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Swallowing Light
For Jonathon
I
From out of nowhere the stars
And stars for miles
burn their time
In an allegiance of desire,
A gift of longing
That is constantly being born.
Music
alone remains, a guitar
Stringing the moments
Into some kind of semblance.
What
can I do for you,
The only son of a deserter who gave me
Goosebumps and vertigo by moving too fast.
How often you
wished on stars
That were already dead.
With all of your effort you will not burn
Like those stars, shining years
later
In the atmosphere falsely,
The beggars crawling from their shelter
To count on you.
Perhaps one day
the lovers you left dry
Will come to moisten your black mouth
With fruit and rain,
To finally conclude the red
Initiation
of your kiss.
For you there will be no shortness of breath.
For you there will be no singular suffering,
Only the tide receding permanently,
The brown and purple
of nostalgia
Tainting the strange and the familiar.
You will not be like those others
Eating their hearts out
for religion or love.
Your hounds, damp with nature,
Will prove loyal. All of them.
II
The future is everything.
I'll give you divinations.
Overwhelmed
on some gold November night.
You will enter a chapel for warmth
And hear Ave
Maria sung from the balcony
By an intoxicated, melancholy man.
You will laugh, sing a few lines,
Wipe a solitary
tear from your eye.
It will not be your beloved who discovers
The constellation
of beauty marks on your body,
But a nameless whore
You met at the fruit stand on the corner.
The past is everything.
I'll
give you recollections.
Back when the sidewalk cement on Main Street
In your home town had yet to dry,
When you
were still a humble boy
You carved your name with a stick
And left one hand print.
This was your only immortality.
Years
later the recurring scene
From that Plutonian summer of our reunion
Is one lone sunflower towering
By the kitchen
sink and falling.
With the glass over and over.
Picking it up each time
I felt small,
Like Alice when she obeyed the note
That made her shrink.
I continued that way,
Unable to reverse
alienation
As another raw season
Healed over the last.
III
In the hour of confrontation and cleansing
Your skin
was soft as the feathers
On the breast of a newborn bird,
As the down of a dead dandelion
Children make wishes
on.
Your hand reached mine in a gesture
Of understanding. Shapeless and cool
My palm felt against yours,
My
tears staining the ivory of your sleeve.
Your hand reached mine,
The hand of the failed lover.
From beyond the walls
I heard a pigeon with two
hearts,
A restless dog in the orange groves
Where the fruit leaned gently,
Polished by the moon.
I heard the
old Spanish woman sing softly
On the front steps,
The tapping of a warped screen door.
I heard all the questions
your silence was hatching.
I hardly moved from the edge of the bed
Before daybreak
came.
South forever.
The cawing of immaculate black crows.
How you slept soundly on and on
Into the dark courtyards
and rising grey pillars
Of the next evening
Without once changing position.
In this I understood
The sum of
your inheritance,
How the mornings were ashen
When we awoke already settled
Like the frozen figures of Pompeii,
Unharmonious
and overcome.
(Meanwhile the sisters warning me again
Of shadows and tragic adventure,
Mockingly in one ear)
What
a comfort they were.
Why this burning then?
My meditations were simple, my confessions candid.
I was soft in
the negotiations.
I did not censor the obscene.
I made music out of you.
I made poetry from you.
IV
The
passage of time witnessed
The skull evolving, the warm blooded
Creatures blooming and growing extinct.
The human
touch proved to be a dangerous act.
I am knee deep in the history of things,
Contemplating the conclusion, the nature
Of
farewells and chance meetings.
From out of nowhere the stars
And stars for miles burn their time
In an allegiance
of desire.
Here we go.
South forever.
The End of Desire
The door is ajar
with an amber light inside.
There
is a white gardenia in my hair
and I am waiting
for your mouth
to spell me out.
Like diamond dust the snow
fell
that night I held
your face in my hands
and told you
sin isn't rare anymore.
Why I dreamed there was a serpent
in
my heart
coiled in the shape
of your initials.
Every home
turns to leaves and ashes.
Dirty reflections
and
dry offerings.
After the end of desire
even birdsong
had become an unnatural thing.
Martyr, Do You Dream?
Martyr,
do you dream of what if
while watching the girls
conspire about love on the corner?
You are caught up in symbols
Of
obscenity.
But Sweetheart, if you were a bird
black & swift above the horizon
you would know how small
the
heart of a stranger
can be.
It Is Only
As
a child you grew
Rare and wild-
One cheek toward the sun,
The other shadowed like a moonflower
At a lunar eclipse.
Now
it is only your voice
and the bells of Saint Matthews,
and the gospel after midnight.
Now it is the coming of Autumn
and
the slow declension
of a dying light.
Now it is only
the silence of thee,
the prayer of an old man,
the
tattooed crucifix
and the quarter moon
hanging like a scythe
in the trees.
Now it is only your voice
that returns to me.
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