1. Opening, from The Burden of Nisan
The poem carried her
through time
she lay reading on the balcony
on a sun-wombed border
a chrysanthemum ignited
the garden’s actuality
a well of gravity
birdsong harpooned the air
even her mother was …
The poem carried her
through time
she lay reading on the balcony
on a sun-wombed border
a chrysanthemum ignited
the garden’s actuality
a well of gravity
birdsong harpooned the air
even her mother was …
They’ve gotten my classes crisscrossed
sulking here swallowing the wrong,
compacted in the regular classroom.
I belong
in a seat that calls my name
not here in …
Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
(Johannes Brahms, Deutsches Requiem/Psalm 84)
I
Keusch bewahrt,/ In bescheidener Knospe: In downstairs Berlin bars she meets young men
while machines rip the city’s …
Just gravity pulling what free
bodies it touches down, and at times
their refusal. Despite this shaking over
the mouth of the trash, a plate
holding its residue. Adherence the …
with borrowings from Rimbaud, “Après le Déluge”
in a turbulent dream,
I wake troubled, confused,
a tabby nosing round the sheets…
the market stalls are dressed in meat,
bavetted, boned, …
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I am grunting along the 60, returning
from Calvary Mortuary in East LA
where I walked into the wrong
services. My good friend’s mom
suddenly gone and me wandering halls
looking for the moon: Luna, …
because no one else will. His eyes
are white and cracked like the moon,
little crescents. And when I set
him down, he runs, not knowing
where he’s going. …
Last night I read Lorca in the bathtub
Three candles and an incense lit
My cigarette blending with steam and bubbles
Lavender and Epsom sinking to the bottom
The eucalyptus …