insipid discourse about suffering
is dangerous
all unprepared heads must be spared
those being the best for war
it will not be safe to expose
the rich to doubt
or the poor to conviction
horrible is the death grin
they escape in fight not laughs and curses
and the things of life
such weather we get in our country being so dead is a surprise
a death made
of dirt and prison stone
made from hour to hour
till it was midnight
made drunk
made of work
like a heavy-headed ox
whole but odd
running over a hare
on the way home
tell me I will be her
tomorrow
and the heart cannot help
a thin ink
no design in the griefs
which make us all
waiting I am one
with the small sum of a heart
the ash of a warrant
the no one there of water
the sleep of a dead child
There was a flash, so bright — as if
from the world’s largest camera,
come to capture everyone in
their work clothes.
We children ran to the top field
& turned & looked.
What new kind of cloud was this?
What new kind of tree?
It stood for hours on the horizon,
brewing its own weather, we guessed,
or setting fruit. No one could imagine just
how strong the wind, how terrible the rain.
But we were farmers’ kids.
When we saw white birds
streaming away toward the west,
we knew what to think.
an infinite room is the grave
for the finest falling body
the overthrown
and irregular body
the no body to know
how to pass
we met nightly
in that church red with need
to free our hands of death
building only to go bust
holding on
blessed as a swan in the palace
our last words washed out
with the rain
my hands think without me
a tick will not talk
to his old red comrade
above the world a swan
is as much of the dead
as we know
passionate as a river
empty of boats
holding a wine glass for rain
and a napkin for ink
I made an end of my letters
and died in her bed
A dark waterfall of fur
slipping down the rocks at
the river’s edge, soft yoke
no neck will ever wear.
Though green, I am no plant.
Two kingdoms live in me, but no ruler.
I’m a colonist of places
where nothing else can survive.
Death comes to the hemlock trees
in grayish white clots the size of pinheads.
I dress myself down
done with all the toss and spoil
hold to loss
like a sand house
taking you home who are
less dead than me