From their beds
And you make a sound
Like the leaving
Of the sparrows
The Children Sleep
The children sleep
The lovers rest
The clocks unwind
The sun it sets
The cross is raised
And the pain reborn
From the graves of regret
From the turning thorn
The hearts expand
And then withdraw
These open wounds
Touched with awe
These arms stretched wide
On brand new hills
That move the water
Till at last it's still
For the end seems blind
But draws its strength
From the argument of time
Which has no length
And time is a prayer
In its ordered research
That sweeps out the stable
For His coming rebirth
I Move Towards It Slowly
I move towards it slowly
Weaving in and around
Towars the distance
Of certain Monastic ambitions
Hands spread the disorder
And draw it back in pattern
Like lilies seen
In a distant field
I haven't the stomach for fasting
Or weaving baskets
And I'm not kept awake at night
By the blemishes of the world
I am generally content with my pay
I have no wife to quarrel with
And no children to drag me from sleep
To invent me into a different man
I just want to forget something
That I can't remember
As I work all alone
On my wretched little life raft
The Warmth Comes On
The warmth comes on
This energy spellbound in a room
Someone chimes a bell
The sound begins,
But seems never to dissolve
I see now the sense
Of using the bell as a tool
For the students of enlightenment
Every voice blurs together
During the chanting
As we try to touch
The shining part
Inside our forehead
Scented smoke lifts itself to the ceiling
Everything has a
celebratory funeral air
Where parting thoughts
Are given golden exits
And where colorful
Preparations are made
For the arrival of the Buddha
Whom we will kill
I Opened Myself
I opened myself
To the art of all occasions
As finally as death
I needed proof
That reality is more
Tender than harsh
But I have found
That harshness is the rule
And tenderness,
Only the exception
Now I have sworn away
What I will never restore
Truths I shed
Like old styles of dance
And I have reaised a barricade
To encircle myself
I am done with
Dead words
And with philosophies
That bury our deepest miseries
Like old fossils
I resurrect them
To hang from
Gentle wires
In the dark museums
Of my heart
I long for the rules
That make a man free
Because I have no energy
To create them
I am away from
The flock
That strives ceaslessly,
Unaware of itself
Because it is just itself
I am always only in
Movement
Towards myself
But never there
I want to touch water
Without losing my
Reflection
Because I am
Dying all the time
Like a flower aside,
Getting too much light
There is an art
I have found,
As final as life,
That turns into itself
To find the sun
From The Deep Wells I Draw You Up
From the deep wells I draw you up
Into my thirst, into my longing
I see you draw a wrist through your hair
And I want to become that wrist
I see you in an afternoon's sun
That shatters blossoms above
And comes down like honey
And I want to be that sun
I see you in the rain
It's hands touch all of you at once
Pressed close to every part
And I want to become that rain
And every breath draws us nearer
Until we breath as wave and wind
Unitl I become everything that touches
And you become everything touched
Barely Yet Accustomed To Summer
Barely yet accustomed to summer
The autumn comes
As all along the promenade
They slowly pass
Elegant silk ladies
Of soprano composure
And men with top hats
Who move in baritone
And spread out over leaves
The lady's dress trains go
Shifting in form and color
Like peacock's tails
And from the waist
The men ever-so-slightly bend
To subtle glances slipped
From behind a blushing fan
I Have Resigned Myself
I have resigned myself
To a life of poetry
The reason for this
I did not find
In perfect books
By perfect men
Or in the eyes of things
My father killed
It came to me
In visions I could
Not prove
With words
I could not get
My mouth around
Here Is My Inner Peace
Here is my inner peace
That on a plate to you I give
Like John the Baptist's head
That never begged to live
Here is the flesh from my body
And here are my ashes to dirt
Here is my hand in your mouth
And here is my hand up your skirt
Raised higher, higher that heaven
Up here on my raven's perch
Lower your eyes to find me
Or give up the bloody search
Though Unaware Of All But You
Though unaware of all but you
I will not drag you through my empty spaces
Burn all my candles, or struggle in vain
And though chains may hold me
My singing body will never be
Crucified to any door
No flower may bloom
No shrieking gull draw near
Without first being contracted to my song
This is the beast that moves
Slow as winter fish,
And that speaks the length of the sea
And these are the creaking orchards I sit in,
While I skate my little words
Over the surface of your frozen ponds
Amen
This word is a stone
In the water of my tongue
Amen
There is no saviour
For the perfect flesh
No redemption
For the uncorrupted
I am shattered and still
Under this dark blossom
But silence has never
Broken me
And words never
Shown me the light
So amen
Both light and silence
Are just birds anyway
Caught in the thorns,
Wings spread
I Am Waiting For The Light
I am waiting for the light
To be given
Waiting like clouds await rain
Like forests await autumn, and spring
And as the mother awaits the child
Here is my dark song
I am waiting for your song of light
And for the empty houses of the heart
To be filled at last
Empty Of The Raven, Empty Of The Dove
Empty of the raven, empty of the dove
Empty of the hatred, empty of the love
Empty far away, empty in your sight
Empty of the words, that fill the dark with light
Empty of the hunger, empty of the thirst
Empty of the blessing, empty of the curse
Empty as a vessel, dried up in the sun
Empty as a basin, where the waters do not come
And now I come a-kneeling
With my hands upon my face
And my little begging bowl
Stretched out for your grace
And now I come with prayers
And now I come without
To offer up my heartache
My burden and my doubt
The Morning Started Early
The morning started early
Through your hair.
Detail by detail
The child restores itself
Next to you
In its sleep.
I am almost gone.
I was almost never here.
I have no artifacts
To prove that I lay awake
To watch the strange hands of
The wind all night
Wondering how they could resist
Touching the moon, just once
To see if it is warm or cold
Every movement you make
Seems to bring you more sadness
And the child is always so
Undisturbed and still
Like an unrung bell
Speak or be silent in sleep
It is all just the tearing of
An insect's wing
You are there
As slow in waking as
Stars in their celestial beds
As I draw the curtain of
Birth from my mouth
And try not to struggle
And try not to be hungry next to you
I Have Dreamed Of Hiding Away
I have dreamed of hiding away from the world,
To learn the verses of light
To learn with hands, small inner hands
What moves this bursting sap
This slow moving through my body
We shift and bend the contours of the heart
Into prismatic shapes
And we summit each wave
And fall to each depth
As persistant as wave on sand
But how can I tell you
What will not leave the tip of my tongue
That I may never have the skill
To publish the full book of love,
Or impoverish myself to those heights
It Has All Become The Deepest Of Echoes
It has all become
The deepest of echoes
It has all become
About style
And about who created who
And who killed what
But until you are
As smooth as stones
Beneath me
I will not force you
To answer
Consult with a
Dream if you must
Even a partial one
Or a torn seagull
Pool-eyed beneath a
Half wave of sand
Bring me a sunbeam
Or a waterfall
In your palm
But do not carve me
Another heart into a
Beach stone with a pin
Or bring me a
Polished victim list
That ends my work
You know that I
Said goodbye
Twelve poems ago
And that every
Word since then
Has been a lie to
Take away what
You wouldn't give me
And that every
Word before then
Was a lie for what
I could not receive
Lift up your eyes
To where birds of prey
Linger for a moment
Circling, and tilting their wings
Above the chosen kill
Now fear and dread take hold
As fallen veils reveal to holy men
The sign of empty purpose
That smears itself across the
Dark stable's door
Below, the rivers of deluge
There in the wide valley
Where meadows once sang
Now parched land upon parched land
Endures the beasts in their dying caravans
And thirstily too we wander
With throats dry and hunger deep
Past the burning fields
And past the burning men
Dancing on their cosses of fire
Now whose hand is that
Touched in the darkness by mistake?
And what brides of red are these
Paraded on the naked threshing floor
As children with faces of pale play their games
Empty upon empty we hang
As empty as the spaces between the turning worlds
As the nameless grace is named
And the longing hearts are replaced
With the distant remains of echoes
And dried to bones, the rivers and the clouds
Now rises flames, now risen ashes
The sky finally succumbs to the darkness
As the stars all fade away
Like tiny sails on the horizon
And the sun and the moon no longer rise or fall
To reveal the ghostly faces to one another
With their eyes like empty wells
Or the pillars of crumbling salt
That the leaving rains have left behind
I Move To You
I move to you
Like the sea moves to the shore
Always returning, with every exhale
And like the waves
You wished me whisper
So I made my voice into softly crying grass
Then you wished for me to find you
And so like a lost child
I searched all my life in your arms
Then you wished for music
So I trained my fingers and my voice
Until the winter's silence was melted into spring
You wished me to be guilty
So I chained myself to you
Like a prisoner to a tree
You wished me to be clay
So I threw myself on the ground
And breathed the breath of Adam
You wished me to be blessed
So I took up the dark mantle
And prayed in disipline by your side
You wished me to surrender
So I took up arms against you
And threw them down again at your feet
You wished me to praise you
So I wrote you beautiful ballads
Where the Knights all touched your hair
But the silence of your moving
And the flight of the holy dove
Are too perfect over the river of the flood
And the stones I have
tied to my ankles
Tear like a scar through the sky
From the wings of a graceless bird
I Do Not Wait
I do not wait
For weeds to bloom
Or for lost Empires
To reclaim their
Shadows
I only wait for
The moment
When you will
Undress yourself
In some other
Man's mind.
Why Not Dance Here Awhile?
Why not dance here awhile?
Why not dance to this playing dirge,
To these tamborines and drums?
The Great Death is upon us
The cities are burning
And the whole world is coming down!
Dance and laugh at death
Who is smiling to himself
In the torchlight
Smile right back
And hang onto life
By a lute player's string
Then glide past the children
All piled in their heaps
So high they block out the sun
Now their laughter is all ended
No longer tinkling
Like little golden bells
Swirl and twirl
Upon your toes
For the time is near