Dead Center

Upon reflection, as I dip my pen


Tonight, forth ripple messages in code.


In Now’s black waters burn the stars of Then.

Seen from the embankment, marble men


Sleep upside down, bat-wise, the sleep bestowed


Upon reflection. As I dip my pen

Thinking how others, deeper into Zen,


Blew on immediacy until it glowed,


In Now’s black waters burn the stars of Then.

Or else I’m back at Grandmother’s. I’m ten,


Dust hides my parents’ roadster from the road


Which dips—into reflection, with my pen.

Breath after breath, harsh O’s of oxygen—


Never deciphered, what do they forbode?


In Now’s black waters burn the stars. Ah then

Leap, Memory, supreme equestrienne,


Through hoops of fire, circuits you overload!


Beyond reflection, as I dip my pen


In Now’s black waters, burn the stars of Then.

James Merrill

The Persistence of Feeling

It isn't really memory that persists, is it? If that were all we'd be free, even in remembering. It could be all so very Platonic. The messy part, the tentacles that refuse to let go, the feelings, those persist, and won't be reasoned with. I've tried to explain them to myself and still they are an enigma. Try explaining shadows to someone who's not seen the sun. I don't know if I've seen the sun, really. I've been running in the dark in the midst of some treacherous obstacles. Perhaps if I'd have confined such activities to the foothills of the Cascades, where the worst one can do is run off a cliff...

Hearts Outgive

Harrow and Glimmer,
 Fishhook, Splinter-lodged,
into mind's eye--
Deep indigo eyeflash,
Yonder, outward, unhinged,
 Will hearts outgive redundant ends.

Carnal Apple, Woman Filled, Burning Moon

Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.

Pablo Neruda

New Mad Light

Light me again
I'm flame-made
Flame devoured
some passions
win out,

so dense they
devour light

despite their
mad mad
improbability

Blackbird

My little blackbird returned
Matchless and only
Singular dark
to my mateless heart

Black Hole

The spell, dreamcast,

for the darkmired

tenant of Saturn's house.

black on black, 

the line is drawn, 

step over, step off

the edge. 

Event horizon

beckons. 

Cloudbusting

“. . . full sexual consciousness and a natural regulation of sexual life mean the end of mystical feelings of any kind, that, in other words, natural sexuality is the deadly enemy of mystical religion. The church, by making the fight over sexuality the center of its dogmas and of its influence over the masses, confirms this concept.”

Wilhelm Reich