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.