a hint or threat of rain.
Beyond the tracks a lane,
a bench along the way.
Night watchmen, empty tins
of bargain lager, stars
in smoke, East German cars
with soot on their tail fins.
A little further on—
unheard of graves, hedgerows,
and flocks of hooded crows
delighting in the dawn.
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In the utter clarity of that new dawn,
until a world of purest forms was drawn,he put away his thoughts and stepped outside,and saw a new sun on the far horizon,felt a cool breeze lifted from the sea,then heard a flock of gulls philosophizingon what lasts longer than philosophy.
Last night I talked to God.
I said: ‘Father, I’m afflicted;my spine and every bonein my body hurts.My feet are swollen,my tongue is dry.Please, please free mefrom this heavy burden.’He said: ‘No, I’ll decide.’But ‘I am unworthy,fat, old and ugly.I have no purpose here.’‘You are my messenger,touching the browsof the innocent and young.’
Intensities of pain—
and those once executed.The scientific gainbelongs to us, but who knowsof Giordano Bruno’ssuffering on the square,tongue-tied on cobble stone,as he met fire alone?Around him everywhere:wine spilt amid the jeering,grimaces and cheering,squeals from a paederast,smiles from thieving hawkers,bishops, whores, and gawkers.—“Into the Tiber, casthis ashes! ” —could be heard,“for every wicked word.”
In Memory of Maryann Mercurio
how the seasons multiplied, and smotheredyour family’s final holdouts, hilltops snowyin the blue-lit backdropp behind your mother’sblazing hair, her slouched and aching shouldersat rest now at the ending of her story,how the sunshine trickled down, the bouldermoved away, the flowers whispered ‘glory.’
Above us: cawing rooks and grey clouds.
It’s late in January, 60 yearssince Gleiwitz-Petersdorf was “liberated.”Anne, a frail and tiny woman of eighty,and the last Silesian on our street,points her left hand toward the frozen groundand rests her right upon a walking stick.—“When Stalin’s army came, the NKVDtortured, raped and massacred our people.Both of my parents were among the deadburied here inside…
At the onset of grey time, gathering like storm
coal-black birds circle the chalcedony of the sky,looking for mercy where Gabriel would have greeted them.And, in the conjured waves worshipping the other shore,the shaman of secrets looks into his burnished stone,cast down again by the gentle sword of his own death—for the apocalyptic horses are ever neighing.Seven years old, I see him weeping in…