meditations of the beast

beautiful scraps like

the fleeting repetition of a smell:

the sable arc of your fur--

the scarlet of

your curved tongue--

the waft of your breath

as if it still carried

on some honey breeze

into these depths

as if you still

meant

something

inimical--

as if your image

still drifted

on the mirroring shimmer

above this cracked red lake:

skin, or reflection

of heat.

but it's quiet.

my hide in tatters;

this does not matter.

suspended

as if in water,

i wait, patient

in pale state,

for the next scent

to bring back

what i never

had.

meditations of the beast

i was looking into a window

at my own reflection

and suddenly

the smell of wax,

melting things,

and i saw your image

standing behind me,

Veronica.

The window cracked,

shattering

down to its lintel, reflected light

littering the ground,

and

i turned

and

saw you.

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.

meditations of the beast

burrowing toward center

in the darkness,
the smell of jade-green forest

and sunset, the smell
even of a sun-warmed feather

a bird dropped
in exploding
cacophonous
from a treetop

the swirl of wings
the sky's metonym
and the choked stomach
of the earth

and the water flowed
like diamonds.

this was the blood in the vein.
i looked up

and i said your word.

meditations of the beast

blank:
vanesa i have writ your name in every word
and thereby writ nothing--syllables, phonemes
all washing clear against each other like ice
melting in the glass.

a clear pane
through which to see writ your name

full:
vanesa every word
draws toward you
every word is made
your word

a clear pane
through which to see your name

meditations of the beast

meditations of the beast:
carve time and space
out of what is available

and leave
what can only somewhat be
behind

to strip the ground
and grow,

its waxen leaves
reflecting moonlight

and when broken
loosing
finest
sap


are there many little boys who think that they
are a monster?  but in my case
for better or for worse i am right.

meditations of the beast

i cleaved down
to the vein of gold
and out spilled
dawn colors

pink as faint
as water in a white bowl
with just three drops
of blood in it

purple-blue like a pulse
under the wrist-skin


but these were just
imaginary, licensed by
a mind not at rest.

the gold ran true, though,
true as my heart.

meditations of the beast

pouring out everything into a dust-rich air
as if i poured out liquor onto a grave,
in memory of a face.

i spend my life in mourning,
pouring out everything in mourning,
because no other path is forming.
i feel, therefore must feel something.
but love having destroyed me
initially
somehow nullifies
its saving capacity.

and so i am nothing,
nothing that love will give me. 
i am the queen of hell.
i am a blank smile.
souls scamper by
in misery and i am still
smiling.

meditations of the beast: nocturne

for e.m.


exhaustion sets in like
a hot wind
weaving through
the petals of
a rose head

a sweet exhaustion, not
the metaphysics
of what

but
the delicate threading
of a hot wind a
languid definition
just
after

i thought of you
and reached inside

meditations of the beast

the glass shattered
down to the very bed of it,

the lintel of the window,
jagged with light,

and i turned and saw you there
veronica

but it was a dream

you were a pass of cloth

you were an image

you made only an impression.


masks:
looking back on what i've lost,
i wrap my arms in white linen--i am
marked with mourning,
marked dawn's,
something
as easily marked
as white linen

something so
shattered
shattered
to its very frame...

something
ready to build
in the empty lintel
left by your name.

meditations of the beast

song

air air hold her hair
hold it there for me to stare
let me look at it in love
look at it from far above
look at it from near below
look at it from high and low

every love becomes my own
from the east to western zone
broken in the morning time
broken at the evening's line
hand in hand with golden youth
foraging the edge of truth

i will seek you everywhere
air air that held her hair

meditations of the beast

variance, the jacquard rose,
against red another lesser red,
next to yellow another yellow.
each color holding its other
still, too still, as if
against the line of time itself.

groundless, as if  colors only,
regardless of form,   without
any  abstraction, that
nexus  into which    this
damage  was
pressed   i break
all ways when the night  has  come
and the land   is dark
and  the moon    is  the only  light we'll see
no   i won't be   afraid
no i   won't   shed  a tear
just as long   as you
stand
by
me