Southwest Hospital, Main St.

Our motto, carved, glares out of every wall:
“That we may not lose sight of the vision.”

The lights are always on here, even when it is dark.
No end to the bleeding and dying.
The sirens wail endlessly, endlessly the cars
go out to bring the bodies in for dressing.
The hospital is understaffed and running
on vision and a dire urgency
of need. We do not lose sight--but in this silence
between the sirens, in the dim flickering
of humming lights, our vision tunnels.
There is no rest, here. Always the call
to another room, another arrival
needing
fresh sheets new bandages
set bones stitches relief of
pain strengthening exercise
nourishment compassion
Who answers these must never call, must never
need

in this place--O harsh
the many mornings,
and darker it becomes.
O have we never known our vision?

O the thousand cries in the dark, unheard.
O the stoop behind every door, before
opening another one, until
the day was over.
O the seven times
too late it was to speak, and none took heed
because there was no room.

Too late. No room.
O blindness of the seeing.

All the smiles propping up a weary mouth.
So much fraternization, so much insurance.
Such pressure to be fit, to be effusive,
to be formless
and void, to be conformed
to all that is sterilized and fit
for human consumption--for the staff
must never bleed
in this place, else they would infect
the injured.

“That we may not lose sight
of the vision.”

“that I may receive my sight.”

Tell Me So

You're so much talked about.
People think
they know you, that they
have a grasp on you, an angle,
an in.

They use you as a mascot,
a notary,
a patron.

Something you said you cared about
was your name being used.
Vanity.

Other people think you're one of those,
the golden ones who claim you, who seem
to have a claim on you,
who wield your name like a stack of bills
or affidavits,
and look down on, or past,
these others. They think that you might hate them, if you cared
to see them at all.

But this, too,
is a vanity
mirror, which when flipped
upside-down, gives the perspective
which you have:
that those who stamp your name
on their warrants and causes, who drop it
unsubtly in conversations,
who lay loud claim to you--
have, perhaps, acclaim;
but not yours.

And that those who expect
to be passed over or struck down
by a look from you,
are those whose eyes you are seeking,
whose names you wish to claim.
And your claim
is the only one that holds, so
you tell me.

We can't hold
in our heads a true grasp
of you, though we talk much
about you. The way
to know a person
is to know
a person.

Can I talk to you?
I'd really like to know who
You are,
really.

I want to drop these
counterfeit bills
and promissory notes
I've forged or
been handed,
and I want to learn your name.

What it looks like when you sign it
with your own hand
on a king's wall
or the carved-out slab
from a mountain's side.
A hand I can't forge, a script
I can scarcely comprehend.

So tell me.
I want to know, and
I don't know what
I want to know.

So tell me.
Do you love me?
Tell me so.

In the House of the Lord

You come at me with fists
closed rapping, pounding,
blow upon blow upon
 my heart asking
why will it not open?

You come at me with eyes
and lips spitting purpose,
duty, performance
action, principle,
right.

How you must know
I am none of this.
How you can know
and yet permit me
entrance
I wonder.

There are days I catch a breath
of freedom, of the air outside,
that breathes there is
a balm in Gilead.
I take that breath with me
when I step back into this chamber.

It lasts a sweet short while,
while the closeness of this tomb
presses it slowly out
from my lungs, too tired
to hold breath.

Battle Hymn of the Intrepid Faithful Believers

Listen up, you serious Christians,
you on whom we all rely--
when we need a strong example,
weak-willed fools need not apply.

Damn you fools, in your depression--
 get your faces off the floor.
God despises lazy brutes
who cower from the battle's fore.

Damn you sorry rabble, in whom
lack and failure coincide--
Listen up, you slobs, the Bible works
if you'd so much as tried.

As for all you gold star Christians
winning souls, redeeming time;
we are giving you a mission:
Get the rest of them in line.

God rewards your utter patience.
When His kingdom's glory dawns,
you'll be wearing golden medals;
they'll be lucky to get bronze.

Honest work. Just reward.
That's the way to please the LORD.

Stubble

I rage and rest.

I think of you
breaking the twigs of my nest.
The carpet threads, the new-
fallen hairs you tore
with clipped control, and flew.

 I famished more
than on the first fair crack
of crying dawn, when I was young and poor.
You whistled down the seaming on my back,

crackled my wet mouth with food
that overspilled like grain from a fat sack.
It was warm on that bough, and good.

Alone and still, I heard the tenderest sound.
I feathered in your moss, your splintered wood,
and grew. You ripped me out: 
 clawed, cast me down--
I feed on stones, flail heavy with the ground.

Fighting

It's something like a desert, something

withering of throat and limbs. The blood's slow

caking from the edges, saving the heart.

It goes a little way, still warm. A thin thrum

of wings, darkening.

and there's that place

by the shrub, where you left him

like a hump of earth, the shadows of two leaves

stretching over his dry lids. It's the bones of something.

Stooping into something like a well,

a brown shallow with a rim

of sallow mud, speckled with dead

wings, and filling your skin.

Waked

Father, your snow falls

like leper's sores,

like scales from blinded eyes.

Father, it falls like

your bread from heaven.

Your every word

falls like that,

and washes--

Oh, Father, the crust

falls from my dead heart.

The earth breaks

and the tomb creaks open.

--as white as that,

when the smear

and the maggots have been on me

not for three days,

but from the womb!

Flicker

I saw a flicker at the window today. A flash
of orange, hornet in his beak. He looked
at me, and bit his catch in two. We paused
a moment at the glass, considering
what creature moved upon the other side
lifting the wings or arms the Lord has made
for flight--
                  or in my case, but to adjust
the curtain for a better view of him
at which movement he fled with his two wings.

Forged

Because the men had work they meant

to do, they pulled two strips of metal

from a wall

in back of an old church

(surely no use to anyone there)

and carted them back

and laid them flat

on their anvil. One of these

had come without much prying. It lay

still, eager to be hammered

 to forceps

or a wheel. The other piece

had taken a great portion of an hour

to wrench free; mayhap it had thought

the wall its destiny. This one had bent

a little in the struggle. Thus it lay

at angles with the anvil, on its side

and seemed to tremble as the hammer rose

and quiver as it fell.

The blows were swift

and unrelenting blows. The men

knew what they were about, and soon

the first had taken their desired shape.

They set it to its task, and turned again

to straightening the other for the same.

They put it in the fire for a bit.

The room was dark. The crooked metal lit

a small place on the anvil, where it writhed

as though it felt

the heat, and feared

to feel the blow.

                     How hard it was to shape. The anvil rang

and rang and rang and still the metal bent

and twisted every way

but which they meant. The sparks

flew up like hundredfolds of dying stars.

Perhaps they beat too much upon one side,

because at last it folded

on itself. And when they sought to beat it out

again, it cracked along the flaw,

shuddered,

and snapped. The crack was long.

The metal was too weak.

            Ah, well, the men said. It was our mistake.

The flaws were in its core. A solid rod

is what we ought to use. We'll start again

with good materials. With this they tossed

the broken halves into the dust

outside.

They waited there a good part of a year,

brittle with weather and the rust that grew

with every rain, until a Hand that knew

its work took hold:

plucked them from the ground

carried them home

laid them by its fire

felt them over closely for each flaw

lowered them into the hottest flame

placed them on the anvil end to end

hammered evenly on every side

fused the ends together into one

and when the room was still, the metal too

was quiet, resting, ready 

to be shaped.

God Says "Wait"

In the late harsh dark

set rigid as the point

of a compass

made of ice,

one breath is pain.

It is cold like fear. It is

fear, swaddled and laid beside

my flesh, like a stillborn child

that I might get warm again.

I wake a demon. Not waked

complete, but with hands

wrinkled empty like paper

thoraxes, hanging claws.

Sleeping screamless and open-mouthed,

burning like the void,

my eyes are hell.

I say please take it,

the bone in my throat.

I say please.

God says “wait.”

In the bright harsh day

alone,

it is near as death. It comes

to my ear and breathes.

I say please take me,

I won't sleep. I say

please.

That House

was built by my father, stone upon stone.

Later wood was laid on, and new stories

and rooms for all the children. A back gate

and an alcove. We were happy there.

In that house, deep in the walls,

termites were given

in marriage and were fruitful

and ate of the fruit of those trees

which built that house.

We noticed, bit by bit. Shavings

fell from the corners

where the walls met. The floors gave

gently when we stepped.

But we didn't mind. It's old,

we said. Old houses bend,

and lose things.

Then my father

dropped his match and

the flicker caught the dust

crumbling from the door

and crawled lightly

up the wall while we held

our breath and hoped

it wouldn't grow.

The den went first,

where we gathered. The coffee table sighed

and turned over, charring

in strips. We all left for our rooms.

It's not a hungry fire. It burns slowly,

one wall at a time. Smoke sticks

in our lungs, and the dust

falls grey like ash. Outside,

my father's well laps cold

under the earth. Soon,

soon it will all give way

but the stones.

Chewing a lot of cud these days...

...makes some rotten butter. Now there's a mixed metaphor.

These Distracted Prayers

Oh, my eyes
are on the carpet today. It's dirty,
full of worn threads and speckles of
spilled things and flattened by
my ragged feet, my ragged feet. Oh,

Oh, my feet
I'm ripping up today. They're filthy, worn
tough from walking over this floor and
walking over this floor and walking,
walking over this floor. Oh,

out you go, feet. Enough of you, little
ugly things, misshapen toes and dirt
in the nail-corners. Oh,

babies with hands like caterpillars curling up
when you touch them. Cats
curling up when you don't touch them, sleeping
for hours alone. Hands
in their listless mooning, searching
for lost keys.

I don't want tomorrow, I don't want tomorrow
to come now. I'm tired,

I'm tired. I don't want
tomorrow to come.

My nose slopes down from my eyes, always
in the way of anything, its tip. My mouth
I only see when I stick out my lip.

Recovering Lost Ground...

I haven't been writing much, and I've been thinking even less lately. One thing contributes to another, I'm sure. Wherefore it's time to take up the torch again, shake off this lazy feeling, and try to regain the ground I've lost while I've been lying down on the job. It won't be brilliant, but it will be something. These last few days I've been attempting to write something every morning. These somethings have turned out to be a series of personal psalms, most not worth sharing. But the most recent of these reminded me a little, while I was writing it, of the emotionally honest, impulsive, almost unconscious way I used to write before I knew what writing was. Which is to say, it wasn't great--but if I have to start over from the beginning, it's not bad. For a beginning.

So we're going back to the old song and dance, the old rhyme and rhythm.

Psalm the 21st of July. A Psalm at Morning.

In this softer dark we rise and look
with sleepened eyes and elbow crook.
Sheep-slow, but unabashing heads we rove
our morning-skins as curious as love.

We're dust to dust. Our particles of grey
array us end to end, and we arrest
a wrinkled forehead on an open chest,
and pressed dry lips into a smiled kiss.

O fingers to the bone we are transformed!
and love has drunk us deeper than good wine
kept cold in cellars. I am yours and mine
you are. An ocean. Fingers in the brine.

Alone, the sun becomes a rosy spot
behind the kitchen curtain, like a thought
that ripens unattended, it will grow.

Alone, this cup is empty,but the rim
is streaked and streaked with holy.

At Table

I.

My God, how long

has it been?

Drinking strong

liquor,

thinking wrong.

Let me cut you a

deal. You take

this hand, I'll pay

up.

But listen: next time,

warn me. I'll fold.

Do you know, how long

it has been?

I've been taking small

doses, getting rich

fat elbows.

Probably they're

imprinted

with this table's edge.

This wine's a good

vintage, have you seen

the grapes?

Bigger than life, been growing

in this hothouse

for--

My God. How long

has it been?

If you're going to dig up

this seed,

you might need

a thicker spade.

II.

Concubines. Ever thought

of those?

What is this, why do

you give me this—smell it, it's

fragrant.....Taste it,

it's good.

What did you expect--

gratitude?

Charity loaves. You rub it in

our faces, and what can we do

but eat?

III.

All right, I'll pay. But don't think

you own me;

nothing's free.

Oh, no. You're not unearthing

old wounds tonight,

I said I'll pay.

It doesn't matter how long.

I'll pay.

You know how

this will end,

don't you.

I'll go to bed with you,

next morning I'll

be back here.

What does it

take

to break a heart?

Think about it:

concubines.

Emily in sleek Shakespeare, intertwined with tufts of Blake

O Emily
of fire

transcending
veriest haven

of contentment

To be
O Emily
that does not question

whether 'tis nobler in the mind
but sleeps--perchance, she dreams

and, unsupposing--ends them
aye, there's the rub
the consummation Emily, too, has wished

When we have shuffled off
she licks her paws. There's the respect--
that makes her portent Emily of life

when she herself might our quietus make
with a mere shifting

Now is the winter of our discontent made summer by
this Emily--a spark, a sprite
in the closets of the night


But Emily is shaped for sportive tricks
O Emily--a wanton ambling nymph,
O Emily, fur-tailed, of fair proportion

what,immortal Emily
thou framed in gleeful witchery

who spied
her shadow
in the sun

and made of it imaginary puissance
that did affright the air

admit me Chorus to this Emily