nights with you have stolen what i am subtle for

have nurtured what i am subtle for

fortune and misfortune ringing the same bell

 

after the war ended i found god watching the rains

fall like ashes of the original presence

whose sorrow is the sea

 

i don't want new songs with old knees

learn listen

my gods are little flowers and your misperception of size

 

to be unleashed from everything loved but love

from all hates but not hate

is to enter the first darkness

and to know the fear words turn away

we are lived by powers we do not understand

 

wrote a palm with two eyes

wrote torn veins in a sleight of hand

wrote: how many poems can blood absorb

 

knowing the nature of change worlds come into existence

carrying water in a blue bucket the sky turns gray

 

rugs drift to the ceiling in the afternoon quiet

sleepers gaze with joy into each other's eyes

 

how green is the rose grown on blood

 

i find myself on a new path through vast yellow skies

i leave and i follow tracks of naked feet 

the truth of one whose heart has never beat

 

your waiting has called me here

white walls and a large bed

where shadow and soul have bled

 

we meet clarity :: when the poem turns dusk

the moon has left her home for the path of little stones

 

 

rain dreams the face of a sleeping lake

mists cross the fleshy border

a poem begins and  goes no further

there is the smell of a man within

 

is it the moon of your body that throbs in my night

 

and light is given voice to speak

and rivers flow from the sea

and oracles can no longer see

and the earth beneath our feet

betrayed by the flesh of shadow

 

spirit over water is the name of this place

where our last possessions are weighed against wind

some threads a few images a few secrets

all we will henceforth have

 

if a gate it will be left open

if a border may the dead guide you over

hole in the sky with mists and cliffs

rhythms of unflowing time