LIFT these three

Until a Creche

My body has grown expensive with light.

Some feelers are searching the garden.

This Japanese lantern.

I have become a Japanese lantern,

that soft light

on the cold, empty patio.

I could cry. Why could I cry?

A glowing at the place where the dark begins.

The rain extinguishes the light. Or could.

My body has grown expensive with light.

When light tumbles out and walks

in the garden, in the cool of the evening.

It is too easy to be intellectual

about a thing like this.

Bang Shut

When I hear the screen door,

So comes the emptying of the house.

My house is empty. Banging shut,

an inadvertence. But perhaps,

I was so young, so young.

I thought no door could bang shut

and not be a name.

The name of emptiness, of emptying.

My house is empty.

Now I will spend the afternoon alone.

There’s not a person in the world

who would believe me. Believe me.

The wire is woven and pushed out

in the corners. That sound of wings.

So angels sing behind the glass,

caught between the screen and the glass

Now I will listen to the angels singing.

There’s not a person in the world

who would believe me. Believe me.

That is what I have to thank the afternoon for:

The banging shut. The angels beating

her terrific wings. This is the thanks

they get. I was so young, so young.

And can I have the heart to leave him

singing for twenty years, for thirty years

in that empty house? This is the thanks

I get.

Wrung Dry My

So when the daily vision of even the ones I love

cuts me like knives.

It cuts me like knives. I am not ordinary.

Today, this week. I am not ordinary.

But that must be a normal feeling.

It makes everything I have done

regrettable. I cannot list them all.

Perhaps I can say

whatever is not here. I am sorry for it.

Whatever is not standing on my tongue.

I have injured everything I have touched,

and many or all of everything else.

When I walked through your tide pool of a heart

and bent over a carefully lifted the things

that looked like life, I was careful,

and I was careful about where I put my feet.

But some things were evidently killed,

some life. No matter how invisible.

I still can’t count them.

Nothing is less alive for being small.

I am wrung.

They don’t mean it. They step carefully.

They lift me with their thumb

and forefinger, like so. The sound of ocean.

It seems to be always bringing something.

But that must be a normal feeling.

 It is time to address where these poems come from. They are an expression of victimization when I was young. Written in a single afternoon reaching back to childhood recalling sounds and the way we pay no attention to the fullness of being that belongs to children. I figured out, thirty years afterward, that I had been set upon by a trusted person and used for their gratification. A common crime. Is it wrong to add this kind of explanation. I could be wrong about this; maybe the poems came from somewhere else. The poem "transitive" is the fourth poem in this series. It is a poem of depression and revenge.

TRANSITIVE

transitive

For PB Shelley and W Styron.

“… pierced by the shaft which flies in darkness …” Adonais

1.

The taking and things take other things.

I am softening here in the sun. I am softer.

I am soft. Soft.

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

The gooseflesh ornaments my open soul.

ornament and open. Open soul.

Soul.

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

I left my children without sufficient

food. They feed. They are not sufficiently

feeding.  Lamps.

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

The seduction of property, having and having.

Can this be enough for any given moment?

Any given. Given. Enough?

Let me tell you the story

What hangs like a 40-watt bulb and swings

on a wire that lights it and hurts

hurts like hearts?    Hurt.

Let me tell … Let me … Bill

Someone somewhere is falling somewhere. Someone

somewhere, not here, not me, not me. The thin

thin thin thin.

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

The occasional music of hand and hand. And

hand and hand and hand and hand. The occasional

music of.

Let me tell you … Let me tell.

The sealed envelope of her lips, the letter of her

tongue, the postage eye, the gum of even her least

look: My finger is a knife in that crease.

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

I’ve seen enough of the Ace of Diamonds. I have seen

it enough, enough and enough of the Ace of

Diamonds.

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

The cranzle the slottle the sizeable orf, the tuning

of sissel and shrieking of    of    Why does the

phone ring just when I’ve started?

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

That’s hero falling into my sleep. hero falling

I thought to have avoided this … He  ro    fa   ll   ing

hero into my sleep.

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

The catastrophe which seems to be love. When    and

when again they are always touching me.  Noli

Me tangere … Catastrophe.

Let me tell you the story story.

How often have I been just almost been? Let me

Let me thingg … I have just almost been … the

most recent time was.

Let me    Bill     Let me tell you the story.

But not necessarily in that order, not necessarily,

not when the hand reaches to move me just one

square to the right and two forward.

Let me tell you the story of Bill.

Bill

2.

I am not even alone when I dream.

Who is that who looks into it?

Who is looking into it?

I have moved far from my self and from water.

I thought that when I walked down the street,

I was close to the air, but no.

I am in this chamber. It seems to be

windowed on one side. Everything in the world

has to be in front of me to be in the world.

The blurring of the edges of the sketches of myself.

I cannot keep from originating this gesture I make with

my hand. This one. And there it is again.

And so I see why I am often caught

in a funnel of birds

because those birds are my very own hands.

I have been feeding them and I have been

the woman I see who strolls through

the afternoon park and feeds my hands, which

are her birds.

I cannot think that it means much to her.

Only something to spend a time. But in spite of

the time, they are my hands.

Can the world get darker? It can get darker. When I

close my eyes the world gets darker. I have decided

to close my eyes. World get darker.

Does anyone care that I am only human that I feel

the pressure of the dimmest light? Does anyone care?

Does anyone care, my hands are birds?

When I fly up in the highest sky, when I fly up …

but not today. Not today. I am falling    falling.

I have fallen into my very own pockets.

But this is the slaying and it is the slaying time

and I can see that it is the slaying time and …

where has the time gone?

Pick up your things

“Man is indeed that creature who, if he sees an object on the floor and wants to see it on the table, is obliged to lift it.” 

Simone Weil, from “On Science, Necessity and the Love of God,” (1941).

Love is not a destination

but a direction

and an exhausting climb.

To be human is to lift whatever has fallen:

To pick up your things,

like your mother said, your father said,

Pick up your things!

They were only saying:

Be everything.

Move everything.

Be everything humanly possible.

Love is a direction and the energy

to move everything in that loving direction

and not to be astonished, frozen

because you are not there yet.

Do not be paralyzed by fear.

Don’t be anesthetized

by the ordinary poisons of the world.

The world is full of those darts

that they use

to put tigers to sleep.

If you are stuck,

your feet buried

up to the ankles,

to your knees,

Then lift them

Love is a direction. So love yourself

and others and the world.

Forgive what you can.

And lift your feet.

And when you see something

or someone who has fallen—

lift them.

These are your things.

Pick up your things!