10. de ore leonis

new monster: nocturne

your mouth on  mine   like
a world   i  wanted
to hang inside   the fire
of it

and then when
it was   over
did you see   the  blind
white   seeking  on
my face?   as  if you'd
flipped  a rock
and  something
half-formed
couched
in  dirt
looked   back

disoriented and  only
half-  planned
as
breathless
wondering
icarus...


when i was alone
longing
stained me
stained me like
fresh red   stains
a   horizon

the  light  fall
of  a
feather

presage
to  the   plummet
limbs  tangling

the air   in the  mouth
tasting  of  a speeding   world
plunging
into    velvet  oblivion

raucous freshness: nocturne

i feel
the heat  tangling   stretching   strangling
in your presence   as if from   out
the mouth
the   rose

burst

red
dark  

smooth 


nothing  left for
tonight   but  bask
in   remembrance

girl-lady

lover  i want


broken as a line of teeth
broken from the jaw and throat
but its impetus whole
as the seed
as the clinging vine
as the sweet root
ripped half by half
from the vocal fold
but the push of the sound
as made
as a whole
world

dearest: nocturne

for e m

after many days adrift on the shifting ocean of my mind,
sun and moon beating careless down on my bare head,
i washed, salt-parched, to shore, and for a minute
gave over to thanks for that at least, before
opening lids on what i'd landed on:

a white beach in the shadow of a cliff
and v'd into its stone a grotto
where fresh water seemed to trickle
for there were green things all come up inside,
the ground green-packed, and lichenous walls
breathing sweet and wet.  stumbling i crossed
from white to green, finding the space
larger than what i'd thought--a small world
resting in the crook of the stone.
i went further in, treading softly on moss
spangled with tiny star-white flowers, ferns
brushing my upper thighs, vines my shoulderblades,
and saw a pool there, reflecting sky, at which i knelt
to taste.

it was fresh and clear, saltless, rock-sweet.
my thirst had been bitter--i felt
every cell expand, grow sleek with water--i drank
and drank, almost laughing, wet along
every line of parched gums, every crevice of teeth,
against tongue and within throat and all through me.

afterward, crouching back, i looked up
and found the goddess of the place:
a statue, made from white marble, yes, but streaked
every lovely color--gray and blue, and at its base
the gray-green barklike lichens bloomed.
its lines slender and pure, the figure of a woman.

i do not know how to give her thanks, so
for days i have been just staring at her, just being near.
but the stars at night are giant and clear, here;
wrapped in their shadows, with my back to the cliff,
and the echoing waves sounding far far away,
i am capable
of rest.

roses

masks

the image is of
a stone smeared
across my face
like a crust.

stone, stone,
you crack
in an arctic cold.

the world pouring out
from the hollows
in the hands.
the arms suspended
as if in air thick
as water.

re-pleat.  please.
fold.  fold.

stone, stone,
you crack
in an arctic cold.

resonance

masks

the image is
a cut of
orange-red
silk

swathed
close across
my face

as if it
had welled there

covered
all the sense-holes
with
tight-drawn
red-gold


deep in its surface
is etched
your name--
breathed out
it's love
breathed in
it's pain

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

veronica

masks

the image is of
love
huge, hard
as a thick stream
of milk
pouring
like niagra falls
over a threadbare will
love comes
torrentially.


there was   the  red
   and   the  black
veronica
i reached into   that  core of     dark
and said   your  name.

zinc metaphor

masks:

if the sky that we look upon
should crumble and fall
and the mountains tumble to the sea

the image is of
the fact that
i once loved
you.

i won't be afraid, no, i won't shed a tear
just as long as you stand by me

that
just once
to have loved

to just once
have tumbled
into that ocean
of juice
from its cliff
of pearl

broken
swollen
on its
taut tide

to have
masked
desire
with your
name

darling, darling, darling
stand by me.

i wept in a dream

masks

the image is that
i wept in a dream, lover,
that you were there and not there.

but the truth is,
i mourned you while awake. 
i mourned that i had never loved you.

that mask was made
of mother-of-pearl.  it changed
in every light until one was bright enough

to heat it
to a shattering point.

a maskless clarity.
i looked at the shards
that filled my hands
and said your name.

milton

the image is
that which will have to pass
for the thing itself.

because i have nothing of yours
but an old shirt,

and there never was anything
ours.

your existence
so far outside of me
you might as well
have been a star
lover

only your shadow

only your shadow
brushing the ground
i pressed my mouth into.


there is blood flooding the stairs of the tower.  the tower is myself, citadel.  the tower is a prison.  the tower is my body.  lips and eyes, hands and hair, the tower is built of longing, the tower is built of the resistance to change, the tower breathes in and out and its language breathes with it, slow strides of breath, breath to feed the fire. 

the mask is
that this makes
some sort
of difference.

quietus

the mask is
that the image is.

i fend off the moment
in which to let you go
you and your shirt,
your shadow, its taste,
your smile,
your voice,
and that feeling
that sunlight
meant something
when i was near you.

lover, i search your coin
out
amidst the eternal cushions
of the couch.

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.