Dr. Quigley began to take his coffee

black, right about the time a clover

appeared on his chest.

At first he thought it was a type of stigmata.

He belonged to a tribe that did not yet exist,

and this gave him enormous satisfaction.

At night he dreamt deeply, his extended family

vacationing on cruise ships along the west coast

of California, probably Venice Beach,

and in the dream this made him happy.

The streets of the city were flooded,

and there were storms moving in the distance.

He could hear the echoes of paddles

along the shore, and the cries of seagulls.

Alone, he gazed at water flowing

beneath the stars, darkness

huddled silently in distant redwoods.

He was saddened by the last sighs of autumn

and the departures of loved ones.

He noted a direct correlation exists

between mental stability

and appreciation for the beauty of women.

For this reason, he kept a harmonica

in his pocket at all times,

and he smiled faintly while driving.

It was time to begin the work

for which he would someday be made famous,

and he wanted to have something on hand

in case they came for him,

the mist slowing his thoughts down

to the trickle of a prayer:

The next time I see the kind of light

that resembles the arc of the soul,

I will be ready–

for I am nothing without you.

Make me the water that flows

from the hands and lips

of distant hills.

Make me the shadow that moves

close to the river and weeps.

Make me hear your words

in the whisper of waves.

Make me silence,

even if it steals something deep,

something true and beautiful

from the well of my being.

Let me stay here,

let me hear one note

from the one whom I love.

*

In the morning it was the same:

a shot of whiskey–

no answers from the grave.

Vera. She taught me to see

while still in the womb,

how to read with unformed

eyes–I close them, and she is there,

a dialectic of alphabetic blood

and still in flow. She weaves letters

into puddles of light.

If she moves near you, in a dream,

her skin appears the color of Easter eggs.

She is fragile. Her lips are blue,

and there are tiny wrinkles on her ears.

She jots down notes about the future.

*

James. He appeared when I was shopping

at the west-side grocery in Athens, Ohio.

He said, “Hello Scott,” and kept going

down the aisle. I tried to follow him

but he had already passed the end-cap,

so I ran to the front without my cart

to cut him off, but he was out,

still there but gone, a little sprite

playing hopscotch with my soul.

He showed up a few years ago in photos

from Shenandoah National Park.

I knew it was him.

He was standing on a rock in a black suit,

and he had the look, the gaze that is long

and the eyes that change and look away,

like a season inside an iris with a storm pattern

that never settles. He likes to peel potatoes

wearing nothing but old socks.

The skin of his buttocks is wrinkled,

pressed white from sitting too long

on the old stool he brought from the barn.

He needs a haircut, his teeth are yellow,

and he quit going to church long ago,

which is why I know him.

*

Then there was Shol,

the one I met in San Salvador,

who came to teach me the truth

about Hell.

He came in the form of beauty,

a flower, la floripundia,

and at night its erotic scent

would drift into my window

and sit on my chest

until I was asleep.

Soon I was suspended over a hot

pit of black pitch and dipped

until each of my cells screamed in pain.

I could not hear them,

I felt them reach for salvation

and fail, fail as the last gurgle

of my lungs began to echo

off the walls to startle me from sleep.

Then its voice said

No, this is not a conversation.

Finish your poem.

James

How we held hands and cried below a window

filled with light, branches bending the wind.

You wore your blue soul, just the way I like it,

the one with the open back, folds above the hips,

a litle string to pull and find God.

You spent the morning in the Egyptian room,

touching the black sarcophagus , flirting

with the docents, as you remained unnoticed

and passed gas among those

so long dead. So long dead.

Why did you write it this way?

There are better words.

No. These words. This soul. This exhibit. This dress.

And light. A poem without light

is like skinny dipping in the toilet:

indecent, obscene, just the way you like it.

The only way they want it.

oscillating bars of steel and concrete.

Each back is purple from beatings,

untouchable flesh.

They begin the whistles and clicks

of the insane–without tongues,

there remains a bird-like alveolar pop

in their mouths, the sound

like a playing card  tapping the spokes

of a bike wheel. They press fingers

to each throat, feeling for a buzz,

much as honeybees circle augurs

in the warehouses of the damned.

Most are sent for assimilation:

they learn to write long poems

on what they think about while mating.

The keepers know when they are in heat:

they purr in soft z, the skin shimmers

hieroglyphically, their tails point

toward the smoke trails of Icarus.

One of them, a young one,

continues to have memories

of the time before the great passage:

a ballerina on a thin cobweb spun by god.

She remembers the gardens

behind the eyes of each soul:

she is sent away for genital mutilation.

Soon, she will reappear at Wal-Mart

to dust fake plants with a small broom

made in China.

Here is what matters: they will wait forever for your response. They are the pattern on the forest floor when the first leaves decide to fall into dark green. They are the energy left inside a memory that lifts its curtain when you sigh in the late afternoon. They are what happens just before a seed opens in the soil.

They are in your hands now. They move across your skin and rest in the hollows of your body.

They like you.

They are the only ones you need.

They are waiting.

I might be taken down by a sniffle,

or a strong hand could do the job, a kiss

from the wind of creation. It’s my soul.

A stranger before birth. It is morning

on the starry banks of eternity–

we undress in the first room we made love.

You undress. I am dead. I am not born

for a long time. You are empty, vanquished,

heading home. There are excuses. I know.

We are made for them, but today let us

hold hands and pray. Forgiveness — the only

miracle we need, is on down the bend,

on the other side. Come on, let’s rub hands–

spark again, later we will learn to sin.

Your movements are watched:

They have already found you.

This is the only certainty,

and will remain the reason for poetry.

Prophets Alone in Hell, Book IV, 21-3.

All the back rubbing is over, and the poet’s hands

turn ethereal – their eyes begin to water the land

and run off  into white space. They travel down

the Colorado, staring at its banks

for hours, hoping for stanza breaks that never unveil.

Their despair nearly complete: their condition –

terminal. The movement of water is sufficient for now,

its reflections the last place on earth

they can touch and find themselves

completely blameless. Lights appear as they float

near Las Vegas. At night and they huddle down

for warmth and secrecy. They intertwine like pieces

of polished driftwood, their flesh blemished and lined

with the tattoos of passages they must touch

to remember. The leader, the weakest one,

encourages silence, meditation, and the slow cadence

of the heartbeat to soothe. The latest attempt at religion –

a failure. Absent a god, they have no reason to praise.

When they stare into the water, they see nothing

but clouds that spell and ripple themselves to sleep.

Depression and loneliness begin to gnaw the strong

into silence — the lame accept death with smiles

and slow nods of agreement. The dead are pushed

off the rafts without words, the echoes

of each splash ripple up the canyon walls

and outward to space. In the vague recesses

of what is left for cognition, they want to be taken.

They lie down to fossilize and fixate on the sky,

hoping for a  last glimpse of the shadows that circle

and descend to them, the only gods that deliver

anything close to salvation – a temporary presence

of physical comfort, a moment of cool air –

an absence that cannot be named.

scribbled within her  body.

He wanted to dig down,

examine their origin,

curious to know why her race

marked her for this fate

on this world of ink and blood.

He had thought other worlds

escaped the bondage of form.

He had long ago grown weary

of people and eschatology.

As he began another incision,

careful to follow with a cloth

to absorb fluids,

he remembered the last time

he witnessed her body

sprawled on his bed. The sunlight

perfect, the afternoon

no different from centuries ago:

drifting sands, chaff and wheat,

caravans for spice and coffee,

a strip of moonlight to know

the right time to enter.

He rubbed her now,

with oils and perfumed herbs,

no longer able to distinguish

a difference between pleasure

and the poetry that shaped

her beauty:  the lines

recited until she stopped

for breath and meaning,

exactly the way he remembered

and nothing left but silence.

for Mrs. Burns

But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Matthew 18: 6

If I could start over and get it right this time

I would begin by killing my kindergarten teacher,

Mrs. Burns. She was a bitch. Her gaze was hot,

and so was her hand, the one she used to spank

on the first day of school. I could not tie my shoes.

Now, just one shoelace would do. I would tie it

around her neck with a slip knot and pull it tight

till her face turned purple and her eyes popped

out of this poem, stuffed down her throat,

the apple I never gave her.

the sunny day they met

at the four-way stop

and everything changed.

The motorcycle catapulted

and flipped

above its driver, finally landing

on top of him. I could see his legs,

the way they moved

and soon,

the way they stopped.

The red convertible

slammed into a tree

and turned over on its side,

where two young

women lay on the ground.

One of them was talking,

telling the other, over and over,

how sorry she felt.

She held her hands up to her face.

Someone ran out of a house

with blankets

and covered them.

She was screaming now.

I wanted to go home,

and later I did,

driving right through it.

but after months of debate

he went forward with the notion

that  it was time to record

his most unusual observations:

Made contact with a race of aliens.

Subject was female, complained

of pain in the lower abdomen.

Diagnosed cervical cancer.

It all comes down to the cervix.

He was nearly certain of it.

He remembered his travels

after completing his last degree.

He waited for hours on the side

of Mt. Ararat for the solar eclipse,

short ring of fire, long circle of life.

In the valley below him,

he noticed a pair of goats mating

in the forced dusk of a twilight

no one else would ever believe,

his mind certain of images

no one should see.

for Ana Rina

Tonight blue light rose above us

to the fields of space itself,

to the heights where our eyes fail

and only prayers can  see.

In the spaces we live

we light candles, we make stars

come alive inside of us,

and each one, one day,

became a son, a world

we orbit now in love.

We see them now

in our dreams, for in love

our path has been written

by the hand of god.

I follow your eyes upward,

and as beauty recognizes beauty,

a peace comes over me

and through me,

the only feeling that will outlast

the night, the vision

of your full eyes and your soul,

open to nature’s glory,

always my one dream of flight,

my vision of heaven.

a strange sucking sound

like thunder. When the wind

blows  in your direction

you can see them

huddled in open fields

waiting to be taken.

Bodies caked

with dried mud,

rubbing harmonically,

they stand like stalagmites

made of decayed deposits

and layers of licked

salt. Heat lightening

in the distance

flicks across their foreheads,

where the absence of eye

lashes and hair follicles

creates tattoos of distant

skylines, where prophets

gaze upon them –

open eyes and mouths –

each tongue balanced

on the edge of poetics

meant for an unborn god,

on a frozen canvas

draped in darkness.

after Thomas Merton

As I pulled away slowly
feeling so holy
God knows I was feelin’ alive

And now the sun’s comin’ up
I’m ridin’ with Lady Luck

Tom Waits

Life is on our side.

I have one little cell inside

that I can’t track down.

I hope he is the one

that sings

when the sunlight lifts

your eyelashes

across the horizon.

I would like to see you

this way, on the tip

of my brush,

not yet on the canvas,

about to come alive

beneath breath and whisper.

But you are the one,

the one I can’t track down.

It does not matter.

I can see you

just down the road.

I can hear your voice

cut through the wind.

You are beautiful,

and life is on our side.

afraid to listen

to what I’ve become.

I hear the same tune,

the same one that echoes

when I am alone.

Do not answer this song.

I want the notes to bleed

for me, just once,

I want my thick sense to tell me

all of their names.

Let this be chamber music,

let this be the soul,

but what I hear cannot be sung ,

what I need cannot be written,

and the soul remains undone.

Alone. You are the candle tonight. Pick up your pen. You need no one. You need nothing but the haze dropped down from the sky. Walk outside without your shirt just once, on a night full of cold blades, and then smile. Later, you can pick up the pen, but for now, just stand there and smile. If you are lucky, a wind gust will come, literally from the emptiness of space, and knock your breath back into nowhere. And if you are not so lucky, just smile, because you can be sure someone, somewhere, is inside, trying to stay warm, and they will never find it. To turn blood into starlight,  the fire must come from within.

Death, yes, death will come with blue fingers, licked cool and soft to the touch, but today you will write alone and you will be happy—happy that you are alone—happy knowing that you can write even to the edge of death itself. You meet death alone, even tonight, like a distant star. Put down the pen for a moment and say hello to yours. There is no getting away and you know it. One star is yours alone, and it knows your name. Since its light died millions of years ago, it wants you to stay silent.

The stars, shining after death, already know the meaning of silence. You do not need to learn it.

They move quickly out of Manhattan

via the Holland Tunnel

into the desolation of eastern New Jersey:

abandoned factories, railroad tracks,

dying towns—stop to rest

where the light enters broken

windows.

They find Gealie’s still open for bad coffee,

unfiltered Lucky Strikes, stale donuts.

They move at night,

and by day huddle in dark

hollows and rub each other’s backs.

When in doubt, they follow

alpha markers: poets know they can rut

out of season and still exchange

syllables. Words are born along the way

and held in their arms

to be unraveled later,

if they find time.

They cross the Ohio on stolen barges,

and move into the lower hills

to find cover with the deer. They understand

the dangers involved: to cross fields

unseen. Occasionally a poet dies—

they leave a line or two in the soil

to mark time and place:

language and landscape blur

under the bleating sky,

and another stanza is left

in the unnameable spaces of language.

Later, they are seen herding west

out of western Arkansas into the lower

grasslands of Oklahoma.

From our helicopters, they look like

crawling Chinese letters—their black tags

give them away. We take them down

with dart guns. They breathe close

to the ground, like puddles

of moonlight: the skin

over their ribs stretches and glistens

rabidly.

Our task is easy: clip thumbs

tongues, index fingers. Some schools

of thought say we should

take their feet as well,

for they could scrawl the earth

with heels and toes.

Maybe it is pointless:

with six fingers left

they could still press thoughts

into flesh. Maybe

the wind and rain

will wash away what we call

rutting, but for now,

the only language left

will be our own.