arms.
Oh
to be
so small.
MARIGOLD
He had a face of long ago
Driven and strange with sad, sad eyes
And a smile to raise paradise
She tended her flock upon a hill
Observed him from a place above
Obscured by light, blushing gold
He traced the path of star and sun
A nature torn as prudence spun
Beheld the eyes of the beguiled one
Through field and fell she swiftly fled
Unveiling air, her bonnet slid
Tossed to the shallow divining good
As faith a flower where he stood
Providence speaks another tongue
He traced the path of star and sun
He smoothed it with his healing hand
And made his way into the cold, cold wind
And the heart is its own
Yet not as God plans
And n’ere will she know
So fine a man
TARA
She stood by the door
of her Virginia farm
pulling a sweater on
the branches
of the dogwood
were bowed
blossoms tossed
in sudden snow
the deer stood
in mute wonder
at the garden’s edge
she slipped the phone
in her pocket
her daughter
unharmed
amongst
petals gone
she snapped
a branch
a tempest stalled
she felt the boy
she felt the dead
she felt the families
she felt the wind
the deer don’t do that
she said
the deer don’t do that
TO HIS DAUGHTER
What is the heart but a small hand
of agonies? What is the immobile
stag, but a blessing disguised
within the pages of a book?
Little one, set down your hymnal,
rest it upon your knee. Tears
may stain the fragile leaf,
let them fall, let them fall.
Your father has rushed forth
in a column of mist. Now you seek
him in columns of words, water
and stone. He is here little heart.
The stag fell under the stroke
and into a blackness
so bright as to fold
hymn and hymn a perfect thorn,
the spear of your father’s love.
The hart faltered and fell.
The red-skinned hart.
He is the gust that lifts a bit of sail
to press your cheek, wipe the tears.
A bit of sail without moral, turning
like an apron upon a cloud.
THE PRIDE MOVES SLOWLY
I heard you crying in your sleep
and stood above your contour there.
I saw the moon behind your ear,
wrists as mine, my mother’s hair.
I saw you with your father’s arms
and so possess his blades,
protruding like small wings
I thought I’d never see again.
The lamp of his boyhood glows,
the pride moves slowly
as in a dream. Circling
the shade ’s lucent plain.
Bequeathed with certain calm,
the outline of their forms
diffuse as memories stream,
sown in sadness, sleep.
THE LEAVES ARE LATE FALLING
The leaves are late falling, the plane trees
gowned as to partner air.
Star to star, they hold fast in the cold
light filtering music.
Two hands ago these fingers were yours,
folding a guitar placed by our son
closing his eyes, a metronome pacing
the percussion of an errant wind
as the lid fastened, marking time,
year’s mind and mind’s end.
In a circle, on a rise, currents waltz
the restive plane,
their gowns loosening, they fall
one by one shimmering,
signing as their word
that somewhere you are good.
WILDERNESS
Do animals make a human cry
when their loved one staggers
fowled dragged down
the blue veined river
Does the female wail
miming the wolf of suffering
do lilies trumpet the pup
plucked for skin and skein
Do animals cry like humans
as I having lost you
yowled flagged
curled in a ball
This is how
we beat the icy field
shoeless and empty handed
hardly human at all
Negotiating a wilderness
we have yet to know
this is where time stops
and we have none to go
THE GEOMETRY BLINKED RUIN UNIMAGINABLE
She clawed through the rubble of her world
head covered a scrupulous maid searching for gems
a necklace mislaid by her mistress on the marble floor
of a ballroom set against the battered sky
She crawled with her babe limp as a doll in floral crayon
She crawled through arches suspended
wrapped her babe in the shawl she had worn
to market no more than a scar on the face of a hill
hair ribbons fluttering girders blood silk
oozing the wounded sky shot with holes
foxes scuttling crackling wires
patches of honey colored coats shivering
down mixed with bits of calico and flesh
She crawled a chessboard a cage of gold
scaffolding she crawled with her face oblique
placed her babe before the altar of the Art of War
She picked through the remnants of the Basque
countryside a cockeyed dress-maker
piecing a pattern gone awry
Through the rubble she crawled
with one shoe the other foot gone
a trail sticky and warm
She crept into the belly of a fallen horse
drawing its life into her mouth
covering her doll with kisses
she knelt entreating her god
an immense crucifix swathed
in telegraph wire that spun
like a bottle in the center of a circle
She made a sign over her breast
and stuffed her mouth with biscuits
Body of Christ…Body of Christ
Horses wept jewels the size of fists
swept by scholars with a mind
to twist and level facets
of each plane to be raffled
when the bombing ceased
Before the Art of War she laid her babe
To be raffled with the heart of the artist
bulldozed crucified then razed again
to house an outstretched arm
hoof and thigh reins that ran scarlet
streaming the horse ’s knotted mane
dripping blood from the wounds of Christ
dripping blood from the wounds of Spain
Black and white blood dripping
The ghost of Sophia pranced in her rag dress
through walls of glass—the unspeakable
The hairs on his forearms bristled the sense
of her pressing in like a dosed handkerchief
He picked up a stick and covered fresh sheets
Dripping the hardened horn
Dripping the indignant ring
Slaughter flower dead child hoof capacious eye
lighting the halls of the Spanish pavilion
He bore down on the stick to canvas spent
and on the seventh day he wept
FENOMENICO
The music of the spheres knew not of what it sang.
The flame of love mounts quicker than the flame of sacrifice.
This flame burns slow and the body consumed holds its form
a small slumping figure stripped and shorn
mouthing the words: “Jesus, Jesus.”
She reached, not with her bound hands, but with her eyes.
The sacrifice made on the cross harmonized with her own.
Her banner, intact, hung from the arches of the sky.
I sat in a square humming a song of the shepherd girl
who rose above her station to liberate her king.
Yet he abandoned her to secular authority
and she languished in chains
a daughter of deep neglect.
Her harnois blanc lay upon the altar
Her difformitate habitus shredded immaculate
Her broken sword, an ex-voto, caught in the bramble
the sweetbriar enmeshed in sad soldier thread.
I reached to touch but was moved by the rustling gowns
of the conclave; the lapping of the Apostolic See.
A moat encircled the Duomo and I noticed a small boat
laden with bread and fishes.
I reached for the oar but was suddenly drawn by the
geometric design paving the wide quadrangle of the piazza.
The mosaic sang beneath my feet as I entered an ancient
garden winding the heart of the perennial cycle.
A long-stemmed boccolo with magnificent thorns appeared
before me. I knelt to claim it when I saw you standing by
the column of the winged lion in your overcoat, smiling.
A golden ball balanced above the tumulus
like a small planet eaten away by a spiral mist.
The music of the spheres knew not of what it sang yet
filled the heavens with a bold and jubilant silence.
I felt the lantern of your arm
the pageantry of your breath
the source of an exquisite wound.
THREE WINDOWS
In the garden of the fugitive
he knelt singing
I am with thee
In his white cassock he cried
I pray for that brother
who shot me
A black crucifix appeared
as he lay dying
forgive me
I am one
Crepe streamed from three windows
a flag dropped bound in mourning
these words entered the heart
You have come
the door is open
you will not find me
you will find my love
OUR JARGON MUFFLES THE DRUM
Children marching scraps of humanity beating their drum of blood rushing streets buried alive on the moral high ground burned in their beds in the name of crusades not sanctioned by law any savior at all small limbs severed in the name of gods fleeing holocaust streets of the wrong dawn blighted angels swarming burrows wading sewage sleep of the ragged caged glue sniffing packs of the dogged pinned and glazed and bound by fashion rubber shoes stitched by child hands and where shall they dream dancing splintered streets naked feet with none to remove slivers of fiery ice to warn hearts underfoot to wash the tears of children streaming by twos and tens and tens of thou sands with small hands open to fallout follies frozen embryo stem cells blown promises lowered into plundered shafts and children are swarming mounting refrigerators no more cookie jar just rounds of ammo to pump into their pals by the grace of our stupidity they say we have your guns your lack of recognition that we are children and we mimic like parrots and we are going to play you taking down all in our wake in a pink buzz on the way of swollen bellies enslaved ignored skewered abhorred embedded in the new century that has abandoned their hands prayer common mind signs worth deciphering code worth dying words worth living force fed fast food educated by tube entertained with sex scandal serial killer white supremacists and gaudy rappers spoiled like carcasses of studded beef swinging in the sun shot by princess deprived paparazzi grieving images icons blown by fame by their own silver hand jobs presidential blow job mourning the death of stars while babes are left in swaddling heaps babes to languish in streets of blurring mists not parted nor blessed and the children coming with their hands outstretched and we fill them with stinging amendments material rites non patriot acts to play entrap avenge revenge yet there is a higher flower waiting to be plucked a recompense worthy of their pure palm and it contains nothing but itself to raise the head of the son to bathe in lucid milk drink the radiance within the stream and the children are racing streets with no name besieged streets of the veil of the blue mosque streets of the jubilant damned street of the nailed the pawned profiteer street of the prophet hanged man rapist priest amorphous children glowing from dark to dark to dark and the way of the bread and the empty hand of innocence transfusing street of the sorrows and children of the wood hounded shredding all veils unwinding all sheets of the dead world droning overturning tables laden with silver sacrificial birds beating goatskin drums advancing with hands outstretched and we keep filling them with mercury nitrate asbestos baby bombs blasting blue scavengers picking through the ashes of city of the dead exploited raging children of the mills children of the junkyard malls trafficked children high risk asylum children orphaned abused shining children damned and gifted blind scorned and beautiful toughs funneling traumatized hungry for lullabies sucked through the shafts sleepy illiterate fuzzy little rats haunted paint snuffers stoned out of their shaved heads forgotten foraging sex slaves sleeping urine and excrement gutter saints mystical children foul mouth glassy eyed hallucinating hallowed nameless soldier blitzing the pure street of the numb with outstretched hands and children are raging like packs of dogs and who shall feed them shall serve up centuries of love lost as they squat in our shit unable to comprehend their own beneath constellations of fear as we wield vanities gesturing extinction and the children are mouthing natures small agonies and fish are writhing in the desert and the sea no longer shining sea and mountains shall be razed erupting small fingers tracing the end of things and children are marching beating their drums of blood joined by ghosts offering sweet cornflowers to fold and stuff the cheek of the future tiny fists signaling take heed thee guardian for none shall be first and none shall be last and who shall greet the sun if the air be pink with folly and who shall remain save the children of the game and they shall be as bread upon the earth and they shall build monuments to the saints of their day and they shall shed all veils unwind all flags and hail their mother who found them naked abandoned in coffin shaped baskets and lifted them bathed and clothed them in the finery of her love and they shall remember her in cloth of blue dawn anchored in faith bathed in hope with charity unfurled as they rebuild our world.
DEATH OF A TRAMP
The hills were green and so were we
but not in the way men talk about
we had not known death
nor walked with stain
for all was bright about the hand
We had not known death
yet the sparrows ring
set like a wreath upon the marsh
marked for all that shivered cross
in cast-off clothes himself cast-off
In sun and wind his tramping drum
the high grass knew his shuffling
kindness wrapped his being mild
his countenance moved the brethren
The stench and sense of aimless wrath
now we know death not so the man
a wildflower stowed in ragged breast
the hills are grieved their innocence
MUMMER LOVE
Come in lovely Mummers don’t bother the snow
We can wipe up the water sure after you go
Sit if you can or on some Mummer’s knee
Let’s see if we know who ya be
TRADITIONAL
A face pressed to mine. A black hole planting a kiss, an uproarious cry. It was not cruelty, not even insult, but a quirky form of universal love. An impulse of great narcotic joy. One of the lower orders, a lone mummer from Conception Bay, engaging in horseplay far from home. He pressed his face to mine, then staggered away, howling, while I, small and reproachful, tried to wipe away the smear of a vague initiation into the festival of life.
I fled the masquerade through ranks of grotesque string bands shaking down Market Street. Through the heart of Philadelphia I ran, toward City Hall, topped with the imposing figure of William Penn breathing upon my startled being.
Brothers in blackface splendidly clad chasing small boys and whipping their legs. Gaudy tattlers parading the streets and performing rude dances. Strays dragging plumes in the slush splashing as little ice crystals formed in my socks.
I did not join the other children throwing pennies on Ben Franklin’s grave, crying good luck, good luck. But something struck me as I scraped the clover from my shoes. Why should there be clover? I was driven to the snow. Why should there be clover—each one four leaved, boasting the luck of his caste?