What the expression became.

The future backed away from us,

Wrinkling saying so, stooping

To fit the aches--

Saying, "Louder."

The ears' hammers became paperweights

While the dead pets became memorabilia of

Mid generation confusion, as each side sought

A common language to

Argue in.

The soul was common, and like a body it was

Blemished with a shadow.

"I wish you would speak up"

Became

"I wish it was your fortune at my bare feet as had never been once before."--

And

"You needn't say anything. old wall. I understand."

The luxuries.

For JW, who once rode a horse into an electric fence.

I have finally made myself happy,

Watching a bird land

On a wooden lamp.

There's a writing desk with some papers feathered across the top,

Beside

Which--and beneath its shadow,

Lies a sleeping brown dog.

I have achieved my own variable record--and the riches in

The window are all wan and hungry to me.

I need never ache to join the half-blind path of the others,

Nor to be young like before.

The invisible.

For Robert Serra.

If you trace the bird out of the tree

Its hesitation will go undetected at first.

It limps from the solids then tumbles up-

Ward.

Once a mystery is true it places the non-believers first in line.

But non-believers--it took work and money and

Belief

To accommodate you.

You have tried to worry. But seriously, don't!

There where magic gets into you

The buoyant clawling flickers,

Forward.

To each governance flies a tell to the mystery it evokes...

The 1950's.

People who once lived

Here

Staggered everywhere they went. They staggered on

Their way to privilege, and they staggered on their way to abuse it.

They staggered to be drunk for the light,

Inventing mementos like iced tea, and the notion of afternoon--

All diversionary tactics.

And maybe once in a while still and alone one said to another:

"My love must be a kind of blind love."

Very important.

Death, make a match for me.

I mistook the wallpaperer

For the architect.

And I mistook the pig

For the guest.

Stay with me while I watch you.

Less startled than I,

Still, given over to

The staff of surrenders.

I am their white flags, all their white flags.

Stay with me while I bulk in the wind and watch

You.

Central Pennsylvania.

I wish this lamp worked through the storm!

There is a boastfulness, half explored--as if sleep was an excuse!

Where do I go when I fall asleep?

And what girl did I miss, surveying the fence-posts

Across which sheep casually roam?

If I have to fall to Earth, I'd like to fall here.

When a girl wakes up you can feel it.

Her toes lift up off the sheets--

They are lighter than the snow.

Haiku for two.

See! Both landscapes owe

A little to the eyes--Blue

Among one, the boat.

Haiku of one.

A hostile witness

Learns his echo, captively.

Kept, he speaks it once.

Amber.

Can't you see the cave is dark where the search enters

And where the bodies go?

People hearing the response are the echo.

Philip Guston (American recent)

People responding are the echo

And

People hearing the response are the echo.

One part of civilization rises with the brim of love.

And

One is always catering.