The rain is falling, it sounds like the tears

After Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 119'

The rain is falling, it sounds like the tears
of the broad arching sky. I'm sitting within
the architecture of a home and what I fear
is the absolute and infinite. Rain is winning
affection from the ground, it seems committed
to growth of grass and tree, the rain has never
done violence to anyone. The canals are fitted
with corridors of trees, the summer fever
is like pollen in the air. There is a true
reflection of the Moon on water that's better
than any Monet. Now I declare the new
is merely an illusion, that she is greater
than any object, her resplendent content
illumines everything and is never spent.

You're more than leaves and clouds. You're more than all

After Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 40'
 
You're more than leaves and clouds. You're more than all
the syllables I've ever uttered, before
I knew a word I knew you. Before I called
out any name I knew yours, now the more
I sing the less I know. I have received
music the way an instrument does, used
my self to vibrate air. The clouds deceive
me when, though Sun is shining, they refuse
to reveal her. I am the patient thief
presiding in the shadows, in a poverty
of ethics. In my love, I hear your grief
in pastures and in bayous, in the injury
of calves and foals. A storm does well to show
the opposites of things, both friend and foe.

About the middle of the book it had seemed

After Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 54'

About the middle of the book it had seemed
to get kind of confusing, the text gives
a couple clues about the future. Deem
a chapter as a day, books are alive
and living in the world. They even dye
their covers different colors, topaz, rose,
or ruby, porcelain. I'm gazing wantonly
into the spine, the grammars it discloses
to me are sure mysteries of word showing
the infinite. Like days, the stories fade
over horizons, creative clouds move so
as to make women's forms. I haven't made
an image that can capture her ripe youth
or fragrant blossom, to withhold her truth.

The room was completely black except the stark

The room was completely black except the stark
light of a single candle. I had drove
the whole night looking for her, through the dark
and damp to the unknown. This beating love
propelled me toward her, it is what has made
me move. This love is what keeps flowers bent
toward the Sun, it is the serious blade
that splits the skin. I sit among the silent
music of the trees, I'm starting to think
that I must have her snow white skin now, lest
I become mad. The water that I drink
fills me with her, I feel she is the rest
I find between my dreams. I'm moving to
her like the flowers grow to skies of blue.

I remember how it was last year, so hot

I remember how it was last year, so hot
and humid in the summer. Then again,
it seems different this year, I don't know what
has changed about the air. I check again
the calendar to see if it has changed
and it has not. I think about the gain
and loss of water by the bayous. When
the song is over it begins again
and cycles through another round. The water
moves up from in the oceans, then again
it forms a current of cloud. The turning years
defy our set out systems, when again
the Moon obscures the Sun, we take a note
of their position and wait for it again.

I'm listening to the songs the birds recite

After Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 72'

I'm listening to the songs the birds recite
from in the air, the songs I've begun to love
with my whole being. I can't figure quite
the scales or modes they use, I cannot prove
the harmonies they demonstrate. I lie
beneath the sky and contemplate the desert
that Saint-Exupéry explored, and I
am lost without a well. The prince imparts
his knowledge to the princess, it's in this
exchange of knowing that love's found. The true
and sure path mystifies me, the path is
obscured by branches in the darkness. You
are Sun to my dull gloom, you're bringing forth
the song I have inside me, showing its worth.

It seems the birds and trees do not despair

After Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 114'

It seems the birds and trees do not despair
the loss of nest and leaf. The air is still
this early in the morning, it's her fair
and virgin skin I'm drawn to. I am ill
with love, I'm pulled from good and into evil
by this intoxication. From deep inside
my self I thirst for her, she is the devil
that's tempting me, the woman that my pride
convinces me that I deserve. I fiend
for her at dawn and dusk, I cannot tell
the end of this desire. O sure friend
is this brief world itself a furious hell
assailing me? I am left without doubt
in face of a terrible god that calls out.

I started to walk, and then a couple drops

I started to walk, and then a couple drops
of rain fell on my head. It was the talk
of clouds and earth I heard, starting to listen
to choral birds and frogs. What do they hear
what we don't hear? I wonder how unreal
our language seems to them? I see frogs here

and there among the bugs, I wasn't here
when she had come to see me. The raindrops
made the blues darker in her dress, the real
and heavy nature of her weighed me. Talking
to the small flowers with my posture, hearing
their petals move, I am the patient listener

composing what he hears. I start to listen
to the cycles turning around, both here
and in the heavens. I'm starting to hear
the whirling of the spheres, I am a drop
of knowing in an ocean of love. The talk
of seas on shores, of gulfs and rivers, real

lasting verse that shapes the lands. I realize
the words I speak, I realize my listening
extends my consciousness. These objects talk
to me in languages I don't know, here
and there I sense a grapheme. The teardrops
are shaped like letters, vowels, I can hear

the syllables come from her mouth, I hear
the movement of her tongue and love. The real
and vibrant world engulfs me, I have dropped
myself into a mysterious well. I listen
to the walls and fall, the void that is here
is the same everywhere, this idle talk

is purposeless. I feel the air that talks
above the mountains and rivers, the air I hear
is moving as the weather. It moves from here
to there as the days pass, it isn't really
something that you can read to know, just listen
to the soft clouds and trees. I am a drop

of nothing, I am a drop of lazy talk
that you can't hear. I am the leaf that listens
to the real and vibrant music of here.

She'd thrown a pair of pants across the floor

She'd thrown a pair of pants across the floor
that still were wet. The Mississippi mud
was in their woven fabric, through the window
she looked at the damp world. Within the walls
of houses that I am celebrating, sit
and listen with me a while. I understand

the silence of a music, I'm understanding
delicate bird-song. I hear the creaking floor
when she moves on it, watch her legs that sit
on chairs and under clothes. It was a muddy
run in the morning, when the house's walls
were sweating in the new day and the windows

fogged-up slightly. She sat by the window
and listened to the air, how the trees stand
in the soft ground, how fixed the sound of walls.
I had thrown my many books across the floor
and scattered many poems, under the mud
I left some photographs and letters sitting

there for someone else to find. Poems sit
inside my belly for a while, the windows
of my eyes inform them with images of mud
and bayous. I wonder how the iris stands
in the thick August heat, how the muddy floor
of marshes houses bugs. There are no walls

in swamps, how free are ideas without walls
or doors to hold them? That way they can sit
within the air like clouds and hit the floors
of many lands like rains. I sit by the window
and think about her clothes, the way she stands
in the dim light, the way she moves the mud

between her toes. I want to move the mud
around her curving body, paint the walls
with her round forms. I start to understand
the nothing that I am—see how trees sit
and ask not if they're heard? Open the window
to my heart, move your feet on the wood floors

of my spent body. The floor is tracked with mud
and walls have finger smudges, I close the window
and sit until I know how the trees stand.

The boat went through the water sending a wake

The boat went through the water sending a wake
into the nearby houses. I quickly brushed
my leg against the brick-wall, I had brushed
the leaves from the porch earlier. I wake

up to the day from nothing, I awake
to falling rain, to golden dawn, to brush
that sings under the window. Her hair brush
got left on my bed stand, she was awake

the time that I had cried. I had to trust
that she had heard me, I'd removed the hoops
of her earrings before bed. The lament

of lovers filled the trees, the leaves that trust
the air fall quietly, they spin in hoops
toward the ground. The trees do not lament.

Over the pasture on Friday, the Sun rises

Over the pasture on Friday, the Sun rises
to give the day its light. The simple houses
sit on the muddy ground, nothing will burn
because it's full of water. She puts blush
on her cheeks in the candle light, she moves her
eyelashes a little. I really, truly love

the way the dew falls on the grass, I love
the way the fog folds over fields and rises
into the dawn so softly. It's just like her
breath filling the room, I walk about the house
as if it were her form. She gives a blush
to my low singing, the cigarette burns

so quickly in the ash tray. I had burned
my thumb a couple times, my two eyes love
to get caught in the flames. When she blushes
it's like her skin is celebrating the rise
of oceans, suns and stars, her skin the house
of blood and love. I move closer to her

becoming more intoxicated, her
swift and dazzling curls have now been burned
into my mind. I wander past the houses
that others have abandoned, past the loves
that are no longer. Behind trees the rising
Moon lights up the night, first it's red-blush,

then yellow, then pure white. Her white skin blushed
when I moved closer to it, I put her
soft skin under my hands, the clouds are rising
with the thick heat. The car engine is burning
some gasoline, there is some song about love
playing on the radio in the house

that I can hear from outside. That's the house
that I grew up in, see the trees that blush
behind it? It's this plot of land I love
as if it were a woman, as if her
stomach and breasts were hills and vales. The burn
of day above lifts moisture, when she rises

from the waves, my love finds none but her
within the turning houses. She must blush
when I am burning like the rising Sun.

I wake up with the dawn. It starts to rain

I wake up with the dawn. It starts to rain
on Bayou Des Allemands, the muddy river
divides the land. A north-northwestern wind
exhales across the cypress trees. My eyes
are open to the day, she opens the door
into the bedroom, walks across and turns

the light off. How her elbow writes in turns
as she changes her posture, how the rain
falls slowly. If you open up the door
the pressure changes inside, by the river
the land is higher. I thought that her eyes
were grey in the old pictures, how the wind

had thrown her hair across her neck, the wind
that's blowing in the gulf right now. I turn
and toss in bed alone, I wipe my eyes
into my fists. When I wake up, a rain
will fall about the earth, the curving river
moves like a script of mud. I close the door

and light into her, they can hear the door
slam down the hall. Outside the swirling winds
are whistling between the houses, rivers
move with a force like this, assault their turns
with a fantastic will. Organized rains
or grammars of low clouds, within her eyes

I am no more, the nothing of her eyes
absolves me of my sin. I slam the door
and celebrate our privacy, brief rain
provides percussion for our love. The winds
affect the land, the land itself returns
the affection in hills and valleys, rivers,

lakes and streams. The Mississippi River
ought not be so reined, the wandering eyes
of storms have known the delta's bends and turns
intensely. Maybe her sweet eyes are doors
to her soul, are the way that the swift wind
has carried me. Outside, the pouring rain

falls thick in sheets, the wind pushes the door
into the house. My eyes find that the river
is turning the green tree-leaves in the rain.

Some kids across the street are playing football

Some kids across the street are playing football
under a reddened Sunset. Will the storm

move west or east? I listen to the tall,
thin branches of the trees, the leaves a storm

has thrown before. I remember when it was all
that I could do to think of nothing, storms

develop all the time, some in the fall
can whirl quite powerfully. The summer storms

I know from youth were quick, a violent squall
bubbles up in the afternoon and those storms

pass briefly. I want to know you and to fall
in love engulfed with rain like thunderstorms

undisciplined. It's you that I recall
in every swirling motion of a storm.

She said what moved the Sun and stars was love

She said what moved the Sun and stars was love,
love and nothing else. I watched her lips
there form the words, a parting of the lip
releases ideas. The movement of love

is the existence of us, moving love
defines our being. I find in her lips
an opening to heaven, parting lips
invite me to a paradise. O love!

confuse me in illusion! Make me move
my body the wrong way, make now my mouth
incapable of words! Give me her mouth

to feel on my skin, I just want to lay
in thunderstorms, to sleep as the clouds move
over the pasture. I just want to love.

From of the nothing, come. I cannot wait

From of the nothing, come. I cannot wait
for you now anymore, I hear a storm
that sweeps across the ocean cannot wait

to meet the land. I thought about the storms
that came before, and now all that I want
is a quick sigh from her. But with the storm,

I'll get to feel her wrath, I'll hear her want
for me and all the coarseness of her touch,
of clouds on surfaces. The skin I want

receiving my song, the ears I want to touch
with words, the way the moisture cannot wait
to meet the ground. The pressure systems touch

each other in new ways, the air is weighed
by swamp and storm, desires must now wait.

A tree sits in the ground. I start to hear

A tree sits in the ground. I start to hear
the wind in the tall branches, high in the sky
some clouds are floating. Listen to the skies
and birds, the hanging leaves begin to hear

the storm out in the gulf. What am I hearing
but arias of her? The clear blue sky
holds forms of a sure white. Later, the skies
become obscured and are no longer heard

but felt. It's when the birds no longer fly
that I may worry, when the turning water
moves over the soft land. But now, the ground

is waiting, river oak leaves start to fly
about the air. The singing of the water
fills the sky, then rains down on the ground.

She grew up from the earth, a delicate rose

She grew up from the earth, a delicate rose
beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains. Without fame
I sing about her anyway, I close
my eyes and meditate upon her name
and form. Since I was born I've wanted to know
about the whirling heavens, wanted to claim

her for myself alone. Philosophers claim
to know the object of this world. I rose
this morning from a dream and I don't know
if what I woke to was real. Is the fame
he's ashamed of a symptom of the name
of poet? Just as soon as I get close

to her she moves away, I move in close
to kiss her neck, to taste her skin and know
the flavor of her body. I can name
the planets in the evening, Venus rose
before the Sun this morning. Her white fame
is in the museum, a painter knows

just where to put the light, he has to know
the contours of her body. Words enclose
her self, disclose her vulgar, awful fame
to all the world. All I have left to claim
as my own possession is this dark rose
and her words I remember. I have names

for all the days and sounds, I have a name
for frog and cricket music. Now I know
how much it hurts to watch the delicate rose
wither without the water. I can close
my eyes and see her now, the mystic claims
that all the world is language. Without fame

a man's words can still move the world, the fame
we know in life is transient, our names
don't live as long as our songs. I exclaim
into the open spaces what I know
about love. I want now to hold her close
up to my body, smell the sensuous rose

and taste her skin. I rose and pulled her close
to me, uttered her name and found the fame
I sought, in her knowing I became reclaimed.

Two birds fly in the sky, my turning mind

Two birds fly in the sky, my turning mind
is confused by the symbols. I can't find
a sense in this diction, her blushing cheek
trembles under my lips. It's been a week
or two since I first knew I was in love
with the idea of her. I have to prove

the symmetry of triangles, to prove
myself before her. I sing to remind
the moving world of her benefic love
and glorious mercy. Still, I've yet to find
beloved in a body here, the weeks
turn into months. The hair grows on my cheeks

and chin, I had a dream about her cheeks
and breasts. I hope the course I forecast proves
to be the one realized, in just a week
the Moon is full again. She's on my mind
the way a thought is, I'm searching to find
a word for her, an explanation. Love

is not time's fool, incomprehensible love
floods through my self in waves. Her warm-pink cheek
receives my words, the words I do not find
but receive from the world. The Sun approves
of our mysterious tryst, a whirling mind
of air masses is moving and the weakened

atmosphere is in conflict. Three weeks
until the equinox, I want to love
you like I've never loved before, to mind
when you are gone, to miss your blood-red cheeks
when I'm inside. I weave a verse to prove
my worth and virtue to you, for to find

a form to hold myself. In her I find
the fairest creature, one that makes me weak
in love, a demure angel that has proved
to amuse me. I hear that making love
beneath the stars is divine, feel my cheek
brush against your thigh. You hear my mind

and see my thought as clouds that prove my love
is found in you, and with the turning weeks
closer become our cheeks and patient minds.

It's like I'm in a chime. The subtle breeze

After Petrarch's ‘Là ver’ l’aurora, che si dolce l’aura’

It's like I'm in a chime. The subtle breeze
rustles the leaves a bit, the iris flowers
from in the ditch behind the house. A song
comes from a tree somewhere, jostles my soul
from its quiescence. I'm struck by the power
of the Sun and whirling stars, of music

moving in the spheres above me, music
that's manifest in weather. Southern breezes
bring moisture from the gulf, the hidden power
of water in the clouds rewards the flowers
with gentle rain. The flowers have a soul
and so do trees, another bluejay's song

comes out from the green leaves. What is a song
without an author? Can we call it music
if there is no composer? Is the soul
I know myself to have the soul of breezes,
weathers, rains and scents? I give her flowers
and love from in my heart, I have the power

of kingdoms within me. My sovereign power
annihilates all evil, is the song
that Petrarch sang before me. She has flowered
in my bed before, I know the music
of her wide-open petals, on the breeze
I smell her. She has captured my poor soul

and drawn me to an end, my dazzled soul
is powerless before her infinite power.
She moves without instruction like a breeze
that is the work of no one, like a song
that has never been written, like a music
that has no player. She is like the flower

that all men have desired, the young flower
that hypnotizes us. My vagrant soul
is lost within her broad, resplendent music
resounding from all sides. Its vibrant power
moves all of my gross body, makes a song
of me and sends it on the next quick breeze

outward. The chimes catch breeze, the simple flowers
move with the soul of a lazy, verdant song
and give the world powerful, graceful music.

The color of the rising Sun again

After Petrarch's ‘I’ ò pregato Amor, e ’l ne riprego,’

The color of the rising Sun again
amused me. My right heel had gotten hurt
one night in New Orleans. The loyalty
I hold for her is unmatched, there's no way

for anyone to express it—deny
her and he is lost. The clouds are souls
that wander the daytime, she's loving me
the way the Sun loves trees. The clouds follow

a greater stream of air, weather illumines
pastures with soft dew. The morning's virtue
is in her moistened breath, she is the star

that ushers in the dawn. Who might disdain
her in this world as their oppressor? He
who leaps into the void is made beautiful.

You are a poem I am remembering

You are a poem I am remembering
in every moment. You're the song I sing
when I have no more words, you're syllables
I order into verse, you're several phonemes

I hold within my heart. You're air I take
within myself and expirate slowly
using my diaphragm. When I was born,
I knew you clearly with perspicuous

and dazzling love. Distinction then began
its awful reign and caused me to forget
the sure ubiquity of you. I sing

so that I can remember all the parts
you are and aren't, sing so I can sense
the infinite pervading all existence.

The fuzz that's on the skin of a ripe peach

The fuzz that's on the skin of a ripe peach
is like the hair on her skin. I inhale
the fragrance of a flower, put my nose
against her neck, behind her curving ear

and underneath blonde hair. The canvas skirt
or dress she wore filled up just like a hot
air balloon. I want to be under there,
to feel the warm air trapped between her thighs,

to put my fingers on the porcelain
skin and hold it tight. Now when I speak
to her, I sing—I cannot help myself

from having this desire. When I dream,
the fantasy and fiction is like pollen
that floats in the dull air without a sound.

She's sleeping underneath the trees, the frogs

She's sleeping underneath the trees, the frogs
are in the water. I can hear the breeze
move in the tops of river oaks. The sky
is one broad spectacle that stretches on

into the gulf and past Lake Salvador.
I put my feet into the mud—the frogs
hop heavy on the porch, a mosquito
makes music in my ear. I hear her dream

then manifest itself as swirling weather
coming from the south. I want to be
a thought that wanders in her thoughtless mind,

or feeling that escapes her eyes in wet
tears. The music is different in the dawn
than in the dusk when stars start to awake.

Writing with you, singing into your ears

Writing to you, singing into your ears
or seeing into eyes—the hearer's gaze,
the rishi's pure-clear mind. Language is used
to bring the divine down from on the top

of the tall mountains. What else can I hear
but her? I cannot seem to ever know
a space that isn't hers, I cannot hear
a sound that isn't understood by silence.

I want her in my mouth like words, I write
my poems on her body. The tongue I use
to move the air is hers, the luminaries

that wander in the sky establish time
and manifest a calendar. I make
her body into language with my want.

Hold me with song except my soul will yield

After Petrarch's ‘I’ ò pregato Amor, e ’l ne riprego,'

Hold me with song except my soul will yield
to you. My bitter joy is overcome
by reason. I follow and don't deny
the straight way. Loyalty so leads me to

places I have prayed love, you pardon me
with such clear wit that heaven illumines
with pity my looks—from a fortunate star
such noble virtue rained down. I should say

that reason cannot restrain all good souls
with noble virtue. What else can he do?
You, with that heart that, without disdain

consumes him. I stray from the way with pity
and I pray again unwillingly.
Why do I long so, why are you so beautiful?

Maybe today it's something with the stars

Maybe today it's something with the stars,
tomorrow it's something with music. Calendars
of animals and girls, this obsession that
I have with light and dark. The way she read

the art I loved, I heard her talk about
a Caravaggio. Remembering
her in another set of letters in
a form—a week from now, another moon

or two finds me within her folding thighs
resolved underneath sheets. She is unveiled
by lamps and oils, luxuries of light

wax and wane on her nude body. Stars
lie still up there and see chaotic love
assail and overtake the sinful poet.

Words in a prayer, little hairs in the white

Words in a prayer, little hairs in the white
of morning. Quiet birds that hardly fly
are populating trees, clouds continent
the sphere of heaven. Just this whirling prayer

about her, like the way the Sun and stars
revolve as a big system. I begin
to see it now: her there, the cat's wet fur
and vivid purr. My fingers move the muscles

of her legs, I worship when I feel
her skin, I sing my feeling when I pray
inside her like a church. Heresiarchs

and charlatans, the Botticelli thighs
in handfuls, pure beloved nonthought
through union with her visceral body.

Unreadable—remarkable as such

Unreadable—remarkable as such,
encoded in a song, a couple phrases
drawn together. Her wide hip has drawn
upon it horses, graphemes and diphthongs

in sequences. I open up my hand
like roses do, an energy is there
articulated. She moved in sentences
and images, I sense her sense and then

remember what I'm not. Yet when I look
into the words, her eyes: the leaves of trees
float on a river to its end. I laugh

because I am amused, laughs aren't read
nor thought. When I grab her, the horses drawn
begin to wander the illumined pasture.

To hell with a name! Who knows what to call

To hell with a name! Who knows what to call
a god you can't describe? I held her down
a while, she squirmed into the bed. The ceiling
fan revolved above us in a music

like the whirling stars. I heard a song
come out of her, she came into the world
creating things, some triangles and scripts
I can't translate. She bit me when I thought

of anything but her. How could I? When
the colors turn, the clouded passion sets
low on the horizon, she has no words. Trees

don't speak, the air must sing without a sign,
without a designation. She swallows
my body and annihilates me.

Some mystery to me—I took a step

Some mystery to me—I took a step
into the ditch, the mud and croaking frogs
reminded me of love. I orient
my self about her heart. Where is it at

if not among my breath? I don't know where
the Sun went, I open my mouth to take
her breast. Cows live and die, a storm becomes
a calm, a couple birds wander the sky

above. To figure which is her object
among so many is just difficult.
I couldn't read the books I'd found, she said

those ones were in the Spanish. I had smiled
with my whole body, muscles then disclosed
a model of beloved in a dove.