without any clocks,
she’s begun
to listen to the walls.
Her neighbors have clocks,
not one
but twenty clocks apiece.
Sometimes
a claque of clocks
applauds
the passing of each day.
Listen to the walls
& wind your watch.
Poor love, poor love,
have they caught you
by the pendulum?
Do they think they’ve
got you stopped?
Have you
already gathered how,
living near the Black Forest,
she gets by
on cups of borrowed time?
Similar Posts
The house of the body
open for nothingnever to the public.Butfor the owner of the house,the key-holder-the body swings openlike Ali Baba’s mountainglistening with soft gold& red jewels.These cannot be stolenor sold for money.They only glistenwhen the mountain opensby magicor its own accord.The gold triangle of hair,its gentle ping,the pink quartz crystalsof the skin,the ruby nipples,the lapisof the veinsthat swim…
The universe (which others call the library). . .
Books which are stitched up the center with coarse white threadBooks on the beach with sunglass-colored pagesBooks about food with pictures of weeping grapefruitsBooks about baking bread with browned cornersBooks about long-haired Frenchmen with uncut pagesBooks of erotic engravings with pages that stickBooks about inns whose stars have sputtered outBooks of illuminations surrounded by darknessBooks…
Already six years past your age!
the house near Hampstead Heath,& all your fearsthat you might cease to bebefore your pen had glean’d. . . .My dear dead friend,you were the first to teach mehow the dust could sing.I followed in your footstepsup the Heath.I listened hardfor Lethe’s nightingale.& now at 31, I want to live.Oblivion holds no adolescent charms.& all…
You-the purest pleasure
the split pitthat provesthe ripeness of the fruit,the unbroken centerof my broken hopes-O little one,making youhas centered my lopsided lifeso that if I knowa happinessthat reason never taught,it is because of your smallunreasonably wrigglishlimbs.Daughter, little bean,sprout, sproutlet, smallestgirleen,just saying your namemakes me grin.I used to hate the word Mother,found it obscene,& now I love itsince…
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
-Lorenzo di MediciIn the poplars’ lengthening shadows on this hill,amid the rows of marigolds and earth,and through the boxhedge labyrinth we walk,together, to the choiring twilight bells.Their fugue of echoes echoes through the hillsand sings against this time-streaked, flowering wallwhere breezes coax the potted lemon trees,the pendant, yellow fruit and shiny leaves.Beneath the flaming watercolor…
For centuries
our warmths intermingled,our hearts beatingthe same two-step,& our breaths& our limbsintertwined.Life after life,I return to fleshto join my fleshto your flesh.Sometimes I am the woman& you the man;sometimes,the other way around.It hardly matters.Flesh after flesh,our spirits returnto mingle.Death is no barrier& life’s noisy matineewhere the suburban ladiescough & sputter& their programs crackle like kindlingmerely goes…