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A chapbook containing fifteen poems, some of which were originally published in The History of Gasoline and Other Poems, a thesis completed for the author’s 1974 MFA in Poetry from the University of Arkansas. The book’s title is taken from a line in the final poem Dionysus, Section 2. - "the body is temporal, its sorrow is brief." Poetic voices that influenced on the work include Baudelaire, Neruda, Lorca, and Yeats. |
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Click on the title to read the poem below
Contemporary Dialectic
Visiting My Grandmother in Miami Beach
The Invisible World
At the Moment of Total Eclipse
Old Women in their Hospital Beds
"ripeness is all"
Epithalamion
Maya
The Cat is Sleeping and Dreaming of Birds
The Concert
The Sand Crab
The Hanged Man as Guru
Street Poem
The Elastic Dream
www.marvinschwartz.net/about.html#dionysus Dionysus
Contemporary Dialectic
Having learned to clap my hands
I now must clean
the ice cream from my forehead.
This inconvenience does not trouble me.
Knowing God is the infinite Monkey,
eventually I too will type Hamlet.
Certainly I love my clothes
and would gladly give my life
to preserve my freedom.
The dust which is settling on the street
indicates some momentous passage.
How was I to know?
My clock has hands but no face
and I was in the closet
lecturing my shoes.
The postman, a deaf mute,
has eyes like melting ice.
How can I upbraid him
when he returns my letters
with a shrug of his shoulders?
No, I am not surprised to find
my women in bed with my best friend's dog.
I myself have made the same mistake,
swimming with dolphins in a dried up lake.
Having learned to clap my hands
I now must clean
the ice cream from my forehead.
This inconvenience does not trouble me.
Knowing God is the infinite Monkey,
eventually I too will type Hamlet.
Certainly I love my clothes
and would gladly give my life
to preserve my freedom.
The dust which is settling on the street
indicates some momentous passage.
How was I to know?
My clock has hands but no face
and I was in the closet
lecturing my shoes.
The postman, a deaf mute,
has eyes like melting ice.
How can I upbraid him
when he returns my letters
with a shrug of his shoulders?
No, I am not surprised to find
my women in bed with my best friend's dog.
I myself have made the same mistake,
swimming with dolphins in a dried up lake.
Visiting My Grandmother in Miami Beach
Welcome to the Jewish American dream,
the land of coconut milk
and orange blossom honey.
What is it would make you happy?
A folding beach chair and a cigar,
a game of pinochle or a glass of seltzer maybe?
Saturday morning rain
brings a smile to the rabbi's lips.
This is a city of tropical devotion.
A strong wind and the beaches are littered
with coconuts and skull caps.
Even the palm trees are bent in prayer,
or do they lean to study
their neighbors' bingo cards?
I find her cooking knishes
in her condominium by the sea.
Eat, eat, she says,
giving me spongecake and schnappes,
a plate of dried figs,
and a boiled chicken.
She smiles to see me put it away,
my appetite is a sign of love.
I have been fasting all day in preparation.
We sit in the living room
and talk about the family.
The photographs on the table
are framed in metal and glass.
Babies in blankets ripe as grapefruit
A birthday boy in his Bar Mitzvah suit
She takes me to the game room before I leave.
Her friends look up from their cards.
My son's boy, she says, from New York.
Welcome to the Jewish American dream,
the land of coconut milk
and orange blossom honey.
What is it would make you happy?
A folding beach chair and a cigar,
a game of pinochle or a glass of seltzer maybe?
Saturday morning rain
brings a smile to the rabbi's lips.
This is a city of tropical devotion.
A strong wind and the beaches are littered
with coconuts and skull caps.
Even the palm trees are bent in prayer,
or do they lean to study
their neighbors' bingo cards?
I find her cooking knishes
in her condominium by the sea.
Eat, eat, she says,
giving me spongecake and schnappes,
a plate of dried figs,
and a boiled chicken.
She smiles to see me put it away,
my appetite is a sign of love.
I have been fasting all day in preparation.
We sit in the living room
and talk about the family.
The photographs on the table
are framed in metal and glass.
Babies in blankets ripe as grapefruit
A birthday boy in his Bar Mitzvah suit
She takes me to the game room before I leave.
Her friends look up from their cards.
My son's boy, she says, from New York.
The Invisible World
Above a pool of oil
the wings of a swan
are turbulent as crystal.
Tree roots surface through concrete walks
breathing deeply as swimmers.
Contractors call for vegetables and spice
but the customs agent is drunk on ceramics.
On salt beaches
rows of fish
have been laid to dry.
On the focal point of death
they roll themselves like acrobats.
In the collapse of evening
vision fades to a photograph.
The cat's eye has known dilations of love,
laughter ringing from stone bells,
innate darkness, vulnerable as glass.
Above a pool of oil
the wings of a swan
are turbulent as crystal.
Tree roots surface through concrete walks
breathing deeply as swimmers.
Contractors call for vegetables and spice
but the customs agent is drunk on ceramics.
On salt beaches
rows of fish
have been laid to dry.
On the focal point of death
they roll themselves like acrobats.
In the collapse of evening
vision fades to a photograph.
The cat's eye has known dilations of love,
laughter ringing from stone bells,
innate darkness, vulnerable as glass.
Notes:
In a surrealist mode, the poem weaves religious symbols and natural images to suggest the momentary opening of a super-natural portal.
At the Moment of Total Eclipse
At the moment of total eclipse
a woman comes naked into the room.
Her eyes sealed by the passing moon,
her skin the color of turbulent water.
If she were more than filtered light,
more than body flung headlong in time,
a bird's nest would blossom in your mouth,
bees would draw nectar from your inner ear.
Yet she sits beside you in the tumult of air
while her teeth sing harmony with the clock.
Her breasts straining upwards like water
moved to the moon with the rhythm of tides.
She is the white marble of your tombstone,
an angel's wing kindling the sea to fire.
She hovers before you as the planets align.
You can neither look at her nor turn away.
Only for this have coins been balanced on your eyes
that she would lie in your palm like the zodiac.
Brahman, alchemist of time, for you the sun
burns on her forehead, the hourglass spills blood like wine.
In a surrealist mode, the poem weaves religious symbols and natural images to suggest the momentary opening of a super-natural portal.
At the Moment of Total Eclipse
At the moment of total eclipse
a woman comes naked into the room.
Her eyes sealed by the passing moon,
her skin the color of turbulent water.
If she were more than filtered light,
more than body flung headlong in time,
a bird's nest would blossom in your mouth,
bees would draw nectar from your inner ear.
Yet she sits beside you in the tumult of air
while her teeth sing harmony with the clock.
Her breasts straining upwards like water
moved to the moon with the rhythm of tides.
She is the white marble of your tombstone,
an angel's wing kindling the sea to fire.
She hovers before you as the planets align.
You can neither look at her nor turn away.
Only for this have coins been balanced on your eyes
that she would lie in your palm like the zodiac.
Brahman, alchemist of time, for you the sun
burns on her forehead, the hourglass spills blood like wine.
Old Women In Their Hospital Beds
old women in their hospital beds
look up with eyes as pale as linen
eyes that ask you not to speak
of their withered hair, their parchment skin
or the curtains which circle their beds
like tissue walls that glow translucent light
old women with plastic bracelets
lift their wrists from the languor of the sheets
to touch a face, a breast no longer theirs
old women too frail for grace
lie widespread in their sleep
their legs like doors the wind's thrown back
the threshold of their house of dreams
is deep with drifts of powdered snow
the hearth flames flutter in the draft
old women wait while flowers in the vase
grow limp, they breathe weak commands
request a change of sheets, new curtains
against the fierce sunlight that disrupts
their midday sleep, a door lock to stop
the ghostly visitors who flock to them each night
in other rooms young women sweat and scream
in the force of their contracted labor
as life swims out from the mouth of a river
tearing the walls to breathe the air
to scream its fresh voice like a raw wound
like a fly whose legs are stuck in honey
like a body thrust into the room
through a doorway of knives
late at night young mothers rise
to steal their children from the rooms of glass
from the sterile bins for screaming and the drumheads
tight with oxygen, the feeding tubes, the wires
where starched nurses sit and speak in scissory voices
they walk the halls, bare feet on the cold tiles
their newborn swathed in the gown of their infirmity
hidden within them as though swollen in the belly once more
they come to where the aged women sleep
and hold their offspring to be viewed in dim light
chanting, "awake, old mother, and buy
this child from sleep, exchange its birthright
for a bloodied sheet, you who have outlived
the painful birthing, you who live to dream..."
old women's eyes do not focus in the dark
when the hooded eyelid raises
they see incandescent bodies
gowns of phosphorus and streaming hair
white marble arms and a child
whose eyes, like tinder for a spark,
cry out for the white breast's milk
old women rise to breathe this child
their lingering breath, and wild in their desire
they tear themselves from the intravenous tube
and break the placenta of the oxygen tent
old women in their hospital beds
look up with eyes as pale as linen
eyes that ask you not to speak
of their withered hair, their parchment skin
or the curtains which circle their beds
like tissue walls that glow translucent light
old women with plastic bracelets
lift their wrists from the languor of the sheets
to touch a face, a breast no longer theirs
old women too frail for grace
lie widespread in their sleep
their legs like doors the wind's thrown back
the threshold of their house of dreams
is deep with drifts of powdered snow
the hearth flames flutter in the draft
old women wait while flowers in the vase
grow limp, they breathe weak commands
request a change of sheets, new curtains
against the fierce sunlight that disrupts
their midday sleep, a door lock to stop
the ghostly visitors who flock to them each night
in other rooms young women sweat and scream
in the force of their contracted labor
as life swims out from the mouth of a river
tearing the walls to breathe the air
to scream its fresh voice like a raw wound
like a fly whose legs are stuck in honey
like a body thrust into the room
through a doorway of knives
late at night young mothers rise
to steal their children from the rooms of glass
from the sterile bins for screaming and the drumheads
tight with oxygen, the feeding tubes, the wires
where starched nurses sit and speak in scissory voices
they walk the halls, bare feet on the cold tiles
their newborn swathed in the gown of their infirmity
hidden within them as though swollen in the belly once more
they come to where the aged women sleep
and hold their offspring to be viewed in dim light
chanting, "awake, old mother, and buy
this child from sleep, exchange its birthright
for a bloodied sheet, you who have outlived
the painful birthing, you who live to dream..."
old women's eyes do not focus in the dark
when the hooded eyelid raises
they see incandescent bodies
gowns of phosphorus and streaming hair
white marble arms and a child
whose eyes, like tinder for a spark,
cry out for the white breast's milk
old women rise to breathe this child
their lingering breath, and wild in their desire
they tear themselves from the intravenous tube
and break the placenta of the oxygen tent
"ripeness is all"
King Lear
The moon crosses the sky
and the body dies piecemeal.
The boy who spat a seed
in the field of the eyes of light,
the girl who danced
on a circular stone,
they carried the curse
of the carrion's calling,
conceived in darkness
the prodigy of their age,
who blemished the bedclothes
with the stain of his starting
and spoke these words
as befit a cruel commencement.
"I was born from a bag of skin
in molting season, bloated and fat.
I will survive in a world of pain
where to grow is to decline.
I eat to increase my hunger,
crying in my sleep for want of milk.
I am greedy for the breast.
Feed me. I will survive.”
King Lear
The moon crosses the sky
and the body dies piecemeal.
The boy who spat a seed
in the field of the eyes of light,
the girl who danced
on a circular stone,
they carried the curse
of the carrion's calling,
conceived in darkness
the prodigy of their age,
who blemished the bedclothes
with the stain of his starting
and spoke these words
as befit a cruel commencement.
"I was born from a bag of skin
in molting season, bloated and fat.
I will survive in a world of pain
where to grow is to decline.
I eat to increase my hunger,
crying in my sleep for want of milk.
I am greedy for the breast.
Feed me. I will survive.”
Notes:
Written for the marriage of India Anthony and Wes Zeigler, presented at their wedding reception in the Arlington Hotel, Hot Springs. Personal references in the first stanza include the enormous black lab, Hog Dog, a creature that provided steadfast ballast to many a tormented soul, and a emotionally challenged, voyeur neighbor, a victim of his own moral indignation.
Epithalamion
April 14, 1974
Carry me off in the childhood of your teeth,
a black dog is pawing at the screen.
Open the window, the air today
is thick with song. Tell the fat boy
in the bushes that he too is loved.
The black dog is no longer pawing.
There is no longer a screen.
The bubbles in the champagne glass
sparkle like sunlight on water.
Take their light for metaphor,
know the occasion of its burning.
One man celebrates rainfall
in the sweep of a woman's hair,
another welcomes darkness, its deep fragrance
like the seed inside an apple.
For each the world is personal and clear.
Today the marriage of my friends reveals
we deal with more than personal signs.
Love draws us out, love draws us fine.
Around the bridal pair, like birds in a ring,
we fan the propitious air, hovering wing to wing.
We are tied to the common scheme
as planets are spun through space.
Gravity holds us to this ground, holds us
to our place. Today our place is here.
We will dance the ritual dance.
Let us know the reason for this gathering.
The world carries us like a leaf on a stream.
Your marriage is a pool, deep and clear.
The leaf on still water is a floating jewel.
Written for the marriage of India Anthony and Wes Zeigler, presented at their wedding reception in the Arlington Hotel, Hot Springs. Personal references in the first stanza include the enormous black lab, Hog Dog, a creature that provided steadfast ballast to many a tormented soul, and a emotionally challenged, voyeur neighbor, a victim of his own moral indignation.
Epithalamion
April 14, 1974
Carry me off in the childhood of your teeth,
a black dog is pawing at the screen.
Open the window, the air today
is thick with song. Tell the fat boy
in the bushes that he too is loved.
The black dog is no longer pawing.
There is no longer a screen.
The bubbles in the champagne glass
sparkle like sunlight on water.
Take their light for metaphor,
know the occasion of its burning.
One man celebrates rainfall
in the sweep of a woman's hair,
another welcomes darkness, its deep fragrance
like the seed inside an apple.
For each the world is personal and clear.
Today the marriage of my friends reveals
we deal with more than personal signs.
Love draws us out, love draws us fine.
Around the bridal pair, like birds in a ring,
we fan the propitious air, hovering wing to wing.
We are tied to the common scheme
as planets are spun through space.
Gravity holds us to this ground, holds us
to our place. Today our place is here.
We will dance the ritual dance.
Let us know the reason for this gathering.
The world carries us like a leaf on a stream.
Your marriage is a pool, deep and clear.
The leaf on still water is a floating jewel.
Notes:
Contemplations on the ancient city of Tikal.
Maya
The leaves still catch the sun, and the ground
receives its shaded heat. In the luxury
of all living things grows huge mahogany,
swollen like a snake that swallowed a hog,
orchids clinging to the bark, blossoming
their seasonal eye. The lizard vanishes
from the rock. The spider monkey in a web of vines
is a swinging shadow screaming at the sky.
Here was the warrior's city, built on stone and blood.
Here were the hearts torn out, fed to eagles and jaguars
while the slave bodies sank like pulp into the soil.
Only a priest could calendar these passions,
only the elite could pierce their lips and tongues
with the sting ray's spine. The sun would not shine
nor the warm rain fall without this unction.
Like fire and growth, the jungle knows no waiting.
Artisans of stone that stacked the temple blocks
and paved the plazas, then cut the walls
with the glyphs' embroidery. The stones speak
of the war lord's visage, his emblems of power
still praise his grandeur. Unciphered mystery,
a locked door and a swallowed key, a city
seven centuries dead. These stones give off heat,
their words are steaming in the wake of rain.
The jade is green in the tombs of the kings,
the jungle's growth is pressing green.
The temples now are mounds beneath the earth,
their steps are held by the roots of trees.
The glyphs are deep in moss and softening
with rain. This much we can learn from history:
how white the orchid's unblinking eye;
how shrill, from swinging vines, the monkey's scream.
Contemplations on the ancient city of Tikal.
Maya
The leaves still catch the sun, and the ground
receives its shaded heat. In the luxury
of all living things grows huge mahogany,
swollen like a snake that swallowed a hog,
orchids clinging to the bark, blossoming
their seasonal eye. The lizard vanishes
from the rock. The spider monkey in a web of vines
is a swinging shadow screaming at the sky.
Here was the warrior's city, built on stone and blood.
Here were the hearts torn out, fed to eagles and jaguars
while the slave bodies sank like pulp into the soil.
Only a priest could calendar these passions,
only the elite could pierce their lips and tongues
with the sting ray's spine. The sun would not shine
nor the warm rain fall without this unction.
Like fire and growth, the jungle knows no waiting.
Artisans of stone that stacked the temple blocks
and paved the plazas, then cut the walls
with the glyphs' embroidery. The stones speak
of the war lord's visage, his emblems of power
still praise his grandeur. Unciphered mystery,
a locked door and a swallowed key, a city
seven centuries dead. These stones give off heat,
their words are steaming in the wake of rain.
The jade is green in the tombs of the kings,
the jungle's growth is pressing green.
The temples now are mounds beneath the earth,
their steps are held by the roots of trees.
The glyphs are deep in moss and softening
with rain. This much we can learn from history:
how white the orchid's unblinking eye;
how shrill, from swinging vines, the monkey's scream.
The Cat is Sleeping and Dreaming of Birds
When the white horizon glares and the air is cold to the skin
I rise from sleep, drawn to the urgency of a flame.
These are nocturnal days, clouds that hide the sun,
with shadows on the street only beneath the cars.
I could be sleeping like shaded tobacco,
cooled in palm fronds while the sun beats on bright water,
but there is a lethargy to these alternatives.
The cat is sleeping and dreaming of birds,
making whistling noises. Its twitching side
is anxious for feathers, anxious for the red breast,
singing the cry that turns in the throat,
the colors of terror in the sun's broad face.
The shrubs restrain from grand displays of beauty,
content with a muted green. When then do I
chew cigars, when my hunger is for caramel?
Why do my words hurl themselves at the window glass
like hysterical birds, falling for a lack of breath?
Their hearts can not sustain the fluttering wings.
Their eyes are wings, they are glass beads, round and wet,
pebbles I fling into the air like dice.
These birds fly like a man unsteady on his feet,
they settle on a limb with others of their kind.
The words I toss out, that line this page
until the cat awakes, words that scatter in the slightest wind.
For this I absorb the silence of still rooms,
but have not yet learned how to return
to the subway of sleep, its floating stations of dreams.
What words do I repeat, what chant will wrap me
like a winding sheet? How do I tempt the white cat?
Here is a book whose pages are bursting with fruit,
another whose print contains the sound
of horses hooves on pastures covered with frost.
In the sun's dominion there is no sound,
flowers break ground without questioning the light.
I learn from the leaf of the season's returning,
of the morning light and its state of innocence.
This much is clear. The sun will climb my window
like the luminous knapsack of an angelic traveler.
I will rise in its light, retire in shadow.
The cat will not awake, will not see its dream
take flight against the white horizon's glare.
When I can sing the flower's wordless chant
the sun will be my weight, though none will see me carry it.
When the white horizon glares and the air is cold to the skin
I rise from sleep, drawn to the urgency of a flame.
These are nocturnal days, clouds that hide the sun,
with shadows on the street only beneath the cars.
I could be sleeping like shaded tobacco,
cooled in palm fronds while the sun beats on bright water,
but there is a lethargy to these alternatives.
The cat is sleeping and dreaming of birds,
making whistling noises. Its twitching side
is anxious for feathers, anxious for the red breast,
singing the cry that turns in the throat,
the colors of terror in the sun's broad face.
The shrubs restrain from grand displays of beauty,
content with a muted green. When then do I
chew cigars, when my hunger is for caramel?
Why do my words hurl themselves at the window glass
like hysterical birds, falling for a lack of breath?
Their hearts can not sustain the fluttering wings.
Their eyes are wings, they are glass beads, round and wet,
pebbles I fling into the air like dice.
These birds fly like a man unsteady on his feet,
they settle on a limb with others of their kind.
The words I toss out, that line this page
until the cat awakes, words that scatter in the slightest wind.
For this I absorb the silence of still rooms,
but have not yet learned how to return
to the subway of sleep, its floating stations of dreams.
What words do I repeat, what chant will wrap me
like a winding sheet? How do I tempt the white cat?
Here is a book whose pages are bursting with fruit,
another whose print contains the sound
of horses hooves on pastures covered with frost.
In the sun's dominion there is no sound,
flowers break ground without questioning the light.
I learn from the leaf of the season's returning,
of the morning light and its state of innocence.
This much is clear. The sun will climb my window
like the luminous knapsack of an angelic traveler.
I will rise in its light, retire in shadow.
The cat will not awake, will not see its dream
take flight against the white horizon's glare.
When I can sing the flower's wordless chant
the sun will be my weight, though none will see me carry it.
The Concert
On this gray day the clouds hover
in the sky like gulls.
A light spring rain is falling.
The yard is swept in a veil of mist,
moving above the grass.
As sure as I'm alive,
this is a day for poetry.
I face the desk, ready to begin,
but footsteps sound from the floor above,
reminding me of the piano recital
scheduled for the afternoon.
Now, thunderous applause and stamping of feet,
the ceiling boards creaking their approval.
Poems swarm inside my head like bees.
I grip the pen and start to write,
such inspiration knows no rival.
Consider the man who is flying a kite
and fishing at the same time.
He feels the tug of a bite
and starts to reel it in
but stops, afraid the kite will fall
in the excitement of the catch.
Not one to upset the natural order,
he ties the two lines together
and stands back to watch.
A strong wind will bring the fish to shore
but a stronger fish will pull the kite under.
Fair enough. This way both kite and fish
have at least a sporting chance.
The relation of this tale
to the rainy afternoon is simple.
As neither fish nor kite know
the nature of their opposing weight,
yet pull against it all the same,
so I anticipate the end of this day's struggle,
when ceilings assume their proper silence,
and poems, unlike opposing fish and kites,
pull themselves together.
The mist that falls is fine as powder
The birds have taken shelter in the trees
Drop by drop, the windows streak with water
I note the rain in the quiver of the leaves
On this gray day the clouds hover
in the sky like gulls.
A light spring rain is falling.
The yard is swept in a veil of mist,
moving above the grass.
As sure as I'm alive,
this is a day for poetry.
I face the desk, ready to begin,
but footsteps sound from the floor above,
reminding me of the piano recital
scheduled for the afternoon.
Now, thunderous applause and stamping of feet,
the ceiling boards creaking their approval.
Poems swarm inside my head like bees.
I grip the pen and start to write,
such inspiration knows no rival.
Consider the man who is flying a kite
and fishing at the same time.
He feels the tug of a bite
and starts to reel it in
but stops, afraid the kite will fall
in the excitement of the catch.
Not one to upset the natural order,
he ties the two lines together
and stands back to watch.
A strong wind will bring the fish to shore
but a stronger fish will pull the kite under.
Fair enough. This way both kite and fish
have at least a sporting chance.
The relation of this tale
to the rainy afternoon is simple.
As neither fish nor kite know
the nature of their opposing weight,
yet pull against it all the same,
so I anticipate the end of this day's struggle,
when ceilings assume their proper silence,
and poems, unlike opposing fish and kites,
pull themselves together.
The mist that falls is fine as powder
The birds have taken shelter in the trees
Drop by drop, the windows streak with water
I note the rain in the quiver of the leaves
The Sand Crab
1. The sand crab lives beneath the sand
where the wave draws back
where the sand is smooth as skin
having no claws, it shuns human contact
you may hunt the sand crab
when your skin has the texture of sand
the sand crab will dig
in a handful of sand
it will press against your palm
like a tongue on sand
2. the sand crab was disconsolate
when I brought it home
though I fed it bacon and tuna fish
still the sand crab would not acknowledge me
I saved my semen in a pill bottle
I sewed fingernail clippings in the lining of my shirt
the sand crab had the voice of a nightingale
for many years I begged it to sing
1. The sand crab lives beneath the sand
where the wave draws back
where the sand is smooth as skin
having no claws, it shuns human contact
you may hunt the sand crab
when your skin has the texture of sand
the sand crab will dig
in a handful of sand
it will press against your palm
like a tongue on sand
2. the sand crab was disconsolate
when I brought it home
though I fed it bacon and tuna fish
still the sand crab would not acknowledge me
I saved my semen in a pill bottle
I sewed fingernail clippings in the lining of my shirt
the sand crab had the voice of a nightingale
for many years I begged it to sing
The Hanged Man as Guru
I am the Indian rubber man,
the barefoot mystic
on a bed of coals. I teach
a light step.
The wind moves me unlike
a leaf. My stem
will not stretch or break.
I have taught
the sphinx a new riddle.
In my complete
return I will leave this sign,
a bent limb.
I am the Indian rubber man,
the barefoot mystic
on a bed of coals. I teach
a light step.
The wind moves me unlike
a leaf. My stem
will not stretch or break.
I have taught
the sphinx a new riddle.
In my complete
return I will leave this sign,
a bent limb.
Street Poem
Guatemala City, 1976
The passionate, the fair, the dawn-surviving beauty
incites the passive dreamer to a turbulent passage.
Buses in the street and the clanging of bells
as starlight comes shimmering in the obscure hours.
The eyes of the street beggar and his outstretched hand
like a cauldron of poverty bleeding from the feet.
A smile that shivers among black-gapped teeth
when the skin draws tight and the veins bulge blue and green.
A rooftop of pigeons rises on the breeze,
white and brown above the crowded street.
Homage to the powerful, to rise above the sound
of motors, above the streets of brick and stone.
Find yourself in the crowd of dust, the anxiety of bodies
pressed inside a streetcar. You will come down from the dream.
Here there is no embrace but the causing of havoc,
the breaking of bones and the confines of the alley.
Street laws flashing in a code of light, the idling of motors
and sputtering exhaust. Caution yellow and progress green,
the temple is raised by the power of machines
and the curb serves notice to the passage of feet.
Beauty comes down like the brown and white pigeons
pecking for millet in the courtyard of the temple.
The city falls motionless of the wings of their descent,
for a handful of seed scattered on the stones.
Give us the true messiah. The bible print smears
and the voice of the healer is lost in the crowd.
There is space enough and air to breathe.
There is comfort in the water's falling.
There is sunlight calling from the empty plain.
There is power in the movement of wings.
Patience will lift you above this labor. You will die
and rise. Your heart will hold like a long-pursued prize
a cauldron of roses and an endless vision.
Then answer the prayers of the black-mouthed beggar
crying for the arm he lost at birth, for the keepsake
of flesh and the bondage of bone. All for the common hunger.
Guatemala City, 1976
The passionate, the fair, the dawn-surviving beauty
incites the passive dreamer to a turbulent passage.
Buses in the street and the clanging of bells
as starlight comes shimmering in the obscure hours.
The eyes of the street beggar and his outstretched hand
like a cauldron of poverty bleeding from the feet.
A smile that shivers among black-gapped teeth
when the skin draws tight and the veins bulge blue and green.
A rooftop of pigeons rises on the breeze,
white and brown above the crowded street.
Homage to the powerful, to rise above the sound
of motors, above the streets of brick and stone.
Find yourself in the crowd of dust, the anxiety of bodies
pressed inside a streetcar. You will come down from the dream.
Here there is no embrace but the causing of havoc,
the breaking of bones and the confines of the alley.
Street laws flashing in a code of light, the idling of motors
and sputtering exhaust. Caution yellow and progress green,
the temple is raised by the power of machines
and the curb serves notice to the passage of feet.
Beauty comes down like the brown and white pigeons
pecking for millet in the courtyard of the temple.
The city falls motionless of the wings of their descent,
for a handful of seed scattered on the stones.
Give us the true messiah. The bible print smears
and the voice of the healer is lost in the crowd.
There is space enough and air to breathe.
There is comfort in the water's falling.
There is sunlight calling from the empty plain.
There is power in the movement of wings.
Patience will lift you above this labor. You will die
and rise. Your heart will hold like a long-pursued prize
a cauldron of roses and an endless vision.
Then answer the prayers of the black-mouthed beggar
crying for the arm he lost at birth, for the keepsake
of flesh and the bondage of bone. All for the common hunger.
The Elastic Dream
In this as in past lifetimes
I have no doubt that I am here
earth to water fire to air
I extend myself like the wings of a bird
I am the spear which pierced our savior's flesh
The blood ran red staining my eyes
I became the red man of the buffalo plains
The smell of an east wind
The Star of India in the excrement of a holy cow
The viper's teeth gemlike in the breast of Egypt
I am the puncture and the first deceit
I have changed my name to wander like a Jew
Enigma of the modern age napalm and the eternal flame
When the waters rose only the fish were free from sin
I am spinning in perpetual motion
I am yellow teeth a bobbing cork in Dead Horse Bay
I am ice cream dripping from a cone of the Fourth of July
The necklace of bone gunpowder traded for tobacco
I am sleek as a beaver's pelt
I have crossed the sea solemn as a figurehead
The bloom of tenements and dripping laundry
Books of law foaming in a glass of beer
The wind has plucked my eyes
I am the world's most famous blind man
I exhibit myself to the desert sand and sun like roasting grain
I thrust my hands in a sled dog's belly above the steaming
entrails my eyelids freeze together
A country church
A graveyard floating on the sea
A match in your shoe eager as the telephone
From a green bush I charged the tethered goat
The rifle in the tree was a misshapen limb
The motions of industry lighter than air
A flaming dirigible the shroud of steel
I am incomplete an infant without arms or legs
My mother's anguish hung like dust in a dry well
A white wall
An orange robe
A golden bird
I have eaten my flesh in the academies of learning
I breed pestilence carried on an insect's wing
The roots of trees dangle from the cave's ceiling
where the trapped miner watches his candle die
The bedroom candle with its caressing shadow
A woman's voice in the swoon of a single word
Pleasure and pain in a handful of light
I am still born
I am melting wax
Atmosphere denser than air
Sunlight pale as milk
The silence of a rock falling
I am a superior race
I yearn for my own extinction
My body drinks bullets like water
Send forth the vengeance of your private dream
I am the father of your true desire
Caught between the hands of the clock
I ride the circle of returning time
My life and death in the sequence of elements
Earth I shape the horizon
Water I preserve all flesh
Fire I have no patience
Air I flavor the breath
I have satisfied my appetite for time
Who is it still wishes to live forever
You will be buried in a green tent
Your bones will surface like a bloated fish
Your flesh will be returned to you soiled from much handling
You will die again when your children die
This is the dream they will remember you by
In this as in past lifetimes
I have no doubt that I am here
earth to water fire to air
I extend myself like the wings of a bird
I am the spear which pierced our savior's flesh
The blood ran red staining my eyes
I became the red man of the buffalo plains
The smell of an east wind
The Star of India in the excrement of a holy cow
The viper's teeth gemlike in the breast of Egypt
I am the puncture and the first deceit
I have changed my name to wander like a Jew
Enigma of the modern age napalm and the eternal flame
When the waters rose only the fish were free from sin
I am spinning in perpetual motion
I am yellow teeth a bobbing cork in Dead Horse Bay
I am ice cream dripping from a cone of the Fourth of July
The necklace of bone gunpowder traded for tobacco
I am sleek as a beaver's pelt
I have crossed the sea solemn as a figurehead
The bloom of tenements and dripping laundry
Books of law foaming in a glass of beer
The wind has plucked my eyes
I am the world's most famous blind man
I exhibit myself to the desert sand and sun like roasting grain
I thrust my hands in a sled dog's belly above the steaming
entrails my eyelids freeze together
A country church
A graveyard floating on the sea
A match in your shoe eager as the telephone
From a green bush I charged the tethered goat
The rifle in the tree was a misshapen limb
The motions of industry lighter than air
A flaming dirigible the shroud of steel
I am incomplete an infant without arms or legs
My mother's anguish hung like dust in a dry well
A white wall
An orange robe
A golden bird
I have eaten my flesh in the academies of learning
I breed pestilence carried on an insect's wing
The roots of trees dangle from the cave's ceiling
where the trapped miner watches his candle die
The bedroom candle with its caressing shadow
A woman's voice in the swoon of a single word
Pleasure and pain in a handful of light
I am still born
I am melting wax
Atmosphere denser than air
Sunlight pale as milk
The silence of a rock falling
I am a superior race
I yearn for my own extinction
My body drinks bullets like water
Send forth the vengeance of your private dream
I am the father of your true desire
Caught between the hands of the clock
I ride the circle of returning time
My life and death in the sequence of elements
Earth I shape the horizon
Water I preserve all flesh
Fire I have no patience
Air I flavor the breath
I have satisfied my appetite for time
Who is it still wishes to live forever
You will be buried in a green tent
Your bones will surface like a bloated fish
Your flesh will be returned to you soiled from much handling
You will die again when your children die
This is the dream they will remember you by
Notes:
The poem celebrates the mythos of Dionysus, the god of earthly and mortal pleasures., finding its spiritual center and wonder in the natural world.
Dionysus
1.
Salt is the essential spice, it does not follow the water's rise,
though the ground is swept by the shadows of clouds.
It keeps the earth, like the peanut in its paper shell
or the rainbow that arches its belly, red to violet.
The craters of the moon are no more distant
than the voices of the mockingbird, both within the reach
of sight and sound, adherents of a common mystery.
I breathe the air from my lover's mouth and praise the phallus,
seeking spasms of the breath. Yet love grows slower
than tree to stone or stone to gem. This too is a shell,
like that of the mockingbird's voices. The earth is spendthrift
though it juggles a bag of coins. In the jungle village
there is bone and coarse fabric, sour milk in a wooden bowl,
women at the river banks, clothing on the rocks.
What will contain the city in its rage of construction?
Jackhammers crack sidewalks and the dust rises,
blown through the streets until the air is cleared by rain.
The continuity of life must exceed this hunger.
So I have shouted from the rooftops, so I have braced the sky
with my shoulders and chose to let it fall. Yet the din still rises
and holds up the sky in the equilibrium of evaporation.
2.
There are forms which hold a moment, the way a cloud reshapes
or the humming of an insect's wings. Others hold a longer while,
crescent of the fingernail or the saplings rise from the soil.
There a lifetime shows the change. When the prodigal returns
the family mind may rise above the gravestone memory
and a lock of hair. There is a force which draws the breath,
as the infant knows, wet and screaming at the moment of birth.
The frog's tongue licks flies. My tongue is on my lover's teeth
in an ice skater's glide. Together, our teeth are pebbles in a brook,
they rise like lilies, like the eyelid floating above the eye.
We hold each other in our nakedness, joined together
as a glass holds wine. We turn the body's shape, holding each other
in the soul's embrace, that has no shape but what the mind supplies.
Like a mingling of scents, the body is temporal, its sorrow is brief.
There is dust in the forest air that sifts the shadow of trees,
beauty in that life is a passing wind. When a tree falls
it goes down laughing. Listen to the sound of splintering wood.
The mind is quick to take this in, this world of things
compose its single energy. Our lives passed on
to the child's life. We are but forms of energy, momentary
and divine, like sunlight reflected off a leaping fish.
3.
Though the body sags while the mind stays young, the eyes stay bright
in the spirit's reflection. Like stars they seem but points of light,
we know them as spheres of exploding gases. Keep your dreams
at distance. The winged horse has no interest in your name.
Your body is of the earth and you must make delivery.
Beneath your feet are the rooftops of a lost civilization,
you are a featherless bird that walks the wet grasses.
Here is the limitless fantasy, when the ocean is swallowed
in a single draft and the sky is crossed on wings of feather and wax.
The religion of belief is itself a magic, like a necklace of bone
or a doll of human hair with a pin stuck through its neck.
The pyramid builders had a thirst for blood, jaguar spirit rises
from the stones. The jungles are oozing this mist, feather and bone
of the medicine man's ritual, dust from the sacred river.
From the stroke of lightning until the breath of thunder
there is a counted silence that accompanies birth. The planets
are cut from the umbilical cord and their orbits reflect
the circumference of the belly. You have this capability
to be aware of time and distance. You may hear it sometime
in the ticking of a clock. Consider the movement of the breath
and become aware of the clock when you do not hear it ticking.
4.
A child sleeps with open eyes and sees his dreams
like a smiling face. His open eyes will stare into the sun
and raise the moon from the crescent of a fingernail.
When the child laughs, the wind is fresh from the throat,
like sap from beneath the curling bark. His eyes are wide
to the novelties of light. He sees a butterfly
upon whose wings the planets leave a phosphorescent powder.
Though trees lose leaves in winter rains, the leaves return
from a single bud. There is wonder also in the grass
that is not cut but lies down before you in its growth and dying.
There are dogs that know me only by my scent, the way
I know the taste of my lover's mouth. So I am filled
with her taste, the odor of her body's secretions. Texture
of hair and texture of semen, tangents of a sensual world.
Like a child reaching for the sugar spoon, there is a love
thrives on sweetness. Strew your eyebrows in the window-box planter,
come into the earth as an eager seed. There is no excess
save in your own ambition, for you alone have this one time
to fly. Although the worms will play your bones,
you will cross the sky in a stroke of lightning. The breath
that was your life will glow like moonlight within the cloud
5.
How does the body come to be alone? When the hand is clenched
and raised against the sky, when the air itself offends.
This is the prisoner's solitude, when the moon is the crescent
of your fingernail and you have lost your name and face.
Cut off your genitals and throw them into the fire.
In this, your fever of dying, death will find no place.
You are already the voiceless compost of the sun's garden.
Observe the ones who love you. Their bodies are of the earth
yet the air they breathe does not reek of dying.
Theirs is the passion that carries you to life, like sunlight
through a window that draws the eyes from sleep.
When my lover rises, she is a cloud of light, mysterious
and distant. Skin on skin, the fingers slide, she brings
the distance in and holds the light with an outstretched arm.
These images form a consciousness that holds itself holy.
When the body speaks, its voice is a whispering serpent
or the voice of a winged horse. The sun is a golden chariot
and the moon a severed head, smiling its ghostly echo.
When the mockingbird sings its song of colors, each color
brings illusions of the body, like paintings on the walls
of caves when the gods are masked as radiant war
6.
All is holy, the season of the lip and the uplifted breast.
Build a dunghill to the sky and curse the tongue
that lets you speak. The body will not survive, maggots
in the carrion's belly and the swarm of flies. So I now stand
erect and my shoulders are broad to carry weight. Like the holy men
of the peaceful eye and the proselyte crowned in garlands of salt,
I command the magic, mine is the mystery not to be fathomed.
The city seen from the mountain's height shines night lights
on the netting of streets. In the wilderness' dark there are
no paths of light. Men approach you there and the sounds
that fall from their lips rustle the grass about your ankles.
Show them your eyes and empty hands. They will teach you their fears
and their myths. You will learn the limits of language, and in time,
the interpretation of dreams, an open window for the soul's escape.
So for the cloud shadow sweeping the meadow and the bird that passes
between your eyes and the sun. Bless the seed that grows to fruit,
it has been placed in your mouth for this purpose, to pass through you
like sunlight through the chill of space, leaving warmth to the body
that can contain warmth. This has one texture and one name.
The texture of air that rises in a flame, the name
of God that is not spoken beyond the silent breath.
The poem celebrates the mythos of Dionysus, the god of earthly and mortal pleasures., finding its spiritual center and wonder in the natural world.
Dionysus
1.
Salt is the essential spice, it does not follow the water's rise,
though the ground is swept by the shadows of clouds.
It keeps the earth, like the peanut in its paper shell
or the rainbow that arches its belly, red to violet.
The craters of the moon are no more distant
than the voices of the mockingbird, both within the reach
of sight and sound, adherents of a common mystery.
I breathe the air from my lover's mouth and praise the phallus,
seeking spasms of the breath. Yet love grows slower
than tree to stone or stone to gem. This too is a shell,
like that of the mockingbird's voices. The earth is spendthrift
though it juggles a bag of coins. In the jungle village
there is bone and coarse fabric, sour milk in a wooden bowl,
women at the river banks, clothing on the rocks.
What will contain the city in its rage of construction?
Jackhammers crack sidewalks and the dust rises,
blown through the streets until the air is cleared by rain.
The continuity of life must exceed this hunger.
So I have shouted from the rooftops, so I have braced the sky
with my shoulders and chose to let it fall. Yet the din still rises
and holds up the sky in the equilibrium of evaporation.
2.
There are forms which hold a moment, the way a cloud reshapes
or the humming of an insect's wings. Others hold a longer while,
crescent of the fingernail or the saplings rise from the soil.
There a lifetime shows the change. When the prodigal returns
the family mind may rise above the gravestone memory
and a lock of hair. There is a force which draws the breath,
as the infant knows, wet and screaming at the moment of birth.
The frog's tongue licks flies. My tongue is on my lover's teeth
in an ice skater's glide. Together, our teeth are pebbles in a brook,
they rise like lilies, like the eyelid floating above the eye.
We hold each other in our nakedness, joined together
as a glass holds wine. We turn the body's shape, holding each other
in the soul's embrace, that has no shape but what the mind supplies.
Like a mingling of scents, the body is temporal, its sorrow is brief.
There is dust in the forest air that sifts the shadow of trees,
beauty in that life is a passing wind. When a tree falls
it goes down laughing. Listen to the sound of splintering wood.
The mind is quick to take this in, this world of things
compose its single energy. Our lives passed on
to the child's life. We are but forms of energy, momentary
and divine, like sunlight reflected off a leaping fish.
3.
Though the body sags while the mind stays young, the eyes stay bright
in the spirit's reflection. Like stars they seem but points of light,
we know them as spheres of exploding gases. Keep your dreams
at distance. The winged horse has no interest in your name.
Your body is of the earth and you must make delivery.
Beneath your feet are the rooftops of a lost civilization,
you are a featherless bird that walks the wet grasses.
Here is the limitless fantasy, when the ocean is swallowed
in a single draft and the sky is crossed on wings of feather and wax.
The religion of belief is itself a magic, like a necklace of bone
or a doll of human hair with a pin stuck through its neck.
The pyramid builders had a thirst for blood, jaguar spirit rises
from the stones. The jungles are oozing this mist, feather and bone
of the medicine man's ritual, dust from the sacred river.
From the stroke of lightning until the breath of thunder
there is a counted silence that accompanies birth. The planets
are cut from the umbilical cord and their orbits reflect
the circumference of the belly. You have this capability
to be aware of time and distance. You may hear it sometime
in the ticking of a clock. Consider the movement of the breath
and become aware of the clock when you do not hear it ticking.
4.
A child sleeps with open eyes and sees his dreams
like a smiling face. His open eyes will stare into the sun
and raise the moon from the crescent of a fingernail.
When the child laughs, the wind is fresh from the throat,
like sap from beneath the curling bark. His eyes are wide
to the novelties of light. He sees a butterfly
upon whose wings the planets leave a phosphorescent powder.
Though trees lose leaves in winter rains, the leaves return
from a single bud. There is wonder also in the grass
that is not cut but lies down before you in its growth and dying.
There are dogs that know me only by my scent, the way
I know the taste of my lover's mouth. So I am filled
with her taste, the odor of her body's secretions. Texture
of hair and texture of semen, tangents of a sensual world.
Like a child reaching for the sugar spoon, there is a love
thrives on sweetness. Strew your eyebrows in the window-box planter,
come into the earth as an eager seed. There is no excess
save in your own ambition, for you alone have this one time
to fly. Although the worms will play your bones,
you will cross the sky in a stroke of lightning. The breath
that was your life will glow like moonlight within the cloud
5.
How does the body come to be alone? When the hand is clenched
and raised against the sky, when the air itself offends.
This is the prisoner's solitude, when the moon is the crescent
of your fingernail and you have lost your name and face.
Cut off your genitals and throw them into the fire.
In this, your fever of dying, death will find no place.
You are already the voiceless compost of the sun's garden.
Observe the ones who love you. Their bodies are of the earth
yet the air they breathe does not reek of dying.
Theirs is the passion that carries you to life, like sunlight
through a window that draws the eyes from sleep.
When my lover rises, she is a cloud of light, mysterious
and distant. Skin on skin, the fingers slide, she brings
the distance in and holds the light with an outstretched arm.
These images form a consciousness that holds itself holy.
When the body speaks, its voice is a whispering serpent
or the voice of a winged horse. The sun is a golden chariot
and the moon a severed head, smiling its ghostly echo.
When the mockingbird sings its song of colors, each color
brings illusions of the body, like paintings on the walls
of caves when the gods are masked as radiant war
6.
All is holy, the season of the lip and the uplifted breast.
Build a dunghill to the sky and curse the tongue
that lets you speak. The body will not survive, maggots
in the carrion's belly and the swarm of flies. So I now stand
erect and my shoulders are broad to carry weight. Like the holy men
of the peaceful eye and the proselyte crowned in garlands of salt,
I command the magic, mine is the mystery not to be fathomed.
The city seen from the mountain's height shines night lights
on the netting of streets. In the wilderness' dark there are
no paths of light. Men approach you there and the sounds
that fall from their lips rustle the grass about your ankles.
Show them your eyes and empty hands. They will teach you their fears
and their myths. You will learn the limits of language, and in time,
the interpretation of dreams, an open window for the soul's escape.
So for the cloud shadow sweeping the meadow and the bird that passes
between your eyes and the sun. Bless the seed that grows to fruit,
it has been placed in your mouth for this purpose, to pass through you
like sunlight through the chill of space, leaving warmth to the body
that can contain warmth. This has one texture and one name.
The texture of air that rises in a flame, the name
of God that is not spoken beyond the silent breath.