Sonnet XIX: Quiet, Quiet

I want the husband whom I once beguiled
to know the deepest thoughts I have to share,
but if I tell him how I think, he'll stare...
He'll be confused; he'll puzzle, quiet, mild--
for even in his fury, he's not wild--
but he'll be angry, he'll be scared. I care
too much to hurt his feelings. I don't dare.
He'll be annoyed and call me such a child...

That's why I won't reveal, in any case,
that sometimes I, to dull my aches (or try),
imagine someone punching in my face,
envision shredding up our mattress by
acquiring knives and stabbing through the lace,
that after he has gone to sleep, I cry.

Rondeau: Silver

A fistful of silver water
falls from my hand
and shimmers, becoming golden.

Like tears from a child, they totter,
drops in a strand.

A fistful of silver water
falls from my hand

and gradually getting hotter,
burns like a brand,
to worry and to embolden.

A fistful of silver water
falls from my hand,
and shimmers, becoming golden.

Four Poems for Ganymede in French Renaissance Form

Rondeau.

I wish I could be you, truly
taking your place,
be wonderful as a duty.
I envy the curls, unruly,
stroking your face.
I wish I could be you, truly
taking your place.
I want to be lovely, duly
covet your grace
and worship your godly beauty.
I wish I could be you, truly
taking your place,
be wonderful as a duty.


Virelai.

Tell, what does it mean to be
orbiting the Father’s free
love? And did you try to flee?
Of these wonders, do you tire?
Does it please you still to see
that you were the
object of his heartsick fire?
Is there power, knowing he
moves earth and sea
just to quench your whim’s desire?
Is it worth its galling fee?
When you’re dandled on his knee,
can you grow, like star, like tree?
Must you always call him Sire?
Tell, what does it mean to be
orbiting the Father’s free
love? And did you try to flee?
Of these wonders, do you tire?


Villanelle.

Around, around, around you go,
following close for the heavens’ glory-gift,
reflecting back the Father’s glow.
The red, like blood, a constant flow,
covering you like it did that day, thus, swift,
around, around, around you go.
The path you travel lets you show
all of his glory. It shines on you; you drift,
reflecting back the Father’s glow.
You’re treated like a child, you know;
know that at least he adores you and will shift.
Around, around, around you go.
How sad the child who’s weak and low,
yet has a lover who does not give or lift.
Reflecting back the Father’s glow,
you pity them, and, loving, grow
in every beam that he gives you to sift.
Around, around, around you go,
reflecting back the Father’s glow.


Ballade.

You might have been a hundred other things
if he had left you there to tend your sheep:
perhaps the brave progenitor of kings,
perhaps a peaceful prince who’d sow and reap
and sing his cattle to a quiet sleep.
Perhaps your heart would feel its share of stings,
and someone strong would leave you, torn and wrecked,
and all the innocence and youth you keep
turn to a need to comfort and protect.

You might have found an object of your own,
who could receive the presence of your soul,
all your adoring glances, every tone
of burning anguish. You might play this rôle
like you were born to it and reach your goal.
Instead, he froze you, and though time has flown
since then, you’ve kept the energy of youth,
all its enthusiasm, and the toll
for such a road as rape is losing truth.

Obsession & Compulsion

My beloved, only you are here with every heartbeat.
Only you can lift me higher up with every heartbeat.

More than any other, it is you for whom I hunger,
and you offer all that I desire with every heartbeat.

Every day, awake, I dream of you (when sleeping, never)
and the hunger that I have for you with every heartbeat.

Oh, how close I'd like to be to you: my neck, my fingers,
underneath my ribs, within my breast, with every heartbeat,

and along my wrists, and drifting up my arms, within me...
I envision you inside my blood with every heartbeat.

You bring freedom, wealth, eternal peace, and safety,
shining steely-silver in the light with every heartbeat.

I can think of nothing else for very long; you linger.
how I want to take you into me with every heartbeat!

And I know--I know--that when we come together quickly,
pain! and then no longer will I hurt with every heartbeat.

Diving deep, a flush of sorrow, youth forever, secrets:
all these things I welcome to myself with every heartbeat.

You and I perform a hundred thousand murders daily;
yet I live, my heart reminds my ears with every heartbeat.

How I want you! Why do I delay to pull you to me?
Out of fear? To heighten pleasure's pull with every heartbeat?

Soon, I promise, soon I will unsheathe you, little dagger.
We will sing a carol, unison, with every heartbeat.

Ballade

There are two rooms, and now, when it is night,
we stay inside. We choose to be alone
though we are lonely, though there is no light,
because we know, as deep as blood in bone,
that our two rooms have walls that creak and groan,
so thick we cannot ever exit, quite;
there are no doors, so, lonely and in pain,
we stay apart and suffer on our own.
There is no union, no unbroken chain.

But more than anything on earth, I want
that silver bond, the treasure that I missed:
two of one mind, awareness that would haunt
all of my thoughts. Yet, it does not exist,
neither for me nor anyone. We’ve kissed,
but all for nothing. Kisses only taunt,
intimate, true, but false and cheap and vain,
and for two souls to keep eternal tryst
is, I believe, a dream we can’t attain.

So maybe that’s the silly reason why
I dream—of telepathic childhood friends,
teams with two players, promises to die
at the same moment, cycles without ends,
ropes and red strings and tea-and-coffee blends,
opposites, circles, coins, a watchful eye,
knowing and being known, salvation, twins—
grasping this fiction and the want it sends:
not to know where I stop and he begins.

Taste

I love my mouth,
and there's a lot of stuff I willingly put into it
(like umbrella handles,
and other people's water bottle spouts,
and even earwax--'cause sometimes it's worth it),
but there are a few things
that I never want to taste again:
slimy, slimy eggplant,
burnt tinfoil
(although the pink lightning in the microwave
was totally almost worth it),
and defeat.

Villanelle

If the world is a mass of phrases
--and I think it's so--
then the names that we give are precious.
Every purr, every cry we manage,
tears us inside out
if the world is a mass of phrases.
I believe that the earth is changing
inches by the hour;
then, the names that we give are precious,
and the Universe, as we will it,
paces fast or slow,
if the world is a mass of phrases.
Thus, my lips bring forth lonely children,
different from me.
Then, the names that we give are precious,
and, remembering this, I carry
care in every sound:
if the world is a mass of phrases,
then the names that we give are precious.

New Shoes

I. Virelai

Tempted by a branch of gold,
their ignoble traitor strolled
through the safety of their fold
to their hidden basement shrine.

Elder Sister went to scold
when Baby told
that she caught a quiet sign—

someone, following, patrolled,
and they were sold.
Sister said that all was fine.

Traitors both were they, and bold.
He their secret would not hold,
but the other was more cold:
Baby would not give him wine.

Tempted by a branch of gold,
their ignoble traitor strolled
through the safety of their fold
to their hidden basement shrine.


II. Rondeau

The lights in the hall are burning
yellows and pinks,
sodden with heavy gladness.
The twenty-four bodies churning
fill up the chinks.
The lights in the hall are burning
yellows and pinks,
but none of the crowd are learning.
Poised as a lynx,
their Time waits to cull their badness.
The lights in the hall are burning
yellows and pinks,
sodden with heavy gladness.

I've just got to keep on turning;
that's what she thinks.
I don't have to stop this madness.
New shoes and new suitors yearning—
always more drinks—
I've just got to keep on turning;
that's what she thinks.
The future is undiscerning;
silent, it blinks,
and why think two times of sadness?
I've just got to keep on turning;
that's what she thinks.
I don't have to stop this madness.


III. Ballade

Their signal, the eleventh chime, has rung;
the hour begins to witch the hallowed air.
A dozen stars will flicker where they're flung;
a dozen girls step down the creaking stair.
A crack of branches—secret torches flare—
all twenty-four are slippers fashioned young
from the best silk from caravan and djinn.
Waiting, twelve boats are in the water there;
breathless, a thousand men wait to begin.

Why do you wait here? asks an inner tongue,
and the young men reply to it with care:
This place has life, and we before had clung
to pale existence only. Here are rare
branches of diamond: if they shatter where
we break them off, again they will be hung,
and if we never can our prizes win,
here we may woo as long as they are fair,
sleep in the sunlight, wait, and, dancing, spin.

Sonnet Sequence: Pas de deux

If I had a ticket to the ocean,
I’d prove that stars within the sea exist.
I’d pluck them out and wrap them on your wrist,
gifting you celestial promotion.
To the mountain, in a single motion,
we might go then—for nothing must be missed.
I’d grip the sky and grasp it in my fist,
bring it to your lips, a mordant potion.

We’d eat my flesh and dance a pas de deux,
overwhelming silent blossoms, snaking
along the universal roads we knew.
To keep your tiny heart from aching,
I’d give you balm of Gilead’s debut
that I’d plucked from numinous remaking.

Then I’d prove to you my sad devotion
by leading you so deep into the mist
that dusk would settle on your spine and twist,
washing over you, a soothing lotion.
Then you’d understand my strange emotion—
the times I laugh at night—or tears persist—
because it can’t be told or reminisced,
just experienced in its commotion.

I want to show myself in full to you,
but it seems you never feel that quaking,
because you’ve never tasted stars or dew,
never worn the sky. And all my shaking
and all my knocking will not pull you through,
and the door won’t open for your faking.

Sonnet XVIII: Secrets

Do not worry when you find me weeping,
for it's just to let away the tension
from the things I'm too afraid to mention:
petty taunts that haunt me while I'm sleeping.
Then I'll force the tears to come out seeping,
squeezing them with all of my intention,
mewling--do not listen!--in dissension
with the wrenching writhes my limbs are keeping.

Oh, I never mean to cause you trouble,
having strength enough of my own making.
Let me crawl back in my quiet bubble,
tearing poison from my flesh and breaking
bones and ripping skin, for pain is double
when it is not eased by added aching.

Snick!

Hunger is nothing--
just the soft, insistent whirr of electric quiet--
until it grows into despair,
rejected, dejected,
an unhappy pup.

I have been eaten up on the inside;
I am hollow now,
and the void is a kind of hunger,
and I can no longer distinguish pleasure from pain.

These things are shades of the same color,
and all I want is light!
Blare and blaze
and burn away the grit that coats the corners.
Keep all the people away;
the beached whale will explode in the pulsing sun
and rain its guts over the city.

Each whiff of my desire is a curiosity to me.
I examine it, turning it over in my hands.
It's funny how my body works without me, so I laugh.

The breath of the others punches like a needle into my soul,
but it would not be right to stop them breathing. They are souls.
Punch, punch, punch. Snick!
Back to the left margin on the next line.

Sonnet XVII

The letter with your challenge was intact
until I tore it, deeming it unfit,
and cast it in the flames. I won’t submit
as yesterday I did. I won’t react.
Your teapot-tempest soldiers have attacked,
but victory is mine because I quit.
No matter what you take, you will not get
my forfeit. I have kept our sacred pact.

So ultimately, anything you try
to do—to lie, destroy, malign—
will force you lower in the public eye.
We laugh at all your threats; you have no spine.
I challenge you: come forth, corrupt, decry!
In the debris, my dignity is mine.

Sonnet Sequence: The Question

There was a moment—single, lucid, clear—
in which I faced the dark Unknown nearby
(my feelings), far too desolate to cry
and far too terrified to quake with fear.
The door was an avoidable premiere.
I pushed it open, farewelling the sky.
The thickened closeness fell upon my eye,
the warmth, the putrid wetness on my ear.

As I descended through the filthy damp,
I heard the echoes in the moldy air,
and saw the twisted creatures who encamp,
perverse, entwined with one another there,
but handsome in the glitter from my lamp,
newborn each time I yielded to the snare.

Beyond that chamber lay a deeper force,
its purpose one that no one understood,
if evil or indifferent or good.
It was a power of uncertain source.
My bravery derived from the divorce
of life and joy, and death did as he would,
and then I did the only thing I could:
I opened up my eyes and faced Remorse.

Thus, knowing, I had nothing I could lose,
I turned my eyes into the monster's gaze.
I heard its laughter torment and accuse
and watched with interest its divine ballets;
I saw it, still a mystery, diffuse,
like mist, into a cloud of cheap clichés.

Then, in the center of an empty hall,
unwarmed and raw upon the granite floor,
I found my heart surrounded by a store
of void and impenetrable wall.
It flopped and panted, breathless to enthrall,
exhausted as a box of tusk and boar.
Not all the images I could restore
to my imagination could appall

me as did this pulsing, writhing thing,
pale gray from lack of blood, but at my back
the Question loomed and drove me with its sting
and threatened with its imminent attack
until I let it move through me and bring
me in itself and gather up my slack.

Then I, the Question, opened up that box,
the box-lid turning smoothly on its hinge,
and hefted out the tome without a cringe,
and set the weighty book upon the rocks.
The pages turned like yellow vellum blocks;
I felt the pressure change with every twinge,
alarming, like the touch of a syringe,
and welcome, like infantilizing shocks.

I found the page marked Truth, began to read,
and many fears were there, and vivid pain,
and secrets kept, and secrets lost to greed:
too much for any person to contain.
At last I saw the tangled mess recede
and found the thought I sought to ascertain.

The written word was Yes. It hovered, small,
concise, and legible, and at my stare,
it thrummed along my body like a flare
of perfect intonation through the hall.
Then I was full; I could not read the scrawl
that filled the pages (yet I was aware
of soft deceptions and a nom de guerre),
so I replaced the book within its stall.

Determined, grim, I went back to my sphere,
returned to shallow sunlight, shallow sky,
empowered as a steady pioneer,
who makes his first decision to defy
the mystery his nation calls Frontier,
intent upon his choice, and says goodbye.

I often wonder—knowing how we war,
how weak we are—if Fortune disagreed,
or whether God believes I will succeed.
I have no self-assurance anymore.
And yet I know in my own arms I bore
from frenzied insight a most perfect seed
of real honesty: a tiny creed
of softened driftwood that I rode ashore.

And thus, whatever force conspires to bruise
or sunder or obliterate my phrase
must face the resolution I refuse
to cede. As I confront the maze,
I build my confidence in what I choose
and set my mind to grimly smile at praise.

Each Little Drop of Action

Now, as then, each little drop of action
hangs suspended for examination,
still, before it plummets to my forehead,
boring, drop by drop, the Grandest Canyon.

Little drops of water make the ocean;
little grains of sand, the earth: I know this.
Little drops of action fell the Heavens,
seize the earth, and give it to Gehenna.

Now, as then, each little drop of action
hits its target with precise decision,
driven by their practical Creator.
I am frozen, powerless to act.

Sleep, Sleep

How long will he sleep?

Until the cold air washes me clean,
until the twilight fades into night?

This is what he cares for,
the simple things,
the money, the children,
and I, now as always sleepless,
am bitten and stung.

When he wakes, perhaps,
we will go somewhere.

Until then, I watch
(disgusted or hurt?)
as he sleeps,
sleeps away the twilight.

I watch and do not dare
to make a sound.

Who do I fear?

Only my own tendencies.

Why do I allow him to make me angry?

Because I enjoy it;
I like being aggrieved.

I'm a martyr with no cause to stir me.

Remind

My voice in song
is a beautiful sound--
I say this objectively,
and it is true.

Therefore, when next I wonder
what good can come of me,
remind me of this:
that I can sing.

I will sing the songs of my peers,
and they will sing my songs,
and if you are not one of us,
you will listen and not hear.

Late Afternoon

Sleep on, and do not listen
to the odes I sing. Sleep on,
and I will be my own
audience.

Observation

I annoy you when I'm happy.
I annoy you when I'm sad,
so I wonder if the person
whom you like is really Me.

Forgive Me

Six new callouses,
a soft, tired lip,
and the neighbor's dog is just as loud
as I can ever be,
so please allow me
to go on annoying you,
because, if I don't,
I might die.
Oh, what pain there is
in existing only as a nuisance,
in learning that my soul
is made from rudeness and taboos.
If I were alone,
I couldn't bother anyone,
but I don't have the courage
to unlock that door,
so please forgive me.
I know you'd like me better
if I were gone,
so I will hide in this corner,
play as softly as I can,
and deepen the six new callouses.

Bread and Water

Bread and water:
these are the things upon which we center our lives.
They are soft or hard, clean or dirty,
and we swallow
without knowing, without wanting.
Bread and water,
maple and brass:
these are the things I allow to pass my lips.