i stand
on the moon
and know
your heart
like one
who has died
and found
a home
Hughlings Himwich
maritus, pater, magister
Favorite Links
David Chalmers: Fragments of consciousness
The New York Review of Books
Poetry 180
She died today
She died today
broken but strong.
Where are her songs?
Heard by none.
For Sylvia
There is a constellation named for you,
named Miss Blood, named Fear --
there is no lack of names --
you breathe in the hollow spaces
between the stars.
And yet I miss the little you
the girl in you before you became
the fear in all of us,
the little hope, the little dream
that little look that says,
"Help me, please."
For Emily, again
Were the heart round -
and it ought to be -
its echoing sounds
would keep me company.
Is there a secret
to so small a place?
The universe resides
in just such a space.
Through your eyes
Where is love
But in your eyes
So dark I
Lose my way
To you
My mind
A river
Running
To the source
Of night
Where you
Dream
Of one
Who sees
Through your eyes
Like the wind.
The song would sing itself
The song would sing itself
Like the darkness
of the night
The song would sing itself
Were you one
with me tonight.
For Life
You ran free
With nothing
but wind and
hair and skin
To shield you
From all fear --
We long
For your body
For life and
For ourselves.
My Weyward Love
The heart is still
Alive years after
I heard the sirens
Sing of lust and
My weyward love
For you stretched out
Naked on the forest
Ground, like some
Goddess, bequeathed
To my desire
For a truth beyond
That of stone.
Love Song
The wave was
One with the sea
As was her kiss
To one adrift
Kiss upon kiss
Lifts this
poor soul
To song again
For what
Is the sea
But your
parting lips
How close death is . . .
How close
Death is
Just so far
As I desire
And yet
It may come
Of itself
And take
The ring
By which
Life and I
Are bound.
Hurry then
Before I
Cast off
For the sea.
The soul
Seeks aught
But that element
To be free.
For Emily
It's but a drop of rain -
However slight its sum -
It will dissolve the sky
and swallow up the sun.
There is no word as wild as No
There is no word as wild as No
When evening and the sound of bells
A kindness would bestow --
There is no sound as still as truth
when those who shout above the throng
We will not sing your heavenly song --
There are no eyes as dark as thine
that close upon the sea and surge
and find no space, no time, no word.
Soft your hand about my throat
To be in love with death
is to be in love with mystery
and perfection of the human form.
What form that is
I rush to say
your form of grace
your lips of red and green
You taste of apples
and the sea, of endless
song and endless night.
Your eyes so dark
the moon cannot
but fail to see --
O sweet perfection
are you tonight,
soft your breast,
soft your hand
about my throat.
Tiresias
If I could but hear in the song of birds
The foul entanglements of fate
To find the twisted source of hate.
There is a pain like air
There is a pain like air --
I breathe it so --
I rise and fall upon the earth
And take my sleep below.
The Secret of Oceans
We
carry within us
the
secret of oceans swims
in our night,
the deep sky
of our lust for
life, tongue mouth
kiss skin
breast we
rise crying
out for
the shore to
be born.
What else can hold back the sea . . . .
Words
like rivers flow
like rock. What else
is soul but the vein
in the stone
alive
like fire
like blood that runs
to the sun
like this line
breathing, dying, burning.
What else can hold back the sea
but this line?
O muse, bring the night . . .
O muse!
What if I swallowed
the darkness?
I love, you know
I do, the words
that strengthen
the night --
by these words
I live
by these words
I die
by these words
I cry out
for eternity.
O muse, bring
the night
and I will sing.
The Journey
Living as we do
from the inside out
makes the distance
between here
and there too great
for one lifetime
or many.
She Said
The hand at the throat
Falls like a leaf --
The wind carries me away --
Death is not a thief.
What peace there is
Comes at the end
When there’s no one around
No one to pretend.
This poem is dark
Like the truth;
It’s a comfort to say
-- You come too.
When you and I become strange
When howling wolves
Become neurons
And wake existence to itself
Then do I become I.
When words become tissue
And poetry my brain
My grave, my soul
Then do I know myself.
When you and I
Become as strange
As rock and air
Then do I cry out for love.
Someone like you
I can touch you,
smell you, bite
lick taste kiss you
hug and hurt you
and still not be
anywhere near you.
Your eyes have
the distance of stars
Your breath comes cold
out of the North
Your body is
this earth I stand on.
Just how am I suppose
to get to know
someone like you?
Speak not to me of thy moaning . . . .
Earth song I you night the kosmos
By God, it's all the same to me
One continuous orgiastic moment of delight
Dust rain snakes swans nymphs and satyrs
copulate in the air, make rain, and call out our names
yet nobody, nobody, not even me, cries out in ecstasy.
Merum or Pure Wine
Merum aut lacrimae caerulei maris
Ab amantibus aestivis amissae.
(Pure wine or tears of the caerulean sea
By summer’s lovers lost.)
For Her -- by Hieu Windwalker
Whoever is reading
these words of love
Knows they are meant
for her alone.
Sweet poet mine.
Send me your love
On a bird’s wing.
I know full well
she can sing.
I send you mine.
I will watch by my window
as she is watching now.
We must both learn
to walk on wind.
Her song is mine.
Littles
I feel my life
in hand to hold
the grass to be
and so let go.
***************
My beard sweeps the ground
Upon which I go
To take my stand
And to all earthly woe.
***************
Would you so love
That you would stink;
Our faults and fall
Perhaps to cease?
What we do
What freedom there is
is in our search for
truth is an open
ing
All the rest is
what we do
what we do
what we do
Like water
falling
through rock.
Darkest Morning of the Year
Here I am. 12/21.
The darkest morning of the year.
Where? Without you.
Did you know they dropped Walt Whitman's brain?
The gods attach themselves
to us like scars.
Next time the Father
will send his Son
as a dog.
Oscar Wao: Domini canis.
The minotaur is guilt:
The bull's song
as dissonant
as syntax.
A lie is a lie is a lie is like
I love you love you love you love me.
Don't cry.
There is no sacred order.
The Bubblegum Song
What's your name? Choo-choo train
What's your game? Aeroplane
What's your fun? Bubblegum
Bub bub bububub
Bubble gum.
What is real
The moon
upon the water
reveals the darkness:
such is
the perfection
of its light.
The bird
in the forest
sings alone:
such is
the beauty
of its song.
In the darkness
hand reaches
out to hand:
such is
the goodness
of man.
Man
What goes
like a wolf
in the morning
like the sea
in the afternoon
and the wind
at night?
The wolf is desire.
The sea is the journey.
The wind is what remains.
The answer is always man.
Are you a poet?
Thich Nhat Hanh says:
If you are poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud
floating on this sheet of paper.
Sandra Cisneros writes a poem in response to this, the last stanza of which is:
And when you opened your wings to wind, across the
punched-tin sky above a prison courtyard, those
condemned to death and those condemned to life,
watch how smooth and sweet a white cloud glides.
My turn:
Of course, there is a cloud floating here
in the dark, in dreams soft and wild
in the light, in sky tied to mind
like a kite, tirelessly searching
for a word that sounds
like a kiss.
Your turn:
Falling
The stars lift me up
as I fall into night.
There is only dark
light and final joy.
For my students
I walk with you through every day and night;
you on one side and memories of you on the other.
The Casting of Leaves
Who would have thought you were too shy to sing?
Who knew that birds would complain to me,
Asking me where were the singers I promised.
I told them you would come
And sing with them of spring time,
Of love, new life, of nymphs and satyrs dancing in the light,
(O don’t tell me they are the casting of leaves!)
Where is the song for spring?
Spring is in the soul or else it is already fall.
Time perhaps for Frost on the pumpkin.
The Hubbub of Truth
Long before the beginning
There were so many suns
And skies, so many voices,
So many words competing
To be the first that
Truth said, Enough!
And said no more.
She
She unraveled
at my feet
like the sea
like the sea
She rose and wept
and called to me
Now I call to you
with a thousand voices
of a thousand waves.
The Meaning of Love
Beyond the one
is the two
Beyond the two
is the one
Beyond the light
is the breathing
of the wind
and the opening
of the moon
your breath,
your opening
Beyond you and me
is only you.
Screethes and Sciffs
The big wind, press
of leaf, earth-edge
who creeps there
pleynly arcing wur
screethes and sciffs
erth chilly clumfs lern
Dark Like A Kiss
Dark like a kiss or plum,
adored-- her eyes fall
Into light and close.
Verse
If only world could rhyme with verse,
The sound of truth would gently hurt.
The Sea
A tear hung on
Her eyelash
Like the sea.
It is easy
to drown
in a tear.
Wave upon
Wave struck
Her down.
The sea hung
On her eyelash
Like a tear.
For My Students
Let not young souls
be denied the right
To dive like the phoenix
into the night.
Let not the spring
and the song it brings
Yield to those
who no longer sing.
If there is time,
there is also light –
Let not the young
be denied their right.
Rebirth
Sun
worn down
by time
and cloud
skips red
to white,
sky to
bone --
cells of
desire jump
the gap
twixt g
& d:
pure sound,
mountains
make mouths
and the air
we breathe.
Barnabe and the Countessa
Sausage and sacrifice.
Sauerkraut and bad dreams.
Vaseline and you.
When Night Opens Like Spring
When night opens like spring
and stars come out of dark longing
like flowers out of the earth
Then do I close my eyes
and see.
Prologue to the Epic of Gilgamesh
I bring you tidings from Uruk,
Most ancient of cities, and its king,
Gilgamesh, a man two-thirds divine,
A god one-third human,
Who slept in the morning of this life,
Awoke to the radiance of the sun in the afternoon,
And found only the darkness at night.
Engraved on these tablets is man,
Who sleeps, dreams, awakes and then dies.
These tablets of clay are made of men
And will crack and crumble in the element of time.
-- Awake! Awake! How little light there is!
