To realize only that a note cannot be written
as one would a word or phrase;
a soliloquy does not pierce the flesh
where a melody would resound within.
To know one's thoughts are one and the same:
like a twisting river it flows deep throughout—cannot truly be known through word or phrase.
No, it must be felt. It must be borne.
It must be lived.
Looking for the woman
from my dream last night.
Her eyes were the Cuyahoga River,
and her touch was
the first drop of unfrozen rain to fall on your shoulder
in the beginning of Spring.
The riverbank itself is portentous
Of the path ahead.
The squelchy, soggy soil
Sucks in my feet like a cavernous mouth
Of a carnivorous creature.
I am half – willing to be sucked in.
It can hardly be called a river.
Meandering listlessly through this barren land
It is more like a space between two high banks
Flat, with few mounds of debris and sand
Forlorn, looking woebegone
Like refugees weary, resting their limbs.
Ribbons of water run through this space
Shallow, scarcely to wet your toes.
I look around for signs of life –
At the farther side, I spot a bird.
Floating downstream
I turn my head to watch
A wreath of flowers by my side -
On whom had it lain last?
My reflection in the clouds
Chinese drunken poets desire.
No clouds today
a sky as clear as gin
to swim or drown in
the river takes this bend
goes where air and water
don't meet as friends.
i love you
what words
can say it
forget it soon
the body disposes
banalities
comfortless as angels
& violent
the reposed granite
swinging for ages
the tone
the river edge stunned
by curtains of blackbirds
my eye my tongue
stop confused
nursing these trees
trembling like a truck
through tiny lapses,
delirium tremens.
logic describes
lazy circles in the sky.
adios mes amigos.
fucking amid the maps,
views of rivers,
and so forth.
first rains.
neon fireflies
beside a black river…
i remember all warm first nite when
the painting roared off the wall
waking / and willie in
red whirled around the little black room
like mad angel / i remember forsythias
in hair and crotch and hand
by the river and i found a stone
with a face which i still have / i
remember the hills of massachusetts
& your room / and our garden of
marijuana which didn't grow well /
i remember you warm gentle impatient
beautiful wanting to make my happy only
/ & the hurt
senile river,
floor littered
with aeons of pointless garbage
slender frameworks of beast
granite leftovers from
a mountain eaten during the mesozoic,
in lusty banquet of your middle age.
let it be said you are less than the
Least silence
of any entranced youngster,
Who gulps a nascent universe
with each unlikely breath.
sunny autumn day
only a few rocks jutting out
from the river
late day sun &
small pieces of ice floating
on the river