i.

TOMORROW I WILL BE IN ROME

I am in Rome
the Jupiter of cities

I only mate with gods

huge limbs with straining finger tips
touch the backbone of the universe

I am a virgin block of stone
that rolls from your feet
like mountain mist

we are safer than we think

ii.

BEHIND THE SILHOUTTES OF DAWN

half of me is beautiful

you know I can’t see red
when grey is a primary color

even the sunlight lost its way
gazing at beauty through a blanket

look for me among those who sit in darkness

iii.

THE SIBYL SAYS YOU’LL DIE IN ROME

like the implacable soul of a chieftain
slaughtered in battle

something will make you lose your health
you’ll break a dozen ribs or more

in a garden tending flowers
which for a time will be your home

iv.

TO THOSE WHO ARE BORN STONE BLIND

I’m a rock and every wound a cave

 

I saw the red-hot city
a fossil scorpion with a sting of stone

people stood like blocks
chipping away their pocketknives:

first names (cut) on a rock
breaking your idiot heart

v.

ON PINE TABLES WITH KEROSENE

men die like nouns

the parenthesis is a type of fireplace
(my father is not depressed)

what if language is not communication
a conversation with dirt

I’ve been dead for hours

vi.

YOU SENT ME TO THE DOOMED CITY

where a furtive hand breaks a crust of bread

in the church I built
a glacier breaks away

silence everywhere:
the word that hurls an ocean

Himalaya of the heart
I am hanging from a mountain side

by the needle-point of truth

vii.

A MOUNTAIN WITH NO (GEOGRAPHIC) WILL TO BE THERE

is dangerous
avalanche from every peak

this (mountain) town means something
fathers brothers uncles

it leans away from the world with
songs in its lakes

you climbed this mountain by mistake

viii.

SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO

today he’s coming home from his French wars

I have noting to say about the war
don’t ask me if these knives are real

where were you wounded:
we died in Lautrec on a Sunday

shouldn’t someone have run for help by now

xi.

IN YOUR GREEN MOUNTAIN HEAD

I am a mountain drinking with those
who drink too much

but it’s only whiskey that makes
you pity me

now
I am swinging on your propaganda tree

x.

I AM KING ARTHUR’S SON

stifled by family trees
buried on the tops of buried trees

my father was a spruce

you people of the future:
help is coming

this green limb will be our rescue

xi.

I HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT MELTING GLACIERS

floating face up on the sea of this poem

in the house of sleep a bear swimming away
with an axe stuck in it

you can restore melted snow

xii.

PROW OF DAWN

looking for the human shores

my anchor snagged a forest
you’re like a drifting log with iron nails in it

careful
my knife drills your soul

I lay in the holy cross
nailed to the great lakes

xiii.

FRAGMENTS OF VERSE, SANDALS, UTENSILS

broken like a line in poetry breaks

the windows of my poetry are wide open
on the boulevards

the object of this poem is to fail

opening a door is narrative
looking through a window is not

xiv.

 

WILLIAM OF ORANGE BARGED INTO THE ROOM

it’s the wrong time
that makes it the wrong room

houses die and will not die

I speak like a door
to purify the walls

xv.

OUR CITY HAS SUNK TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

that day your head
like a ship with full freight

pushing a green roll-away bed over

pack your bags
or just send for your things

it’s too late for the ark

xvi.

YOU ARE THE MUSCLES OF TIGERS

you’re still not important
even though you’ve climbed a tree

you creep into human society
and fill it with troubles

lean your tan-colored ear and listen:
kindness with tigers never takes effect

 

beware of the faith of a tiger

xvii.

I HAD FALLEN ALSEEP ON THE RAIL

listening to the earth’s code
all parts of speech pushed over on their backs

when a clause breaks down
a sentence breaks in two

you spike the verb
sabotage the sentence

I started by railroad for earth

xviii.

I FELL FOR THE CANDLE

that opened the shadows
onto a tired god

sick with love

upon a river, field
or in my room

vix.

YOU BORE AN ARCHANGEL ACROSS RENAISSANCE’ MEMORY

on your shoulders
in perfume of pain

candles fed the holy forests

I am weak and must be
tortured

for earth and wind can match a god

xx.

COLOSSAL BREATH SAUNTERED CRITICALLY BY

like some Chaldean god
smiling in his beard

I unearthed what seemed like
the jawbone of a god

high in the air
where seemed to be his head

a crown of dust

xxi.

I CRAVE SOME SOUVENIR OF FALLEN ROME

like angels with one wing
to reach their heaven

wherever you stand in ancient Rome
there is a shadow

sunshine sending its remains

we pray to this abandoned universe
garments of the mighty

flung away
(I dreamed an angel came late to us)

xxii.

I STOOD WITHIN THE FORUM

with the power of Cicero
upon me

the orator follows the universe
upon his throne of seven hills

I sought the hill of radium

xxiii.

PROMETHEUS BROUGHT DOWN FIRE

to burn away evil

I am a tree cut into fire
wood

 

good deeds must be seasoned

xxiv.

NOBODY IS HOME IN THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE

that built them to crumble

walls, from its looted stones
defend

the refuge of its heirlooms

I use a chessboard for a pillow
to the unlearned it is barbarian

xxv.

MY FODDER IS THE METAL

of a machine sprouting work

think of the burning fire
at the bottom of the earth

engine of blasphemy
full of dead epics

and machines that rust

xxvi.

DECISIVE LIGHT

must pass through matter

that is what the world means
with its physical beauty

what our bodies mean
projected solid

hearts starve as well as bodies
every atom is fighting for itself

xxvii.

OUT OF THE SEA’S DARK SYNTAX

a bridge of boats

like stepping stones
across a grass of water

you took a boat and wrecked it
to cross a ferry that is no longer there