Honeymoon Weather

anyone
can drown in a dream-deep sea
forfeit sunshine for
sea-deep eyes

forget
temperature
humidity and windspeed
when solitude’s
my weather

it was five below
on Central Park South
when she kissed me
and we turned to the wind

Black Road

What a black road this is
—Franz Wright, Winter: Twilight & Dawn—

On this unshadowed street
the uncaged breeze
kisses the greedy leaves
of the ancient sugarberry
home to a universe of secrets.

And where is that sly black road?
Under my feet
or miles and lifetimes away?

I’m on the lookout
for a long black road,
and if I don’t find it,
when and where, I ask,
will it find me?

Entreaty

how quiet it seems
crickets and birds and dread bedded down
even the bone stiff moon
declines to sit up and sing
grinning voiceless
in the cool black blessing of night

and the stars
all that crackling energy
whisperless in the faraway ether
consuming silence

we’re all the same
I want to say
so talk to me
coo in my ear
rattle my longing

tell me you and I
and all our wondrous kind
live on somehow

Inklings

they sing and dance
tickle sinew and viscera
and flash behind my eyes

and once in a while
they tug at my conscience
(which must be hiding somewhere)

I wait for instruction
interrogate head and gut
and try to read the signs

but something tells me
they have nothing to say
absolutely nothing at all

Dumb Show

bless my memories
buried in a corner
of some windowless vault

somewhere something whizzes about
or plods along
peering over a rim or shrinking back

a tease I guess
a tiny glimpse

but the words
the commonplace words
the holy words
are lost

grinning perhaps
maybe chuckling
in their vanishing

I know there were words
(there had to be words)

but now only a cool white ice cream parlor
rich vanilla, hot fudge, sweet malt powder
and happy smiles
my pretty blond mother
my older sister laughing and teasing

a silent movie
a dumb show

maybe something precious was said
maybe something nudged me just a little
this way or that
to this road or that

the ice cream was delicious

Windsong

The wind
must sing about
where it meant to be
and what it meant to do
before it spun away

to winnow grain
broadcast rumor
spray sand
shatter buildings
and drown old cities
and now it sings
of endless twisting
around and through
everything I never grasped

alone in stillness
I wait for time and April wind to churn
the deep gray days my way

and an April-soft wind
sighs down my red brick walk
to the blankest corner of my brain:

Take no chances
it sings
run and hide
I will tell you tales
you never want to hear.

Travel Guide for the Confused Tourist

Here I am

in uncharted depths;
I think I’ll hail that disappearing yacht

or reeling in the desert
flag down my endless ride to nowhere.

Seeking shelter from depth
I could drown in any errant riptide

or shrivel to dust and somber song
and vanish in a boundless heaven.

So I carry my compass and star chart
to show me wherever it is

I ought to go
though I wonder when

l get there how I’ll sort out
trackless desert from fathomless sea.

Ancient Wisdom

a low gray sky quickens into turbulence
as it yearns to refresh parched earth

and poems are yearning and
turbulence and I’m oddly parched

and blown about in a dithering wind
and I long to rise to windless heights

above the clamor of seasons
above my portion here

rooted in turmoil and muddle
the wind batting me about

telling me it’s best somehow
to grab my hat, bear down,

turn into the wind, stand rooted in the
ancient wisdom of ancient bewilderment

This Happy Day

It’s sunny and glad and green
in my zoned-for-happy neighborhood

and on this happy day I see the life I didn’t have:
miserable and poor, a creep in fact;

I reek from
too much booze and too little soap

but I compose such lovely verse
croaking hymns to beauty

and the wickedness of God’s
singular creation who shits his

nest and calls it art or truth or justice
but in one’s singular lifetime

it’s enough (don’t you think):
one single wicked beautiful poem.

Songbird

She sings of
deep sad seas and cold black suns
measureless mountains
lost angel heaven
and all my vanishing dreams

tell me
songbird
what is the meaning of song
and why does the silent black sun
deafen and dazzle

there are puzzlements
I’ll never understand