Sailors

All along the concrete sea wall the tide breaks restlessly in measured frenzy
Sensing its domination of earth is approaching and coveting its destination

The rude boardwalk floats damply over the grasping fingers of salt water
Its pilings silent, clogged with must and clamped heavily with a fertile scent

On every bench some child’s hero sleeps off their fearless traipses sonorously
Their cacophony beneath the throaty moans of fog-rich air frosted with salt

Everything lost on the other shore journeys here with purposeless determination
And rejoined with its waterlogged brethren assaults the sea wall on the downbeats.

Burial

down beside the road-edge I waited, sitting in the yellow of the sun
I divided that yellow from the green beneath me, under my hands.

Smoothing it all out, pushing the wrinkles off this American lawn
when it is ready I will rest my head, and I will pull it up over me

How many things, neither yours nor mine, are still slumbering here
where there are no traces of melody, only damp persistent rhythm

in the somnolent mounds of this country there remains for all days
an entire America, which was long ago discovered and forgotten.

Flotsam/Jetsam

The music is questionable: the question is immaterial
Over the roar of the sea: there is only the occasional gull.

A raw squawk breaks time: I have forgotten some memory
That frightens me: it is possible to erase anything, then.

Without any guidepost: I walk up and down the strand
Dividing up all the debris: some flotsam and some jetsam.

Time recedes all around me: soon it rushes back to my feet
Though: this certain ebb and flow dissolves the footprints.

a LOVE poem

I find an urging,
circumspect but sturdy - a heart murmur
growing into a heart-shout.
Feeling this feeling,
this feeling about you
feels to me somehow
like an admirable quality.

I want to find,
(after baffling through thickets
and thickening baffles)
myself at your front door
the front door of you
with probably some warm
orange lamp-glow.

I should like to come inside
and rest awhile
while the snow melts off my pants
in front of your fire

Hats

Some old poems I found,
I found in one of them a line about
words
and what they mean to us,
we who use them
so easily,
like some hat we wear.
But I wear silly hats
these days.

I have long ago hung up
anything that might attract you,
now I am left with only
those hats that repulse you.

When I wear them out in public,
I breathe deeply.
I don't wonder if you'll be looking at me today.

Order

I arrange things a certain way,
no empiricism can quantify
the mathematics of these arrangements.
They are beyond mathematics,
alone in the hall with pseudoscience
and raw compulsion.

Tallest to smallest,
over and again.

You cannot possibly hope
to translate this language,
to become fluent.
You know this,
I know this too.

But still you seem willing
to try.
Like books running
tallest to smallest,
that makes me feel right,
and seems beautiful.

Fort

I have built a small fort of silence,
and all that is good.

There is a moat of expectation,
and if you are willing to get wet
you can come
live in this fort
with me.

There are rich tapestries on the walls,
scenes of my greatest embarrassments.
There are fresh flowers
in every room.

The table is set
with such a fine repast,
you wouldn't believe.