Abrupt

By my calculations,
One whole bottle of wine
And a half of champagne,
Had each passed between us
As we let the night drain,
In your basement, drunk, laughing
At tapes you had made.

You will-o’-the-wisp –
I had driven for miles,
And crossed two state lines,
To visit a stranger
And be by her side,
With no expectations
And nothing to hide.

  I was your guest
  it was your wine
  where’d you go?

Down the block, by a school,
We staggered, you pushed
Me down to the ground.
Pixie traveler, I should have
Known then what I know now.
You swigged from the bottle
And then set it down.

You were warm for the weather
As we shuddered together.
In those autumn leaves folded
Great plans. I was drunk with
Your idea — I was loaded.
When you finally kissed me
The future exploded.

  I was your guest
  I needed more
  where’d you go?

It was a test: the board was set.
You moved your queen against me
Once you had me in check.
Ready to move,
I was ready to risk,
But you pulled away laughing
Before it progressed.

Pretty wise, woman stopped it
Just over the border
That we had just crossed;
Still deep in her drunkenness
Weighing the cost.
But the future lay wounded
And heaving, and lost.

  I was your guest
  long ago
  so let go

The sound of metal on metal.
The sound of metal on bone.
Goat-trails on Judean hills.
Crowds surging against a gate.

    A grudge passed down from father to son.
    Buzzing on the radio.
    The struggle to cooperate.
    A bite of camphor in the air.

Rolling fields of rice, endless rows of corn.
A sacred cow’s swaying fat.
Red wine at the victory feast.
Brown water sloshing from a bucket.

    Rumors of the city.
    The music of the desert.
    Shanty towns and mausoleums.
    Skyscrapers and pain medication.

A child playing in an orchard.
The wail of sirens.
A sigh of violins.
The splash at the bottom of the well.

    Warehouses full of paper.
    Neighbors screaming through the wall.
    A bottle smashed on brick.
    A broken promise.

Sweat on the parchment.
A gathering of friends.
A man dying in a valley.
A woman sobbing in an empty room.

yes i remember the place
and the taste of your throat
down the tracks through a hole in the fence
in the warehouse though an empty window frame

a mass-grave of books
sloughing towards the rafters
half rotted in the leaking rain
with the occasional treasure:
black-letter geometry — 1696,
latin novella — 1705.
forgotten books, their flaking secrets
now my charge and purpose

aluminum cigar tubes, polished black stones inside: inexplicable
a rodent flattened by some vanished weight, matted to paper and bones
bucket of pellets in a room with chains and hooks: cyanide
and everywhere the sunlight streaming from high windows
cars passing outside
pigeons in the rafters
the fear of getting caught

this place was planted
beyond the borders of control –
a forgotten corner of an institution
where we crawled in our time
now long torn down

in a storage room with half a chair
we dropped our bags and learned
the gentle lessons
of lips and breath
and saying nothing
amid the book-rot
and debris

now i punch my fist through the window
now i rescue this tragedy
i will pull a railroad spike from its hole
when there is nothing left to say
when words have crumbled into dust
and pin this memory to the world
in a spray of rust and rot and sun

Hold me in emulsion
Freeze my nights gone by

Give me back one moment
(He whines before the knife)

This photo has an overlay
In the dimension of flow
In which strangers
Give birth to one another, and die

It is a wave of flesh
Chunking tubes of waste
Squeezing themselves through holes
Too small to follow

Crashes over me
Washes through me
Pauses awkwardly in moments
Saying,

Goodbye.

I see you go by
Smiling with an oar in your hand
As doomed and unforgiving
As a lobster

Glaring from its tank.

it begins angry
a ghost
gold around the edges
rotten at the core
gold of yesterday’s sunsets
benefits waived

i remember the wind’s sound in trees
free on my bike, as a child
uncorrupted
unscarred
not yet afraid

• but war is coming

the trenches blacken with gore
angry holes slicken
with mud
tramped underfoot
by the legion’s boot

• war is coming

sprung from my own breast
and fear
ugly, tooth and nail

• i will be replaced
• my body will be covered with lime
• brought by the day’s reinforcements

what words, in turtle shells
arranged
like ruined obelisks
hinting upwards
from the mud
of nothing-said

unuttered dreams return
to the forge