To the King

As you worshiped with Wagner,
I am on my knees, trembling,
silently singing with Goethe and Schubert,
"Hinauf! strebt's hinauf!"
with all the strength in my body.

If I had divine power,
I would not be alone,
unattended by all but these shades,
men who died long ago and who take no notice of me.

Still, I speak to you;
I listen to your replies;
I hear in your words
as they filter to me through other voices
the echoing cries that burst from me each morning,
on the mountaintop and in the desert.

You are beautiful,
and I am like you--
am I then also beautiful?
Or am I not like you?
Is there no one like me in the world?

I know what you mean when you say
that what is truly worthwhile is found only in dreams.
You dream, my eagle, of Lohengrin,
and I dream of Lohengrin and of you,
and the memory of me will not remain
to commune with those who follow.

To the Queen

Take in your hands my head and guide me; bind
roughly, impatiently, without reserve,
me to your side as you want me aligned.

If you will teach the shape of every curve,
I will emblazon on my hands and feet
each of your boundaries so I may serve.

Hack off my heels with slices sharp and neat.
Cut off my toes: fix anything you fix
so that the slipper fits; let me compete.

Malleable am I, a mass that kicks,
realizing its birth with shapeless cries,
trowels and mortar and a pile of bricks.

Tell me and show me, teach me to read your eyes,
give me your rules and others of their kind:
give them to me, and I will memorize.

Though it's my fault, forgive me: I am blind,
and I can never learn to read your mind.

Duet

There was no sight but the intent in your eyes,
no feeling but the instinctive compulsion of breaths in tandem,
no sound but all the sound--
your voice and mine,
blended and balanced.

You filled up my mind,
and all I did was to support and to burden you,
an ebbing interplay,
trust, knowledge,
because we are both strong enough.

Focus

I lock onto you,
and you become the Only.
All your words are heard.
I condense on you;
you condense into yourself,
a pulsing light-sphere.
I am everywhere to you,
above and below
and around you on all sides.
How could I decide
to tear my eyes from your face,
to turn my focus
to the next point in the line?
Because I know you,
know the pleasure it gives you
to feel that you are adored.

To My Teacher

I heard you broke,

snapped like a candy cane.

When I last saw you,

I wanted to put you behind me

and protect you from the onslaught.

But I hear that your weak shell has chipped away,

that you're left raw and strong and raging,

and it only makes me want to fight

for you even more.

Intoxication

With the sunshine warm on my face through the window
and my heart throb-throbbing in my neck,
the slight ache in my head
conspires with the sun
to dazzle my eyes,
make me shut them,
and all is finally warm.

The clouds wisp across like dragons,
and everything I see is tinged red,
and my pulse matches whatever music,
and I put my hands up to cup the sun,
turn my blind face toward it,
and I'm surrounded.

Blind me, cook me, permeate and surround me.

I could sleep now,
safe at last,
but I would not choose to miss a moment
of feeling loved.

Snow

If I remove my socks and my shoes,
my gloves, my hat
and lie down upon the snow,
let it curl up around me and fall straight down onto my face,
I can feel the heat of my life wicking out

It's not numbness, not something masking the pain like a drug;
it's just dissipation,
it's just osmosis,
as it spreads out from me into the snow
until my portion is so very little

Oh, snow, always empty,
always room for more--
take from me.  Take, take, I give it.

November 14

Today, for a few moments,
it snowed

and then the snowflakes melted into rain.

I want to open a window
so I can hear it,
feel the change in the air on my tongue

but the heat is on, so I don't.
I only watch.

Everything outside is gray.
It's cold:  it's relaxing.
In the dim light, my eyes are safe.

I desire the rain;
I want to pass through the glass and become one with it,
to lie on the earth,
to sink into the wet earth while the rain beats down on me from above--
to melt like a block of salt.

I want to spread out,
become one with everything,

until I am nothing.

Sonnet LXXX

Every day your words repeated:
you said that I'm the only one
whom I love, that I'm conceited,
that I had poisoned all I'd done.
And so my thoughts were always on
myself and on the sketch I'd drawn--
if I'd acted narcissistic,
if they think I'm egoistic--
and I've never loved somebody,
for if our hearts grew close at all,
they'd see me, weak, conflicted, small;
and with only casual study,
they'd learn how I am just replete
with selfishness and vain conceit.

Anteros

Now I know your name,
and I will call upon it;
I will whisper it
and look for your golden face,
for your red, full mouth,
for your iridescent wings.
Come and comfort me,
come to me, come and be filled;
let me pour on you
everything that is in me.
Love as I have loved;
balance with your heart the scales
that Venus holds in her hand.

Chōka

You smile and you smile,
you laugh and speak cheerfully,
but my eyes can see,
my ears can hear, my heart feels:
I know you have cooled;
I no longer bring you joy.
I want to ask why,
but you are smiling, smiling;
you laugh and speak cheerfully.

Hope

I thought
that, for me, Love was poison,
that it was an overwhelming force made to suck me into evil,
that anyone I loved would insinuate sin into me,
even if he was a good man,
because of how I am—

I’m too easy, too open;
I invite abuse.

I thought that, for me,
there was no such thing as a deep, clean love,
the desire to know and be known,
a force of acceptance, of welcome, even,
in the light of which all sin becomes irrelevant.

I never thought I could feel safe,
that I could trust someone not to try to bend me to his will,
that another person would actually want to know me.

And then, all at once, I knew in a day
what I had learned in a year—
that these things are possible, even for me.

Hope is terrible, terrible—

it’s too late,

it’s too late,
and you said you don’t want me.

Chōka

Little false fruits fall,
and I do not know their name.
Redder than apples,
tinier than memories,
they drop from the trees
and bleed from under our feet.
I listen all day
to the voice of her I left:
life becomes irrelevant.

Ballade

I slice from temple to mouth through my cheek,
and everything disappears with the blade:
all that I've done that was stupid or weak.
I peel my palms open from cuts I've made
and expose bone - how can I be afraid?
I invite explosions, make the bullets shriek
through me, in at the heart, out at the back;
along with the skin and ribs that so weighed
on me, the guilt will burst out, wet and black.

And now, without my spine, my hands, my face,
I can fall asleep just as my eyes close -
a heavy, dreamless sleep, an empty space
with no memory, no questions, no prose;
the instant of obliteration knows.
No one sees me without my eyes in place;
I'm clean for the first time without my skin:
there's nothing to hold the dirt in.  These blows
are safe; by morning, it all grows again.

Tanka

In my opinion,
if you can't win a battle,
it doesn't matter
if you can recite poems,
match fine silks, or play the flute.

Tanka

Reminding myself
that it's all bits of nothing,
all I have to do
is find a way to do it -
that's the hardest part of life.

Tanka

Here in the city,
I found something beautiful -
a muskrat dove in;
deer grazed by the hidden pond:
more than is necessary.

Love Letter to a Paper Doll

Smudged by eraser,
blue eyes draw my eyes toward them;
separating us,
the impenetrable glaze
now seems thinner than paper.

Pull me in, I beg,
because I want to forget;
I want to believe
in goodness where it lingers
in the inviting
shadows of your collarbone -
isn't love part of goodness?

In each strand of hair
are the disappointed dreams
of your Creator,
someone who used to believe
in absolute happiness.

If we never searched,
how could we piece together
a thing of beauty?
Its endless forms, its details,
were well taught to us
by the long lifetimes we spent
in frustrated hope.
We learned more intimately
of its changing elements
than did those it touched.
We envisioned every curve,
dipped our tongues in it to taste.

Ugliness exists
to create beauty for us
beyond all comprehension.

I can see the mind
that crafted you from fragments;
I applaud its work:
and while these crisp thoughts march down,
you dissemble; I follow.

Even I construct
sweet, unreal happinesses,
lodging them deeply
in the corners of pillows,
where I press my lips.
I manufacture faces
as lovely as yours
out of adjectives and glue.
Desperate for drink,
I stir poison into juice
and serve it to compliments.

Little paper doll,
lie on the grass as you lie;
allow the shadows
to cover up the wishes.
Tell your Maker I love you.

Give Leave

I believe in something.
There is another world,
vivid with green ink,
a watercolor that's still wet.
We float above it,
walking on wooden floors that wave in the breeze
like flags faded by the sunlight.
Wouldn't you love
to plant your feet on the solid ground,
to feel the coolness of earth seep into you?
I looked for a place where the worlds were held together,
a long, steel nail sent by a heavy hammer
through the wooden floor, deep into the dark, green earth,
and I found it,
delivered to me as I sat paralyzed:
Nuper Rosarum Flores.
It was then that I knew I would be able to cry.

Summer Illness

My skin is white and clear
and wounds cover it,
small and deep and round,
punctures in the clean, sweaty flesh
These summer months,
something is wrong,
and I can't name it:
the sun batters my eyes closed,
my head aches,
I'm weak.
I gather the strength to rake my eyes
over the strong, young bones,
over the impenetrable muscles;
the hairs and the fat are formidable and lively
So why am I laid low
by a taste of poison,
by a beam of sunlight,
by a memory of the desire for greatness?