The G.I. next to me is talking war.I don’t ‘know the Asian mind,’ he says.Moving through old arguments.At Potsdam (a globe-shaped dome,a pink canal reflecting sepia trees)we pull next to a broken-down old trainwith REICHSBAHN lettered on its flank.Thirty years sheer away leaving bare cliff.This is a country I don’t recognize.Bone-pale girls who have nothing…
and tangled in a woman’s body?-Virginia WoolfEvery month,the reminder of emptinessso that you are tunedto your bodyharp,strung out on the harpsichordof all your nerves& hammered bloody blueas the crushed fingersof the woman pianistbeaten by her jealous lover.Who was she?Someone I inventedfor this poem,someone I imagined. . .Never mind,she is me, you-tied to that bodybeat,fainting on…
the doctor,Love.He appearsas husband, loveranalyst & muse,as father, son& maybe even God& surely death.All this is true.The man you turn toin the darkis many men.This is an open secretwomen share& yet agree to hideas ifthey might thenhide it from themselves.I will not hide.I write in the nude.I name names.I am I.The doctor’s name is Love.
& stitched up my life.You gave me: one book of love poems,five years of peace& two of pain.You gave me darkness, light, laughter& the certain knowledgethat we someday die.You gave me seven yearsduring which the cells of my bodydied & were reborn.Now we have diedinto the limbo of lost loves,that wreckage of memoriestarnishing with time,that…
on the ghostsof your suicidal friendsYou divorce your parentsbefore you have timeto be bornYou kick out your wife & childYou tell your girlfriendto go screw herselfThis is the solitude you wantedThe silenceis stitching you upyou write
Is it a voicelike a conduit,a plainspokenness to grief,the hairs of the headdancing on end,the blood swarmingwith the voicesof all those who have died,will die,& will also be born?Is it a catchin the throatthat awakens the eyes,is it in the eyes themselvesor is it somethingin the heart?I think it is pain-an openness to pain,so that…
God doesn’t careabout sex& the long tree-shaded avenuetoward death.God saysthe worm is as beautifulas the apple it eats& the apple as lovelyas the thick trunkof the tree,& the trunk of the treeno more beautifulthan the airsurrounding it.God doesn’t careabout the battlebetween the sexeswith which we amuse ourselveson our way toward death.God says:there are no sexes;&…
& infinite hope,sails upside down through the world.My bones, I know, are only a cagefor death.Meditating, I can see my skull,a death’s head,lit from withinby candleswhich are possibly the sunsof other galaxies.I know that deathis a movement toward light,a happy dreamfrom which you are loath to awaken,a lover leftin a countryto which you have no…
And the hard, red flesh of the petalsWidening beneath my eyes. They move like the handsOf clocks, seeming not to move exceptWhen I turn my gaze; then savagelyIn the white room, they billow and spreadUntil their redness engulfs me utterly.Mother, you are far away and claimIn mournful letters that I do not need you;Yet here…
of the future,we consulted seers,mediums, stock market gurus,psychics who promisedhappiness on thisor another planet,astrologists of love,seekers of the Holy Grail.Looking for certaintywe asked for promises,lover’s knots, pledges, rings,certificates, deeds of ownership,when it was always enoughto let your handpass over my body,your eyes find the depths of my own,and the wind pass over our facesas it…
