The day turned into the city
and the city turned into the mind
and the moving trucks trumbled along
like loud worries speaking over
the bicycle"s idea
which wove between
the more armored vehicles of expression
and over planks left by the construction workers
on a holiday morning when no work was being done
because no matter the day, we tend towards
remaking parts of it — what we said
or did, or how we looked —
and the buildings were like faces
lining the banks of a parade
obstructing and highlighting each other

— not pen. It"s got

that same silken
dust about it, doesn"t it,

that same sense of
having been roughed

onto paper even
as it was planned.

It had to be a labor
of love. It must"ve

taken its author some
time, some shove.

I"ll bet it felt good
in the hand — the o

of the ocean, and
the and and the and

of the land.

is my season
of defeat.

Though all
is green

and death
is done,

I feel alone.
As if the stone

rolled off
from the head

of the tomb
is lodged

in the doorframe
of my room,

and everyone
I"ve ever loved

lives happily
just past

my able reach.
And each time

Jesus rises
I"m reminded

of this marble
fact:

they are not
coming back.

It is not so much that I miss you
as the remembering
which I suppose is a form of missing
except more positive,
like the time of the blackout
when fear was my first response
followed by love of the dark.

Am I lovely? Of course!
Breathlessly I taste
the subtle compliment
of a handmade caress.
Chop me into tiny bits,
caress and tame my soul,
that godly swallow
you love to no end.

It"s now all about money
about which poetry rarely reaches
transcendence. But love must still fester
even under that. Everyone I know
frets if poetry can still matter,
but what about love? It"s all become
too much for them, and they"re all
on the soma. It makes sense
with these pills when the someone
they thought they loved for years
by never thinking about it says,
" I don"t love you anymore,
but let"s stay friends in that mellow
woebegone way poetry now
sings without singing. " Of course,

Change is the new,

improved

word for god,

lovely enough
to raise a song

or implicate

a sea of wrongs,
mighty enough,

like other gods,

to shelter,
bring together,

and estrange us.

Please, god,
we seem to say,

change us.

Birds of our joy,
Irradiate, irradiate upward,
Upward opening like the fan of the sunrise till the sky is a burst
Of birds,
A storm of song ...

Wing higher,
Wing and wheel,
Dew-scatterers,
Sparkle-flingers!

O heavy with the night of sorrow,
My white-faced, my pale love,
Gather your moon-remembering hair in a glory about your head,
And put on the shining of your silks,
And turn and find me: my love, my love, I love you forever ...

I love you forever ... hear our wild birds bursting the grey twilight with the song-sun:

In an old square, in an old city square
Autumn is passing through us,
And we are in love ...

We are in love's deep passion, and sighing, we dream
The moon up, and the stars out, and the tree-tops into song.
We dream a city into being beyond the iron gratings,
An ancient moon-lamp'd city, maybe in Asia,
Where lovers kissed and Solomon sang ...

We dream the mighty top of the tower piercing golden into the heaven
Where a pebble falls in that pool of sky
And circles of silver bell-ripples widen and run
Dropping a silver chime ...