Space

The closest you can come to me
is just as close as I can come,
as close as tiny particles
can come to other particles,
as close as anything can be
to anything, which is to say:
infinitesimally close
but never close enough to touch.

First Captain Tomoe

Lord Kiso told her, "Quickly, woman, go.
Wherever you might wish to go, go now,
for I intend to die in battle, or,
if I am wounded, end my life myself,
and I would not have scornful people say
I kept a woman with me at my death."

Tomoe was reluctant even so.
She was among the seven who remained
at Kiso's side when others died or fled,
one of the final five that fought today.
When deeds of valor were recalled aloud,
her acts were more than any of his men:
unbroken horses would obey her hand;
descents on horseback that would break the neck
of any other, she performed with grace;
she was, with sword in hand, a soldier worth
a thousand others, ready to confront,
on foot or mounted, demons, men, or gods;
and for these reasons, Kiso made her first
among his captains--but today her lord
would die without a doubt, three hundred men
not being nearly men enough to face
six thousand of the freshest and the best
led by Ichijō no Jirō.

Lord Kiso vowed to die beside his friend,
his foster brother Kanehira, who
had promised they would die together, too,
which is why they had escaped to Seta--
Tomoe knew he would not die alone,
yet what to do? and where to go? when she
no longer had a lord who gave commands.

The journey here from Shinano had been
the best adventure of their humble lives,
a turning point for inexperience,
an overwhelming tapestry of sense,
of music, color, motion, scent, and taste,
for country folk whose clothes were not in style,
whose jokes were crude and manners unrefined.
Kiso himself had given such offense
to elegant, judgmental courtiers
on more than one occasion, and she laughed,
remembering. How could she leave this man?

And so she rode, until she could resist
the numbers of the enemy no more.
She pulled the reins to stop her horse and thought,
"If only I could find a worthy foe!
The only parting gift that I can give
His Lordship in the hour of his death
would be to fight a final battle here,
where he can watch as I uplift his name,
the proof of my devotion in my hands."
Just then, a group of thirty riders came
into the field, and Tomoe rode out
to meet them in a reckless, sudden burst.
The group was headed by Onda no
Hachirō Moroshige, a man
renowned for strength, a warrior of name.
Tomoe galloped with intent to him,
came up beside him, seized him in her hands,
and pulled him down against her saddle, fast.
She held him still and twisted off his head.

Tomoe caught Kiso's approving eye
and threw the corpse down, fleeing to the east.
The armor and the helmet that she wore,
the ones Kiso had given her to use,
were left, discarded on the battlefield,
no longer to disguise her long, black hair.
Her oversized katana lay untouched,
abandoned with her strong, rattan-wrapped bow,
no more to scar and callous soft, white skin.
And Kiso died, and Kanehira died;
their corpses were displayed, and no one laughed.

Ad-mir-a-ble

I want to be an admirable man:
so when that boy uncloses eyes that shine
with adoration, large and young, I go
to work. This helpless person is the point
of focus for my life—one has to have
a focus!—and I always wanted some
unblinking baby to be mine, my own!

An admirable man would never leave
the boy alone, is always thinking first
about his darling, sacrifices and
protects, stands firm and sympathetic when
the boy impatiently abuses him
—the child must not be held responsible.
An admirable man bears up beneath
the crippling pain he carries on his own.
He has a Code; he cannot lose (at least,
when he is fighting for his dearest one).

All these ideals—to be owned, to be
a sacrificial, self-sufficient man,
to be invariably selfless and
invariably loyal, even more
to be INVARIABLE—all of these
are just impossible; and even though
they are unpleasant, something else is worse.
For I don’t want to be the Other one
(the child, the slave driver, the Female Thing)—
I will become admirable instead.

Troubadour Songs IV: Romance

The Dreamer unto Fairest Welcome, whose Two Eyes are Rubies, sends his Greetings.

News has reached us here inside the Battle Haze that as a consequence of Certain Laws ignored and flouted openly, our Foes imprisoned You within the Stony Jaws of a most Formidable Tower: those Unfounded Words from which You cannot seize Escape. This must distress me, coming as it does upon the Heels of Your Kind Gaze, Your Very Gracious Favor toward my Cause and actions toward myself when we took pause to linger in the Garden. Love’s own Views are that there may be Necessary Flaws in any Winning System, but He goes about of late with much less Florid Prose—well, You and I both know the way He is.

I must make Full Repayment on the Dues we owe to Persons Innocent of Guise who may be injured—Love must not excuse us—but especially in Your case: You whose Ways are charming, good, and gentle. Therefore, accept my most Sincere Apologies and please await my Letter and the Keys we leave with the Incompetent Disease that calls herself Your Guardian. (Love pays her bribes and we despise her.) Curb Your sighs; there lie within the details of the Ruse we perpetrate upon the Tower’s Knees and Your Instructions for the night we raze the Castle and effect with Tender Claws the Liberation of Your Rubied Eyes.

We probably shall all be killed; we chose a Dangerous and Complicated Maze of Paths to win You back—You’re worth a Graze or two upon the Shoulder—but it has the Markings of a Long Affair, and Blows will likely lead to Blood. The Eyes I praise may never see the Buds, the Pools, the Trees again, may never Welcome Love or rise to lock with mine if You do not enclose within the Secret Places and the Pews, with Urgency and Cunning, every Phrase—though such is not Your Nature.

Love would tease Your Curls and sport with You once more, He says, and I am ever dreaming of the Breeze that whispers in the Flowers—and the Gauze of clouds that wrap the Garden Wall because Narcissus’ Fountain laughs the way it does—and of the moment when I will enthuse with You about the Rose and Love and His Profound Illusions once again. He knows the Perfect Openness whose Blossom draws Your Face is all I ponder; You may quiz Him on it.

‘Til that Moment, Freedom lies outside our Grasp, and I maintain my Pose as ever, Yours, et cetera, as was and is Amour; we count the Passing Days.

Addendum unto Welcome from the sprays of genuine bemusement that are ties from Love to Earth, with all its fuzz and frizz. A little word as an addition flows as by the hand of Love, with grace and poise, and as by magic, settles, stops, and dries: You might, you silly little child, turn plows with just your goodness, desecrate ships’ prows with just your nature, slip between the glues that hold the cracks together, turn the screws away from where they turn, and move the saws along the boards until the Fountain spews its water through the castle—but this throws the whole of nature off its course; we’d rouse the anger of an older god who slays without regret, so cherish all that glows within your open face, which pales and shies from tricks. We will forgive the boy that stays within his borders—and that shrew who stews and sets her sights on sugared mead that cloys and turns her tongue to rumor and to grouse will find she cannot chew the very pies she bakes in her own oven. So the highs of life will come to he who drops supplies and spies the Garden as the workman mows.

~*~

Fair Welcome unto Dreaming Lover: ease your heart. Your soothing words to me are bees that fill my mouth with honey and that buzz their song into my ears, so when the crows croak loudly near my window, I hear coos of doves, because I know I will not lose your favor. Though I know I am unwise enough to welcome anyone who strays too close to me and to the Rose, surprise! you still desire my freedom. And Love grows unhappy when we’re parted; that’s a phase he’s never had before! so there’s a glaze of honor on my capture.

For I laze about and sing and read and lick the fuzz on too-ripe peaches—oh! I have new shoes!—I count the stalks on which the cricket plays and watch at night the pallid moonlit shows of stars and night birds’ babies: so my woes are not so many after all. My sprees of fancy fly in towers, too; the lows of life are merely boredom and goodbyes.

My guardian, of course, tries what she tries: she chortles, weeps, and scolds; she spits; she spies; she worries over me; she picks; she gnaws; she forces on my ears a horrid sleaze of stories that were better kept in sties among the putrid public and the fleas—but I can stand it ‘til you come: I bruise too beautifully upon my face and thighs to stop the stinging of the stinging flies, and there are lilac blooms and sweetest peas grown slowly up between the workmen’s hoes to scent the air wherein my tower sways.

I wait upon your letter with the fizz of full enthusiasm from my toes up to my hair. Of all the lucky boys on earth, I am the luckiest: I drowse in peace and wait for you to bring the hues of gem-encrusted glory to the bays of my unbroken windows—and the fees for life in such a place are tiny joys, so do not hurry to the walls that house my captor and myself with sticks and straws.

I hope you find the Rose before she dies, for that’s the most important thing. Your ploys are certain to succeed, however: cows are more observant than this woman. Browse among the lilacs when you come; the cries of all the birds there will recall the noise that so enchanted you when daytime froze beside the bushes. Tell Amour his clues are understood and that I miss his poise and his insane affection for his toys, of which I am but one. And when your crews come finally, whenever, like an ooze of sticky sap that seeps into the clays that hold the house together as it vies to stay upright, the stream of longing slows: I Welcome you; I Welcome all your vows.

Guard

I choose to worship in this game of cool
pretensions (to enact this role though I
am strong and thus need no direction; though
inherent worth is found in both of us)
because there is a meaning in this part
(in choosing service, entertaining whims
with nothing but a wry and subtle smile
to indicate that this amuses me),
because it pleases me to witness the
vainglorious delight and triumph that
predictably rewards my efforts: her
uproarious yet understated, poised
and rollicking expression of surprise
and admiration at my best attempts
to craft the world for her amusement and
the cynic gratefulness for me that she
acknowledges in every moment, though
it’s never stated. Easily she stole
my grim demeanor; she is beautiful
when pouting and when serious. I want
to be her second-in-command until
the day I die, for feeling useful lends
compelling satisfaction, even if
I know she doesn’t really need me. That’s
the way I want it. It’s an easy thing
to tolerate her; I don’t run because
I know that I can run at any time.

Sunday Afternoon

Yesterday, I read that sometimes
all you get is good enough,
so take whatever you can get,
and be as happy as you can be.
I can't live like that, unless
it's only temporary.
I can wait a hundred years
if the prize is guaranteed
to come to me as I was promised.
Today it's better than it has been,
and if there is a chance that maybe
someday good enough will turn
to good, I'll wait around a bit.
This is labeled hope, I think.

Marriage

Here's no intimacy, no affection,
merely cool regard of each for each's
usefulnesses--and my disappointment.
Disappointment quickly turns to hatred;
frantic, I attempt to sublimate it
to indifference; indifference now
mellows to despair in rapid pulses.
I have bound myself and all my treasures
to a life of leftovers and waiting:
I did not believe in bliss and would not
ask for it, expect it, or allow it.
This was foolish: thinking my determined
disbelief in love could make me scorn it
or, indeed, could cease my longing for it.

俺様 [Glorious Me]

I like Myself the most when I can wave
My hand, imperious, and grant to all
forgiveness--such a little thing--and I
can shower everyone with love and gifts
and My attention; when I stand alone
in wind with shoulders back and laugh (and laugh!)
at enemies, let evil throw itself
at Me and bounce away, unheeded by
My soul, for it is harmless; when My strong
and steady shoulders carry someone else's load;
when I can see I am alone, and then
I do the work of ten with My own hands;
when I have something real and true to say,
My voice rings clear and pure across the land,
throughout the valleys, sonorous; when all
the eyes of Earth's inhabitants are fixed
on Me--they cannot look away--for I
am beautiful and powerful, and in
the deepest places of their souls, My words
of wisdom echo; when I love the world
and every person in it, for I love
Myself; when I can give without a thought
to any value of the gift--except,
of course, the value given by the one
who has received it--because I in Myself
am all I need--I need no one, no thing;
when I bestow Myself entire--with all
My thought, My hope, My help--upon the one
who holds My gaze, without a wayward thought
toward Myself, except the softest, vague
awareness that I'm being GOOD; when I
don't ask or take from anyone--and yet
with charming unselfconsciousness accept
all that which may be offered; and when I
am full, so full as to be flowing out
and spilling over everyone I touch.

But now, today, i am a child, too weak
and petulant, and i achieve my ends
not through my strength, but through a childish kind
of sticky-sweet manipulation, which
is sickening and harrowing to me.

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.

Concert

I am here again, in this same concert
where so many evenings I have listened--
listened, heard, and pondered--pondered, shuddered--
shuddered, wept, and died without an answer.

So to feel, to listen, and to ponder--
thus to know the gravest weight of sadness,
such sadness that one cannot even cry,
cannot make a single sound of sorrow--

oh, it is to these gods that I offer
all my heart; I lift it up in worship,
hold in both my hands its smell and flavor,
to an unmoved sky that gives no answer,

and I feel the blood trace pulsing rivers
down my arms until it drips on it:
on that empty body that lies quiet
under me and is me and is not me.

Where does my last finger end? In what place
is the cry of clarinet beginning?
And how soon will it become unquestioned
that beneath my skin there's only powder?

And when will that powder melt away, like
sugar, into all the thick, warm liquid--
liquid that is glockenspiel and 'cello
and the tambourine and rounded horn call?

Is it possible to live without it?
I despair of ever understanding.
Just to cease, to cease to know, and after
to become a being of the light-beam,

emptying myself of all the painful,
maddeningly screaming ear-knife-terror,
knowledge of what was and is and will be--
if I do this, what then could I not do?

But the sound that's trapped inside, unanswered,
hammers on my headache to escape me.
Though I open wide and breathe in deeply,
nothing happens, and my voice is silent.

Wall

With the smug, self-righteous faces of a
Pharisee, you point your finger and ac-
cuse me, shriek with all the venom you can
muster--but you have no power. What can

you do? Will you call me names? Will you at-
tempt to test my sense of obligation?
Play upon the traces of my guilt? For
all these tactics you have used before; thus,

long ago I learned that you cannot be
pleased, and this is why I try no more to
please you. Do not ask for me to give an-
other reason, for I feel no need to

make apologies; indeed, now I feel
nothing. You will find in me, no matter
how your long, thin fingers squirm and scrabble,
searching for a weakness, nothing but the

smoothest, thickest wall of stone. My heart is
hard and unappealing as a freezer-
burnt fillet of meat, so do not touch it.
You will hurt your hand, and I will not cry.

Ultraviolet

The world weighs heavy down upon me,
And like a pendant hangs above my breasts
To pull my head beneath the desert,
To take the shimmered sky-view from my eyes.

And what I fear to say aloud is
That there is no poetic license here.
No gloomy metaphor is whispered,
But Truth unvarnished I give quickly.

And all the Truth that I distinguish
Shall come through my own senses to my mind,
And all the Truth that IS immortal—
To it I am as blind as I am deaf.

Reality’s reality is
That I see with a different kind of eye,
A little like the bee that searches
The colors ultraviolet for fare.

And though there once were others like me,
I cannot find them in my present place,
And like the vestiges of their thoughts,
Which have revealed to me myself at times,

My only hope now is to help one
To understand as I have learned to do,
To meet that one and say in wonder,
With questions spent: I know we are the same.

Our foreheads touch as we draw nearer.
No bashful love have we, nor fond ideals,
But knowledge, wrapped in shrouding sin-stains—
And this is from the words that I must choose.

My words must be so pure and vibrant
So as to show to him himself revealed.
We back to back will feel each other
As we approach the world from different sides.

Consequence

All unexpected it was thrust on me.
Bewilderment, astonishment leapt up,
For I knew it was of no use to me:
Yet I learned to desire its presence soon.

But when I started to encourage it,
It came no longer willingly to me.
It backed away and all defensive stood;
Bewilderment, astonishment leapt up.

Then I discovered that I did not care;
I found that I am stronger all alone.
It returns now for uncertain reason:
Perhaps apology, whimsy perhaps,

But I, who realize the consequence,
No longer care to bring myself to that.