You make me want to not write shit like you

You make me want to not write shit like you,
to change it up. I have this drive to be
inscrutable, irascible to some,
immutable in my persistence. If

I see some boring shit I turn away.
I don't know what it is, I can not be
so drawn into a corner, so figured
and mapped by anyone. The opposites

give definition to each other, when
I see a similarity I lapse
into creative fits, I fuss about

exotic fields, realize incomparables.
My independent god (dependent self)
asserts autonomy to no real purpose.

This dirty room, another useless conceit

This dirty room, another useless conceit
about the trees or clouds, another song
that makes an argument. Why do I make
up shit like this at all? What is the point

of artistry? Whatever politics
I have are incomplete. The active life
supersedes the contemplative. When I
read the continentals I don't know

if it's not mysticism. Have the poems
do some work about the world, have them
move people to action, move hearts to love

some shit they hadn't loved before. Have poems
dissolve a preconception, make apparent
all that we assume—then criticize it.

Whatever it was I said, I don't remember

Whatever it was I said, I don't remember
why I said it or if my thought really
was someone else's reappropriated.
I don't know why to write, I don't know why

the shit you like is what you like. Tell me
what any of this means, unmix your thought
from all confusing images. I won't
be trying to make sense of this unless

the way you say it is at least a little
clear. Well, shit. Another poem without
a form communicating anything,

just what you said not how you said it, just
this mess of sentiment and whimsy, but
I guess I'm guilty of the same damn thing.

I'm growing like a flower toward the Sun

I'm growing like a flower toward the Sun.
I'm moving in a Universe of love
just like a cloud, I carry water through
the air, articulating it. I shape

my mouth a certain way, inhale spirit
into my lungs. The words come out, my heart
is known through them. The words are expressions
of spirit, a whole choreography

of fragrances and petals. Symmetries
surround me, trees grow up into the sky
in fractal patterns. I'm seeing water move

through bodies, carve the earth, move minerals
to other places. Flowers hold the fog
up in the air and speak about you only.

I'm going to the library. I bind

I'm going to the library. I bind
my self just like a book, just all these words
associated, endless strings of grammar
in a foreign dialect. I see

the pages or the leaves, I am unsure
if these are narratives or trees. I'm going
somewhere that the brands and memes of old
are hiding, somewhere that tangles of thought

are stored to affect others. I can see
the shelving, a piano in the corner
is sitting there. She moves on top of it

in a seductive dance, her hips sway right
and left, her belly undulates composing
verse in the bound chapters of my eye.

I know now the beloved has no name

I know now the beloved has no name
describing her. I know that she is not
the body that I see nor the fragrance
that fills my lungs. I know now the beloved

has no station, is unlike the clouds
and mountains, unlike the rivers and sky
that have no limit. I know the beloved
isn't this or that elaborate system

of confusing propositions, I don't
want to have a theory of everything
or feel I've solved the mystery. Beloved

is a friend surprising me, is air
that moves about me, spirit I exhale
as only love into a turning world.

Give all up to her and do not think

Give all up to her and do not think
of it. The soul pours in a current to
her, there is no time to seek out money,
name nor fame, no time to think of anything

but her. If we go on remembering,
then will come into our hearts that infinite,
wonderful bliss of love; if we don't see
anything but love we will not be

sufferers of thought. A pilgrim knocked at the
door of a Sufi saint and asked him who
was there, the saint replied, "Is anybody

here except her?" Desires are beads
of glass. Love of her increases every
moment and is only known by feeling it.

Morning—when the air conditioner's on

Morning—when the air conditioner's on
I can't hear my self think. I want to grab
her like a sound out of the air and hold
her in my mouth like words. Sometimes I hear

the lawnmowers outside making music, when
the grass is fresh cut it sticks to your feet
and won't come off. If she were on me when
the dawn began, if she were on the earth

the way a flower is, if she were on
my mind I wouldn't die. The ceiling fan
wobbles a bit, I whisper to her poems

in some language unknown. If she were on
my self and moving I'd forget the words
to every song and love her without thought.

There were a couple frogs that made a sound

There were a couple frogs that made a sound
from in the ditch. I stayed up all night long
in her, we sighed about modernity

and its tropes. The frogs made a broad chorus
with cicada, it was like a music
swelling and fading. I told her what

I felt, how I desired her, the need
I have for ripened fruit. The dew at dawn
finally condenses, she had a quick

and deft reply to advances. I ate
the air and sheets, the morning is when I
pass judgment on her, weigh out the unseen

she is. The bending heaven turned blue
as day began, the frogs were silent.

I have a couple books I haven't finished

I have a couple books I haven't finished
yet. She sits, delicately applies blush
and straightens up her dress. I couldn't finish

saying how I loved her, she would blush
when I sang for her. We moved twin beds
together, we fucked and the powder blush

moved in the air. Above the joined beds
we read the infinite—the more I want
her body, the less I want to leave bed

at all. The textured narrative I want
is a contour of skin I'm finishing
myself within. I mean, who wouldn't want

to lose themselves in love? Her belly blushed
and rolled in the sheets on the dirty bed.

I stumbled in the room. She wasn't pleased

I stumbled in the room. She wasn't pleased
by anyone at all before—the give
of blankets around her legs. It would please

me were I a form holding her, to give
a suggestion of her nude. She sat there with
her legs a bit open, I leaned to give

her my tongue and its song, she bit me with
her teeth. I thought I smelled a mature rose
underneath her dress, explored her with

my nose and breath. The petals of the rose
were folding fragrant, I lowered to give
my self to them. Her small of back arose

from the surface that held her, I moved with
her hips until she told me to please stop.

A loose, imagined love—I wasn't mad

A loose, imagined love—I wasn't mad
at her or anything, the turning stars
were love. I have supposed a fictive madness

that makes language of the illumined stars
in patterns, rational music that's working
in synthesis. The light of a white star

took so long to get here, I want my work
to be the ornament written above
the outer sphere. I'm not the one at work

here, not the lone actor moving above
her open body—I am surely mad
to think my self or anything above

her beauty. I make up a whirling madness
realizing love is designed mad.

I saw her father in a changing dream

I saw her father in a changing dream
and we were with the turtles. She had slept
in my car while I brushed out all the sleep
from my eyes. She looked just like a dream

I had where all was light, this quiet dream
that played about my mind while I had slept
beside her. Now the wobbly calf's asleep
beside his mother, probably in a dream

with light upon the water. There's a brief
reflection of the Moon above the world
moving on the bayou, the soft wake

she made moving the water was a brief
confusing dream. I move about this world
and wonder if I am even awake.

Is it night or morning? Is it raining

Is it night or morning? Is it raining
or is that something else? From in the house
I can't quite tell. The gray, low-sitting house
sets quietly as a thunderstorm rains

over the pasture. Yes, it must be rain
I'm hearing, also thunder. All the house
moves with the air around it, I am housed
by simple architectures. When it rains

it pours. I haven't watched the changing weather
without a calendar, I use the mud
to map the heavens up above. The water

in the earth is moved there by the weather
above the sphere. I use the dark, rich mud
to paint her with and wash the rest with water.

I spit the toothpaste out into the sink

I spit the toothpaste out into the sink
and look into the mirror. Several lines
appear on my forehead, a couple lines
come to me in a poem. I'd rather sink

into the muddy bayou, rather sink
my self in you than live. The fishing line
I left out on the levee was the line
we used on that catfish. The empty sink

filled up with little hairs; what was this vicious
way she made love to me? I was chaste
enough before her, now it's like I stole

into a wilderness. Her wild and vicious
mouth pronounces words, I can't be chaste
knowing the dirty body I have stolen.

Somewhere in Mississippi river woods

Somewhere in Mississippi river woods
behind the house I found a white seashell
that reminded me of her. The brittle shell
was of a living thing, by the driftwood

there were just handfuls of them. Warping wood
made up the deck we sat on and seashells
were in her necklace. I collect three shells
to make a mobile with, the dry driftwood

holds the whole thing together. With charcoal
I color in the treasure, orange rust,
rich maroons and browns. The skinny pines

grow up in this here delta, glowing coals
sit underneath the fire and a rusted
wheelbarrow leans delicate on a pine.

Heal me now. Breathe new life into me

Heal me now. Breath new life into me,
be the spirit that awakes me. Your
warm breast and belly are obscured by your
lengthy hair. Come over here and kiss me

on my dreams, pour your light over me
the way the Sun unveils the world. Bring your
soft hands to my worn face, I can see you
move yourself above me. Swallow me

up with your body, take me in you and
annihilate my self. I'm wandering in
a messy whirl of stars, this nonsense love

is without calendar. Take me in and
arouse all my muscles, cover me in
your clothes and breathe in me your sacred love.

I wake up in the middle of the night

I wake up in the middle of the night
in pools of sweat. I hear outside the rain
draw lines into the mud, a subtle light

sneaks in the window. I can see the stain
she left on my sheets, the red blood that beats
through her veins is something unexplained.

I want it still—the arches of her feet—
when I enter her finally she cries
out a song. The sleek, reflecting street

lies wet and quiet. I can't say good-bye
to her yet, I can't leave the glorious height
of mountain that she is. I see the sky

stretch out both to the left and to the right
of me. I hear the silence of the night.

I just want to find a way to increase

I just want to find a way to increase
the reach of the damn thing. The poem dies
when it hits a static page, the poor deceased
verse is through. But in my memory

I have another song, in my mind's eye
is art without an artifact. The fuel
I find for song in changing moons, I lie
beneath the heavens quietly. The cruel

spheres that whirl above me are the ornaments
of an inscrutable god. My poems spring
into the world and toss their awful content
everywhere. Who can remember asking

for a spoken verse? I want to be
in love with you though at an apogee.

I wake in a quick start. I hear the calf

I wake in a quick start. I hear the calf
a half-mile snore and roll, my dreaming leaves
me with a sense of the imagined. Leaves
rustle outside the window, her bronze calves

move swiftly on the hardwood floor. The calf
and cow hide from the Sun, a single leaf
falls brown from a cypress. I have to leave
this place to find her breasts, her thighs, her calves,

her skin and sex. I see the birds that fly
between the clouds, I hear the loud birds call
from oaks and maples. I want now to grow

into her like a tree, be home for flying
animals that nest. I can't recall
the details of the dream that spurned this growth.

I put my breath right up against the soft

I put my breath right up against the soft
and glowing skin. The air outside is dry
with January, she crunches the dried
banana slices. A spent leaf floats soft

upon the air onto the ground, the soft
feathers of birds sound in the trees. I dry
my hands on my jacket, look through the drying
strands of hair about her head. The softness

of her neck and cheek has me in love
with all small animals. I put my hand
up to her and I feel more than awake,

more than a man that merely is in love
with holding her. I open both my hands
to receive dreams from which I'll never wake.

The form her body was was not that hard

The form her body was was not that hard,
the iris of her eye was like a wet
pool that mirrored me. The fresh and wet
cut grass stuck to my feet, the warm and hard

pavement sweated summer. I pushed hard
into the mud, pulled her through the wet
of afternoon into the house. The wetness
of rain was in her clothes. I kissed her hard

and put my hand inside her dress—the sex
the clouds have with the earth through rain—my mouth
was on her body everywhere asleep

and dreaming. The sweaty and maddened sex
we wrought I still can taste upon my mouth
and is what finally puts me to sleep.

It is a classical art what you do

It is a classical art what you do;
the myriad ways you fill a frame, the value
moving through your colors, arrangements
of negative spaces. Your formal works

are columnated architectures. I
walk in a space you are, gaze up the walls
and through the stained glass windows. You're supported
by much I cannot see, though ornaments

abound in this shrine. Imagine mixed dyes
approximating some resplendent garment
the Sun rose wearing one day. Can't you see

the abstract power of the piece? how it
extends itself beyond the bounds of time
communicating with a future public?

Somewhere within the repetitious rhymes

Somewhere within the repetitious rhymes
of psalms is where my mind is. My warm heart
makes music now the same as in my youth,
although I'm not much different. Here I am

repeating things again. I hope you can forgive
me for the ways I fuss and moan and weep
within a verse. O reader hear the sadness
within all happiness, know that the trials

we face are not just static things, they become
living narratives. A wrath of God that
is somehow merciful, my awful self

is somehow also awesome. Yet vanity
assails my writing, obscures the pure knowledge
whirling about me, makes it seem a dream.

It rained about the middle of the day

It rained about the middle of the day,
or so I thought. My dull and temperate
diet sustains me, although now I may
lapse into a binge sometimes. The date

the milk expired is worn off, the shine
of the refrigerator light is dim.
I think about the water, its decline
when clouds forget to rain, the way it trims

the moisture from the air. A light fades
outside the kitchen window and I owe
the world another song about the shade
the river oak gives. It takes rain to grow

the tree into the tower that you see
rising up from the earth to prophesy.

A couple words—how many?—maybe five

A couple words—how many?—maybe five
words in a line is enough. How many words
are in your poem? I start to say the word
in quite a different way, I use the five

fingers of my right hand to write, the five
senses I have provide images. Words
flow out the pen in patterns, rhythmic words
begin to populate the verse. In five

minutes I have another sonnet, in
a moment it reveals itself as a
collection of mere words. Another line

is drawn from me, it shows the world within
myself for what it is, concept of an
unfolding man within restraining lines.

I move the words like liquid on my tongue

I move the words like liquid on my tongue
into differing shapes, a muscle curls
my lips to make a sound. The graceful curl
of letters on a page seduces tongues

to many heresies. I speak in tongues
beyond a rhetoric, my body curls
about the world in postures. The damp curl
of her hair on her back is like a tongue

that tastes the air. The movement of the sand
in dunes is like a verse, I smell the soap
she used to wash herself with. The imprint

of its scent on my nostrils is like sand
displaced by feet; the brittle, crumbling soap
is now the form where I will leave my imprint.

I don't know how to say it. In a form

I don't know how to say it. In a form
I become like a bird, I sing a sound
composed of little phrases. The same sound
I made the time before starts to inform

the next, the restrictions of sonnet form
hold freedoms I can't tell. Within the sound
of turning verse, when villanelles resound,
something is wrought beyond the words and form

employed. A stretching rhetorical sense
hides in the lines, what now may seem a new
trope or device resembles what the old

verse worked with. The whirling sound of sense
or sense of sound I make is nothing new,
but fresh disclosure of the very old.

I'm almost there really. I'm so close

I'm almost there really. I'm so close
to what the object was in the beginning
that I can taste it. I am playing games
with those who came before, I find the tropes

as tools covered in dust in the garage.
I take them out to use them once again
in a new way; the shovel makes a sound
as instrument of music, with a hammer

I am able to say things to worms.
I hear what they had heard, it's like I'm finding
whatever it is they found again, discovering

method, program and project to employ
for rhetorical purpose. How is it
that I feel so alone in doing this?

Reading spaces, writing spaces, too

Reading spaces, writing spaces, too;
living spaces, spaces to fill in
with anything you want, anything you
could possibly imagine. Moving in

a space, I stand and rest upon the earth
that turns in nothing—silence—spaces
in between the notes. Remembered phrases,
sentences and units of meaning,

the sound of it. The air space up above
resounds with thunder, the articulated
clouds weave verse. I have you in the space

my mouth makes when a vowel's moving through
it in a rush. In fact, the space I'm in
is nothing but you within and without.

God! She just keeps me going. Gets me

God! She just keeps me going. Gets me
in this burning frame of mind where I
aspire for the heavens. I move up
into her like the tree enters the sky

and stretches out its leaves. If I'm the seed
then she's the water, soil and the light
I live upon. I heard the movement of
the Universe itself is that of love,

that love's beyond translation. I am drawn
to my beloved by the books she reads,
the way she moves her shoulders in the room

like calligraphy, the way she sleeps
without a thought. My spirit has desire
for all the sacred mystery she is.

Again it rains. Again I am aroused

Again it rains. Again I am aroused
by mystery. Again I am confused
by epistemology. I think I know
the volume that her dress obscures, or how

the clouds collect the condensation of
the bayous, but do I? Again I wake
into a world of light, again I rise
up full of blood for her irrationally

repeating what I said before. I don't
pretend to know the way she tilts her hips
on me or how the molecules collect

themselves in tidy patterns. Clouds occult
the Sun the way a garment tries to hide
my beloved from me behind a thread.

I watched her move her calves and thighs, the trees

I watched her move her calves and thighs, the trees
stood in the dirt. A Spanish moss hung on
the branches like the sleeves of her thin dress
fell on her shoulders. When the water peeled

away from her it made a pattern in
my mind I won't forget. The canvas dress
absorbed the water, changed a darkened hue
as she submerged herself. She wears the words

I say like clothes, wherever that she goes
my song is on her; it sticks to her sides
and belly like an adhesive fabric,

I see the folds between her legs. The weight
of moisture shows her breasts to me without
her even knowing that it's happening.

She moves just like the ocean moves, her step

She moves just like the ocean moves, her step
divides the water. I can know the waves
that play upon the surface of the sea,
the way a sense is divined of these words.

The milky white of calf then thigh—I see
the liquid receive her, communicate
her movements in a ripple. A white foam
adorns and ornaments the gulf she is,

gives definition to her. I had stopped
to see her bathe her body there, the clothes
fell in the water slowly. It's the space

between her and the dress where all the air
my song vibrates is found. Merely remove
it and the mystery is then revealed.

The ungoverned Sun got unbuttoned

The ungoverned Sun got unbuttoned
by the revolving earth. A flower rose
amongst the weeds beneath the river oak
standing in the morning. I unzipped

my pants; she did a Sun salutation
on the wet grass. I thought I saw the world
reveal itself to us in the quick play
of shadow on the sod. It's like her skin

gives light to everything, removes the stars
from heaven with its brightness. I undress
her like the turning earth undresses day

and plays with her. The lawless Sun unfolds
itself about me, nude light envelops
the order I've become amongst decadence.

You're like a book I can't remember, words

You're like a book I can't remember, words
upon the tongues of poets, many pages
indecipherable without the help
of a librarian. The Borges song

about a compass; you are like a book
that tells the time, a clock that reads the Sun
above us loudly. When I turn the page
again something's revealed I hadn't known

or hoped to know before. Remind me of
myself in the small articles you use
to define things, make me indefinite

among the analytic. How you move
and live is like the reading of my mind
objectified and dancing through the world.

I always loved you. It tore me apart

I always loved you. It tore me apart
the way the luminaries were in different
directions. All the words within the letters
I had wrote; the letters of the words

in sequences. This real dynamic love
within vernacular reconstitutes
itself in trines, builds up geometries
about us. Does a circle have no sides?

A cycle in a cycle in a cadence,
this propagating, self-similar nonsense
I'm just imagining. The turning love

of verse is like the stars that move above
us in calendric patterns. I have always
loved you in the ways that I do now.

God! I need you like the rhythm of

God! I need you like the rhythm of
a song needs dancers. I need you like the
blue birds need the canopy of oak
to house themselves. I need you like the earth

needs rain, the cows need shade, the bayous need
the gulf to flow into. I would just be
a senseless sentence without the terse grammar
you impose upon my words. I thank

the Sun for rising, the dynamic clouds
for moving water, the white light itself
for showing me your thighs. Give me the song

you are inside, let me hold the music
that beats within your heart, cause heaven knows
I am nothing but dust here without you.

I poured the beer out. The awful smell

I poured the beer out. The awful smell
lingered on the porch for a few minutes
longer than I'd hoped. I threw away
a couple plastic bags. I had to sweat

whatever soul I had out through the pores
of my forehead. I love you when I know
that I won't find the book you are in any
shelf or library. O give me reason

to shine for you that isn't reasonable.
Remove me from the heat and sweat I've known
for all too long now; take the poverty

I've suffered; fill me up like a vessel
with all your spirit. I'm the poor liquid
that seeps into the earth for plants to drink.

I can not think of anything but you

I can not think of anything but you,
the rain reminds me of you. I've no thought
without you understanding, there's no day
I live without your light extending to

the horizon, illuminating leaves,
being what the flowers grow up to.
I address words to no one other than
you whom I love, my ever-turning movement

is oriented by you. I can't make
sense of the world without you; you're the words
I use to know the mind; you give the names

a definition. O the clarity
I feel when I'm surrounded by the broad
consciousness you are is without value.

I don't know what it is. I'm thinking that

I don't know what it is. I'm thinking that
the conceits of the poems aren't strong enough.
The metaphors are weak, I lose the focus
of a sharpened song in this madness.

The TV distracts me; coherent verse
is something I am fussing to resolve
and reconstitute. Modernity
wallows in this senseless, existential

chaos. I can't even think about
the nonsense that I used to write, or not
quite write at all. This awful, whirling game

convinced me that I was original
or had me fighting for a novel way
to represent something that isn't novel.

How odd I am within you! Whirling mad

How odd I am within you! Whirling mad
into another verse, another song
about the turning of the spheres. How will
I ever find an order in the chaos

that is material things? The different shapes
don't fit into each other, ratios
are not of whole numbers. In a fiction,
it wouldn't seem so weird were I to fly—

a lucid spirit—into the dark clouds
and pronounce thunder. The lazy pattern
that is my politics is of the sort

only irrational men understand.
The strangeness of the dancing verse I make
is inexplicably forgettable.

What am I even without you? A dream

What am I even without you? A dream
that's half-remembered, a senseless impression
that's out of time? Without a person how
would I know that I am at all? I slept

an odd cycle of hours, the books fell
when I stepped off the bed. I couldn't find
the meaning anywhere, I stopped to see
if it was the right page. I quickly woke

and realized the soft and vibrant skin
she has exposed. Who else might understand
the scattered verse I am? Without silence

there is no music, without the brief whirl
of images in mind while I'm asleep,
perhaps I would be no me at all.

Ascetics down the bayou on the left

Ascetics down the bayou on the left
in pirogues. The way the wide egret sounds
when it lands in the mud—I see the end
of things because of you, you tell me what

I am to be. My thin and frail body
wanders in a spectacle of light
revolving, vortices of energy
are unobjectified in a madness

of meaning. In the cypress knees a small
songbird pecks at the bugs, the buzz of one
moves by my right ear. Hungry, I'm amused

by how she will not say what she has known
for so long now! I'm laughing, I suppose,
because the river continues to flow.

It's hard to write for you. I'd rather read

It's hard to write for you. I'd rather read
the water of the tub, or fill you in
on yesterday's discussion. I don't know
grammar the way you do, but if I sang

instead of thought—the ripples of the pool
are spreading out. They had a story where
the self was unapproachable, the real
was incommunicable. The way you leave

the book open on the porch, how you leave
the room were in, move in a language of
soft sighs and laughs. The way you left me once

and for all was a thing beyond telling.
Yet, it's still told in every whirling age
and every era in a million modes.

You're the sacred history that inspires me

You're the sacred history that inspires me;
you're the sacred space I move within
and without, like a shrine that is designed
to note movement of light. The whole building

is laid upon the earth as a device
which tracks the travel of the Sun, a broad
and illustrated calendar. I heard
history is rhetorical, persuade

me of your story. The observed facts
wove into narrative, personal accounts
of sufferings. The language of the past

is like a fountain giving life to my
dull words; I sing the old ones, imitate
your being in another writer's song.

I am kissing January now

I am kissing January now—
juniper, hot chocolate on my scarf
somewhere in City Park. I used to move
through halls and doors freely, to know the way

the leaves crushed under her. A couple months
before she left, I rattled the bird call
on top of the mountain where all paths lead.
Backward, the book became a poem, winter

held summer's place. The crisp air of solstice
rang saturnine, a churning fire popped
into the cold. Her tongue was there. I sat

somewhere. I forget just what I had thought
about her eyes' effulgent love, but now
the taste of gin and tonic I recall.

She articulates a dress like I a word—

She articulates a dress like I a word—
she fills it out, gives body to its form,
breathes life into its folds. I take the air
into my chest, my mouth is made a round

space to vibrate. Without her underneath
her clothes the words have no meaning, the dress
falls limp without the arms and legs, the curves
of her supporting it. She changes clothes

and pronunciation, the consonants
move on the ends of vowels. The motion
she is beneath the cloth is the obscured

reality of love. Personally,
I know her gross body, the roundedness
of throat, backness revealed in recitation.

The notes that the bird leaves upon the air

The notes that the bird leaves upon the air
still early. The Sun above east awakes
the blue jays, cardinals, all manner of
articulated song. The maple sees

the new day, feels the dew evaporate
from her surfaces. I count the simple tones
they make, try to map where the calls come from
in the disparate trees about me. I

roll in the shadows of the oak outside
remembering the verse of Shakespeare. When
her eyelids open and I see the color

of her iris, I lose all the words
I dreamt of in the night, the ones I thought
would bring me rest in her beginning day.

How the thin sheets just hold her shape. The cold

How the thin sheets just hold her shape. The cold
side of the pillow, little hairs in crescents
write across the bed. I am alone
in morning, only Buddha hears my snore,

my self rolls in the sheets without another.
Most in need of love at simple dawn,
I burn for her. I wipe the sleep from eyes,
forget my dreams. To smell her when she is

still slumbering, I linger at her shoulder
careful to make a sound. Who made a bed
for one? The quiet sounds the TV makes

are all that fill the room. Give me the art
you are when day is breaking, give me skin
to taste and a warm body to behold.

Most in need of love at simple dawn

Most in need of love at simple dawn
when birdsong carries far. I awake from
a brief dream where we were north of the lake
in some stream with a turtle. I roll into

a stack of books that tumble to the floor.
To taste your kiss would be my morning coffee,
to see you open your fair eyes at dawn
is like watching the bright and rising Sun

bring love to every land. A terse aubade
is made by a ceiling fan, all my clothes
slide silently on wood floors. When you rise

to meet the day, I have no image of
love that suffices besides you. The way
you sit up in the bed and covers fall.

The nimble stars are playing in the dusk

The nimble stars are playing in the dusk
of summer, the humidity is higher
than it was last year. At two o'clock
it rains over the bayou. There are cows

that crouched out there during the torrents of
the hurricane. Sometimes I see them in
fat groups beneath the trees. I go to sleep
while she is playing outside, the light falls

across the mirror like the clothing that
she wears obscures her skin. She reads my heart
and then demands of me a penitence

that I have yet to know. The lazy cows
snore when it rains a little, in the fog
of early morning I can hear them roll.

I quickly climbed the tree behind the house

I quickly climbed the tree behind the house,
put my bare feet against the bark of branches
in the river oak. The setting Sun
reflected off the clouds. I saw my love

in the quick change of seasons, thunderstorms
illuminated the August horizon.
I move through a wet paint that is the world
growing like tender plants, extending leaves

toward the light. In the still tree, I dreamt
about her letters from the mountains, how
she ran to throw her self on me the time

I had been away. The world from in
the canopy of river oak revolved
illusorily. I meditated.

She was not a woman but a world

She was not a woman but a world
of possibilities. A broad philosophy
spelled out in propositions, tangled language
resembling mystical paradox

from the East. I meditated on
what she was not: a single self, a girl
whose private existence did not contain
whole continents, rainbows and waterfalls,

the cries of seals, the dance of paradise
in falling leaves. I heard the sound she made
moving about. She wasn't woman but

a world that lived in me, a kingdom whose
bright wealth extends beyond the consciousness
of the wisest of Buddhas in the land.

She was not a woman but a world

She was not a woman but a world
to move within. The birds that rode the air
were thoughts she had, the trees on the horizon
realized her feeling. She was far

beyond the grasp of maps or books or words,
uncaptured by the hands of painters, free
of the yoke of sovereigns. I traverse
her lands, the verdant valleys that unfold

into her gulfs. The wisps of water vapor
moving in her atmosphere—she is
not a woman but a turning world

in spheres. I read her temperate degrees
in quicksilver, the odalisque she is
absolves me of this vulgar vanity.

Among the moving Sunlight of the room

Among the moving Sunlight of the room
I hear her cook. The fridge door clatters shut
as ice cubes hit the floor. Remember when
her little dress made that soft, lazy sound

on the pillows? I didn't know I had
a love like that, a word for lust, a lust
for word, but when she kissed me I aspired
slowly for the Sun. A lotus comes

up from the mud, through the cloudy water,
pierces the surface. Out in the air
I am a smell as free as subtle things,

I am the light that can never be grasped,
described nor represented. She had spoke
the mystery into my future psalms.

Several circles littered on the page

Several circles littered on the page,
the flickering of Sun between the leaves
in eclipse. I heard the crescent Moon
is multiplied by many pin-hole cameras

giving dazzling effect. Within the dim
I witness yet another occultation;
now―transformed―I laugh about the books
and how they're wrought. The iron in the Quarter

folds and curves like flowering embroidery;
a vision I had had, a prophecy
that the car wouldn't start. I'd rather say

the music is me, I have now no choice
but to sing; I heard a Sufi said,
"Is anybody here but my beloved?"

She wasn't an idea nor a map

She wasn't an idea nor a map
of etymologies, geographies
confused. She wasn't in a word or name
for anything, she wasn't found in paint

in a museum. I have looked through many
dictionaries and encyclopedia
without a trace of her. I'd only thought
that once I'd apprehended the vague none

she is. Yet now I search no longer in
the crooked tomes, perverse and vulgar sound
of narratives for her. Within my heart

no ideal will suffice, no little poem
contains the virtue of her watery eye
gazing upon me from beyond the text.

Above the changing mountain atmosphere

Above the changing mountain atmosphere
the sky shifts colors. I am not my self
but someone else, a hollow instrument
that carries song blown into it from some

outside source. The spectra of a verse
unfolds above the world in a texture
resembling a robe of wool. Sufis
whirl and sing and whirl; they remember

beloved in all words and in all things.
Glad of the hummingbird and of the bees
that pollinate the cucumbers, glad for

the egrets on the bayou. I observe
the turning weather of this humble planet
and sing about the vehicle I am.

A bronze Italian woman; Claudia

A bronze Italian woman; Claudia
lying on her stomach in the barn,
her soft shoulders moist in the white light
of morning. I had heard her in the breeze

that moved above the sphere, saw her in the
silent stars that filled the sky. To taste
that fruit, the wine, olives, purple flowers
opening, to sense the surfaces

the Sun reveals to me. I always knew
I loved her cause I couldn't put my mind
on anything beside her once I had

perceived her there. Her stomach on my palm
rose and fell, the warm blood in her skin
flowed through her legs and arms back to her heart.

In muddy heat a little down the bayou

In muddy heat a little down the bayou
grows a river oak. The sturdy tree
unfolds its leaves just like a song book
orchestrates tones. I hear across the pasture
the sleepy cows, above the floating birds
draw circles in the sky. Behind the house

are green beans, okra, my brother's clubhouse
with warping boards. Once the flowing bayou
crossed the road, only a nimble bird
could move over the land. Up in the trees
I hear them singing songs, in the pasture
I see them in formation. In the book

my grandma got about this place―a book
that tells the history of this earth, the houses
where fishermen lived, the prairies, pastures,
homesteaded dirt along the moving bayou―
are endless stories. We ran in the trees
behind the school, I called us little birds

because I always see two. Long-legged birds
were on the side of the road; the buried books
and photographs were soggy, the tall trees
gave shade to us as if they were the house
about us. She jumped into the bayou
in her underwear; beyond the pasture

is the lake, the gulf. In that same pasture
I see us making love―the flying birds
reflected on the surface of the bayou.
I put it in a song or in a book
and left it in the closet at the house.
She did the henna on my arm―a tree

curling outward, a broad and brown tree
giving shade to the cows in the pasture.
We made love in the grass behind the house
and wondered how the hollow bones of birds
tell them the weather. I read her the book
backwards, the Sun dipped into mirrored bayou,

we slept beneath the tree. A quick blue bird
rode heat above the pasture; my thin books
can't hold the house nor express the bayou.

To move about her like a house. I love

To move about her like a house. I love
the halls and doorways, the way the floor squeaks
when she walks on it. The first door around
the corner is a darkening bedroom,

a couple Buddhas on the windowsill,
a dozen books. I undressed her there,
moved from room to room with the freedom
of an enlightened being. It has proved

impossible for me to loose myself
from the architecture that she is,
the nectar of illuminating Sun

that pours on me. I want to live inside
her self, to move the way she moves, to love
the wanderlust that frees her from these walls.

Her hair moved like a curtain. On her toes

Her hair moved like a curtain. On her toes
she looked out of the window. I withdrew
my expectation of returned love―
the sphere whirled where I stood, another song

moved across my lips, danced in my ears.
Look at her curve about the room the way
a script makes peaks and valleys on a page.
The value of her lines―I read contrast

between her many chapters. It's as if
the narrative is vaguely labyrinthine,
the characters are hard to distinguish,

the definition isn't infinite.
Her body is disclosed by careful reading
of the leaves that make up her content.

Still the warm, confusing reality of her

Still the warm, confusing reality of her
whirls around me like a clock. I am
reminded of her insides, many triangles
made of turquoise hanging from her ears,

her long neck. Jewels and elephants
ornament her frame. She makes a sound
when I breathe on her there, a heavy cloud
looms in the distance. She first made me sing

in libraries about a bright beloved
annihilating all with her brilliance.
Rebirth―her spinning dance brought renaissance

to me, made of me a sure patriarch.
Scattered beads of moisture on her legs
like rhymes―jade, ruby, porcelain.