Phaëthon

Easter smoking is the best. If there's a
bit of nicer weather all the better.
Yesterday you promised dad to quit, but

somebody decided that he needed

proof he was alive. A reason not to

die regretting everything preceding

is so that another day is seen by

you. The lives of people matter greatly,

not our own. And friday afternoon was

worse than you'd anticipated, sitting

in the hospital and wondering if

sadness would erupt into your heart or

not. The heat was penetrating, and the

night was longer than you thought it could be.

Twice. And off he went without a fight or

final gasp of light as morning broke at

dawn on sunday. Disappear, because the
day indeed is straying farther from the
mean. The reins are slack on sunshine's horses:
You are conflagrating but remain the same.

Alcaeus fragment 34a (Castor and Pollux)

Come to me, from Pelops' isle departing,

brave and steadfast children of Zeus and Leda;

show yourselves with generous, kindly spirits,

     Castor and Pollux,

who across the broad and expansive earth and

all the sea on swift-footed horses fly and

rescue humans easily from the frigid

    coldness of dying,

vaulting up the heights of the well-benched ship's masts

glowing far, ascending the forestays in the

dismal nighttime, bearing the blazing fire for

    shadowy vessels.

Mimnermus Fragment Two

We, like the leaves which the blossoming season of Spring reproduces

       when they suddenly grow up in the rays of the sun,

similar to those blooms, in the minuscule time of our youth we

       revel, discerning by gods neither what's harmful for us

nor what is good. Black Fates by our sides stand waiting around and

       one of them's holding out old age, the inevitable

thing, and the other one death. And the fruit of our earliest years is

       as short-lived as the sun's spreading out over the Earth.

Truly indeed, when the end of this age has elapsed and been passed by,

       straightaway dying is much better than staying alive.

Plenty of horrible things will arise in the spirit and soon the

       home will be ruined and sad poverty's toils await.

One man terribly misses his children, and longing for them goes

       cheerlessly under the Earth down into Hades's realm.

One man's sick with a spirit-consuming disease, and there's not one

       man to whom Zeus didn't give myriad terrible things.

Rose-ringed Parakeets

All the birds I see are cajoling me to

hear the music playing behind us near that

willow tree where parakeets somehow seem to

   be reappearing.

Two by two they hide in the branches making

such a fuss about absolutely nothing:

combing lime-green feathers, and screaming

   at one another.

Herons, ducks, and seagulls are taking baths in

chilly springtime waterways underneath those

two romantic parakeets playing with each

   other's appearance. 

a few pics and words about the birds

Which

I prefer one over the other sometimes;

other times it's not that I want the other

girl or have a difficult time when I am

    choosing between them,

but it's not that simple for long, and often

time reveals what passion disguised as something

other than fun moments together, something

   really delightful.

Falling Out

I spent a whole day thinking of all the ways
you piss me off. I thought what a perfect waste
of time it was to know you and why would I
let more of me get copied if you deny
that we were friends at all? Disagreements tend
to make us lose our heads, and reveal the ends
we had in mind, but hid in our darkest hearts.
The ends direct your means, and however dark
your aims then so your methods will need to be:
this is the one big kink in duplicity.

Hypnos

Sweet dreams, delightful one. You are free to go

wherever. Fancy takes you away. Tonight

  you don't belong to conscious meadows.

    No one will know what it is that you've seen.

Alas not even you understand the sign.

And many say dreams tell us the future, and

  some claim to tell you what they're saying:

    oracle givers will know what they mean.

You are older than you used to be

Stop thinking all those thoughts about life and death;

You'll never find out why you were sent to die

  here all alone. It's pointless; just calm

    down and be blissfully dumb and carefree.

That's better. Breathe in slowly, as if it were

your very last breath. How would you feel about

  that? How would you exhale if you were

    blowing the flame of reality out?

Horatii Carmen 1.4

Winter is melting, its bitterness yielding to pleasing, breezy Springtime;

      slow winches drag dry vessels onto water.

And in the stables no longer rejoices a herd, nor ploughman by fire.

      Fields aren’t gleaming white with morning hoarfrost.

Now Cytherea is leading the choruses: Venus under bright moons

      and Nymphs, accompanied by seemly Graces,

thump Earth hard with rhythmical feet, as determined Vulcan goes back

      to work in bright hot forges of the Cyclops.

Now it is fitting to garland your shimmering head with verdant myrtle

      or flowers, which Earth, as it thaws, produces.

Now in the shadowy groves it is fitting to sacrifice to Faunus

      an ewe, if called for, or a kid, if favored.

Colorless Death kicks over the tables of beggars and the towers

      of kings alike. O blessed Sestius, how

 Life's brief span disallows us embarking on limitless endeavors!

      Now night's upon you pressing, now the fabled

Manes, and Pluto's diaphanous House, where as soon as you have entered,

      you neither will cast lots to see who drinks first

nor be able to marvel at slender Lycidas, who incites now

      all youths, and whom soon virgins will be hot for.

Chances of Sun

West winds dispersed dull clouds in an eager gust.
Fresh breaths of Spring gave off the appearance of
   change. People took off clothes and lay down

    basking in sunshine and lover's long arms.

Slow hours dissolved right under your limpid eyes,
like everything you ever desired or loved.
  Cold shadows sweep down over sleepers:
    take your belongings and fly from nightfall.

As different as day and the night, or spring
and winter seem, and as irretrievable
  as pleasure feels, today is fickle,
    night is a myth, and the seasons less than

one afternoon long. Laughing at silly things,
like ducks or babies, time has abandoned you
   and never shall come back again, but
    still you enjoy the delicious current.

Backgammon

Two blonde kids on a rooftop

  in Brooklyn

play all day afternoon, just

  competing

for first-prize. If a roll of

  the dice means

That I win, or I lose, then

  the hell with

it. I played an unfair game,

  and so did

you. Together we strove for

  the glory

of sweet victory over

  each other.

You were crowned in the end with

  the laurel

leaves. You dedicate your win

  to Fortune.

You played well but are modest

  and cunning.

By chance, Fortune is watching;

  she’s pleased with

the outcome of the contest:

  whatever

it was going to be, did

  just happen.

I took part, and I lost, but

  I played well.

KickBall

Boot the KickBall Way up in the Blue Sky;

Catch it As It Crashes down inTo Your

Arms like Gold-Flecked Sunshine from the Lord God.

You are Out Of Luck and it’s a Long Walk

Home. your Shorts Are Hidden by your Tee-Shirt;

Looks like You Don’t Have any on. And Your

Legs are So Damn Beautiful i Can’t Stop

Staring At Where They have disapPeared To.

Pull your TeeShirt Up and reasSure Me.

I do Not Know What to with mySelf Do;

I’m aFraid I’m Crazy for unDressed You.

Sappho Fragment 48

Elle est arrivée la lune et

puis les Pleïades; le minuit

après, jusqu'à l'heure s'est filée,

mais moi, je m'endors toute seule.

Firelight

Staring at the fire, I am
warming. Wonder if the sticks will
soon forgive the fire, if the
fire thanks the wood that quickly
melts to embers, maybe trying
to remember windy days of
growing at the sun.       
                                The sun has
become and landed on the trees.
Like earth, the trees are sunlight that
has cooled and coalesced, alive
because of daylight, but prepared
and going to combust or rot,
and either scatter or decay.

Hold Your Breath

for Lily

 

 

 

A new day’s upon us,

and I was up all night

daydreaming about you

while sunshine lit the sky.

We lay out on a beach

amidst a turqoise sea;

we listened to waters

softly tickling our feet.

We got up for a swim

and kissed under the waves,

and coming up for air

we bumped our heads and gave

each other bruises and

headaches, and Iiii went to

the emergency room

with a bad case of the

bends, and you waited till

I could mend my broken

strength and stand up again

till you dumped me and went

on with your life without

one more thought of me or

the day i almost died,

diving to impress you.

Recycling

I eat and still am empty, hungry for
a burst of life: the momentary or
eternal act of giving up your gift
and praying hard until the fire lifts
the smoke into the heavens high above.

The bull is fast consumed; its flesh is burned.
The beast is roaring, tethered, overturned;
the sacred victim in the pyre feeds
the mass of flesh that is humanity.
From Earth to grass to flesh to flesh to love,

and back to dust, the fields we once did run
each other through in, nourish us with some
of us, as we reiterate and skip
a couple beats, within a cosmic blip
of time and space and loneliness and come.

The Magic Eye of Writing

The truth becomes . . .

    . . . when you start off a
     poem with ‘The truth becomes . . .

    . . . when you start off a poem
      with ‘The truth becomes . . .

    . . . when you start off a poem
      with ‘The truth becomes’ . . .

    . . . when you start off a poem
      with ‘The truth becomes . . .

    . . . when you start off a poem
      with ‘The truth becomes’ . . .

     . . . when you start off a poem
      with ‘The truth becomes . . .

     . . .

At War

At war, enormous symbols are

not bigger than a fist or hand

grenade. A shield is useless if

you do not wield a spear, and stand

alone against a sea of brave

and hateful enemies. At war

we are reducing things to an

absurd and truthful metaphor.

The whole idea is that I

am right because I have a sword.

The Winged Thing

 for Kellie

The winged thing aloft in flight appeared

immensely unexpectedly as if

it’d been a seed just recently within

the darkness of the Earth, and had emerged

anew and vigorous, as tall as cliffs

which plunge into the sea. Her arms outstretched

above the fertile valleys down below,

the bird traversed the arc of sky between

the brightness of the day and black of night,

the space which nothing we can see pervades,

and climbed the crumpled foothills up into

the altitudes whence she might catch a view

of what might lay beyond the mountain’s height.

If both the one and other side’s the same,

it still could be that what you see in truth’s

a beautifully-folded paper crane.

My Eyes

My eyes are made of windows.

The glass is making rainbows
in spectral boxes locked in
the boxes I put stock in.

I started looking closely;
the windows are almost me:
a choice between the same thing
and nothing but renaming.

It's either or it's nothing
at all, and God is bluffing,
because I see the truth by
reflections in my two eyes.