesh.

dearest

thickset stalks of memory

fold against each other,

something improbable

slithering between

the upright sheaves.

i weave my image

with broken thread

and i weave with

sounds like

cold glass breaking

in heat. so that

it shimmers

so that

i need not

see

the thing

that waits

for the harvest

to show.

roses

push the sweet dank rot

out the red lips

coated like with lipstick

and we pushed

together.

fold, please--

re-pleat. please.

fold.

resonance

dear reader,

i am writing words

for the express purpose

of turning off

my mind.

my hands have

shaken other hands

and shaken by themselves:

the above exemplifies

description.

my hands have turned

like leaves falling from trees

into words in my own hands

and this is how

i have

and will

destroy

my own self

and not wait

for winter

white and cloudless

as raw pelting grains

of white rice

to do it for me.

the above

exemplifies

metaphor.

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.

veronica

veronica

but no one thought

and no one guessed

what the cloth caught

when it took his impress.

and no one heard

and no one saw

what the cloth learned

when it touched to his jaw.

my lord i begged

to be thrown away

but i received your dregs

and so i was saved.

my lord i cried

to be left unannealed

but away i was prized

and so i was pealed.

my lord, it was dark

in the place where i lay

until you lifted me up

into the light of your day

and blinded me to all but your way.

and bound me, bound me, bound me to your way.

zinc metaphor

(deep in the caverns

of my heart

there is a coin.

it has two faces

unchanging

and the metal

in the center

writhes

between them,

turned liquid

under pressure.)

turn away,

turn away life

and re-trap me

in the cypress' bark

and come aground,

the stopped heart,

come aground

and bear me

in your crucible

of unbreathing blood.

deep between

the walls of two visions

unfolds

a plane beyond time

weaving itself

of motion and desire:

spill me there,

white heart,

away from the bone depth

of your helpless drought--

spill me out apocryphate,

beyond sight,

splitting

with wetted sound,

at the least,

self-enfolding.

i wept in a dream

"i want to put my mouth

to the comet's trail

and dye my hands

in fire," she said,

and i cannot do so without you.

and i cannot do so without you.

her insistence on my presence

is why i put my hands in hers,

though her skin chills

and her teeth glitter

with something

that looks like blood.

there are comets

in the early morning

for her to mouthe

and she brings me with her

and she plunges me into fire.

everywhere my skin touches, i feel you.

every place my blood beats, you are there.

at least you are there.

milton

crush

flesh

to dark

ness.

the tower

built

of raw dark

the up-

thrusting

thing

against

its ideal

turn it

real

taste

of yellow

roses

the stalklike

mark

on creamy

forearm

i was in the darkness, though.

but it was a meat darkness.

i pushed my way out

and there was meat for days.

quietus (in translation)

i see your face

as if transient, in a dream,

my first and last love--

the retching

stickiness

of memory

and the wrench

of distance

a hand that wishes to

hold nothing

yet

lets nothing go

a wretched
and circular
desire.

i read your face

as if in memory

dearest

i read and rend your face

as if from memory.

a hand i once held

is over-full of memory

and my own hand

is over-full

of shadow--
substance.
i was robbed
of substance.

fullness--i was

robbed

of fullness,

and hang,

sick,

like a crescent moon,

somewhere between day

and hungering night

while night

empties her budget

into her own
hollowness.

meditations of the beast

earth and sky
unbroken, tight
and unceasing as shackles--

air, light, dirt, everything,
unending, massed hostlike,
the press of hot things,
bodily and burned sacred.

break and writhe,
you, uncleanly thing,
and befoul heat itself
with your strangled release,

and you, dark receptacle
and you, dark receptacle
cleave to yourself
cleave yourself
and break yourself
and break yourself

for everything else
is too ready to spill you
if you dont spill yourself.