itsn't only the painter

who lives on his fingertips

his heart a madder root



and swims from one descended image-mountain to another

scripts in water

imperceptum. inapparence. presence-



does not

apply it's self or optimize


is not persuasive


is equal to contradiction


lies undefended



plays with all cards open all eyes shut


lies likely unestablished.






an ocean opens in memory,


the brain a single thorn
weaving blood

the rain like a release of arrows

the earth like a bloodstained mace

smeared with grass and marrow.

the deer sacrificial. the hunter allegorical.

of constellations chasing constellations.

a tortoise the still soul of a churning ocean.

lectio difficilior.

the warrior shines in his wound

the single bullet revealing an opened red

the rod in his mouth a sun destroying the universe.

the river is a sister of the time of death

carrying away timid warriors to the town

of the king of the dead surrounded by kings

of the dead. the ghosts make wailing sounds.


the hour is the fire taken from the recitation

"as fire is covered by smoke so knowledge is covered with desire" Mbh

the rising son is an especial splendor


cloud and ocean cloud and ocean in lock


a blind man reads the late afternoon light
watches conch shells under water and later
the 16 crescent shaped parts of the moon.


a pilgrimage underwater under moonlight with the night
shining on the rising
moon a crescent on a forehead


the universe roams in all directions with flaming unibrow.

lotus metaphors

lotus charms as that of palms placed together

the red of nail and finger, the shape.

the red flowered lotus is not the dark blue flower.


filaments are lumen which the lotus eye perceives

& the crease of the garment is the interior distress

as one plucked from water, drooping


fragrant, exhalation as of a child's palm-clap


or: a lopped head, or the tip of a tusk, or spear


traveling from one war to another


its sharpness quick growing as lotus in new distant waters.


though the leaf repels, as words made but that do not stick

untaken advice and old remorse.


the night blooming white lotus is a dark complexioned lord

a landlord's end

in the end even the landlord grew intimate


as an old friend he looked at the servant & her children


the lightness, the freshness, o the repressible humanity




seemed as crushed rajnigandha in the dust of this midnight



if he could turn the wheel back-




the ceiling fan's thin-long stem's wide spoke chugs the liquifying heat of summer



(it seems even to hit an odd dizzy buzzed mosquito spilling his blood)



a sad & profound pleasure & meanness & quietness spreads up in him.



he feels after a long time. the present sharp as a shaving nick




all around, a zen udder of consciousness, a deep, cushioned, stained diwan



the drone of the fan is the metronome of his dying




in that stabled emptiness, each labored breath pops



the last flowers of consciousness- they explode his head-artery



his mosquito-blood splotches the haveli walls



is all death parasitic murder?- the children stare into his cataracted eyes



& absorbedly aim their catapult

in reply

FIRST POEM
>
> (from an old manuscript perhaps)
>
> we dislike that you men & w0myn of meane rancke
>
> wear silver buttons at your knees.
>
>
> or that those of greater liberal estate & education
>
> must for no cald blewe reason
>
> tolerate your wearing tiffany horlles & scarfes
>
>
>
> SECOND POEM
>
>
> as fatal thoughts hover
>
> children kiss trees
>
> breath catches an iron lung.
>
>
> faces in imagination's marmalade mist
>
> tapeworm their ways
>
>
> (six months later who would believe?)
>
>
> kisses in relief thread the dawn
>
>
> searching out the needing;
>
>
> flee. do, not talk.
>
>
> THIRD POEM
>
>
>
> tender but not without shape
>
> a single vein in marble virile
> in its solitude even in its
> blockedness, a nerve turfs
> the castle
>
> the sea roils away under
>
> the bay's window
>
>
> fake softness for love.
>
> small but large of gestures & always
> home in a pure raw
>
> mirrored oasis
>
>
> bird-flight
>
>
> skip upons the sea
>
>
> FOURTH POEM
>
>
>
>
> if this tongue's hum were not so
>
> unrelenting
>
>
> who would have the means?
>
>
>
> let the smile remain so
>
>
> metonymizings
>
>
> nothing more
>
>
> not even its
>
> linelike bone between the lips.
>
>
> separately together
> tear by tear
>
>
> feed & flee feed & flee
>
>
> like sad thoughtfulness of quiet
>
> after the excitedmost circus
>
>
> after the folded tent.
>
>
> FIFTH POEM
>
>
>
> the deeper the quiet the
>
> more the tenacity. all sort of things
> happen
> all over
>
>
> dream-poachers:
>
>
> in an iced land of pleasure
> they are most separate
>
> and each, by
>
> tolerating,
>
>
> recriminate
>
>
>

haiti

1. when young she wished to travel far, see skyscrapers

now dead, she'd give her wings as prayer for the surviving


2.a heart stops
just in time

to slip out the rib-cage &

perch

in a stranger's
memory.

ears grow so fine

that they can hear

as debris breaks up all-around

an ant's hapless,

infinite unfinished

rage-full scream-

every man or ant remains virginal to death

public deaths are solitary still

though one can't distinguish

one's numbed hours of pain or loss or rasped breath from another.



as strewn shanties articulate the earth's quake.


3. at night times ever


in an enclosed room,,, mummified as it seems


trapped as all would feel, where prayers are for dustless starlight



make agitations & nuisance & rage. step on the feet of icons.