a terrible discipline
guards the doors
you are the furnace
white hot
fire every link
refine, refine
forge it in Vulcan’s cave
till the whole chain
is hammered
into a natural thing
hammered and hammered
into a natural thing
of spotlight parrot fish
hot orange
trembling in pale blue
empress angels
ruffling translucent gowns
of guitars on cool patios
geckos, flamingos—NO!
let me not dream of islands
but in the silence of this
ordinary winter night
drift the enfolding currents
of your voice
black sand
streaked by volcanic dust
combed into force-fields
burns like lava under naked feet
the roads
wind up green mountains
ravel hairpin curves
vertiginous
convoluted like the busman’s brain
a deep topography
tracing the devastation
boa
six feet long
fat as a fire-hose
sunning on the dock
moves forward
incrementally
coiling
along its length
a painted caravan
sequins, scrawled colors
carnival lights
swirling with
drums and calliopes
swimming in polar floes
cold-blooded
hard-edged, scaled
eyes clear as glass
snaking through sea grass
shadowing whales
sensing magnetic north
nor love nor hate
guided by
lines of force
Can you catch fire
in the hollow of your hand
dance like a flickering creature
in tangles of negative space
be liquid
seismic, centrifugal
flowering, flowering
in a cage of fingers?
another arc
twilight’s quiet footfall
cool scent of oak
as under waltzing galaxies
we dream alone
till dawn reverses
dusk’s repentant glow
and sun
as on a potter’s wheel
by liquid layers
lifts
from a flaming sea
I
soaring
over white walls
clustered streets...
a seaside village
sprawls in the clarity
of full daylight
under the red-tiled roofs
music of wind chimes
outside, a bright flag
snapping on a pole
II
night dims the jagged peaks
a crust of radiance
awakes below
the twang of dobos and castanets
quicken the dancers
young men and women
throng in the square
as night wears on, the dancers
drift to wax
intoxication leads descent
to the memorial sea
III
dark whelms the island
watch fires remain
flags stir on the poles unseen
wind chimes shimmer
all vision closed
except the sea birds
relentlessly weaving
invisible baskets
in the upper air
transparent dazzle
black
beneath the leaves
blossoms
in barbarous gold
illusory fruit
wind
cool and steady
a sterner age
erotics of harvest
holding
at the rim of frost
quicksilver slipper
western moon
sunset fluoresces
under massed dark
the bay’s
fine herringbone
of textured light
embers still glowing
in the east
dark reaches down
through leafy shadows
lighting lamps
Winter dark...
celebrates pumpkins
early rites over
a burnt avian
corpses of fir trees
decked in lights
cast beyond death
the family
from far and far
journey-rejoining
to fill houses
with sound.
waking each night
with wildly pounding heart
I know why people
pass away in sleep
frightened to death
by dreams
Are the red trolleys still running
to Tompkins Square
where I waited at midnight
near Deena’s house?
Are the subways
that carried me to Ellen’s
lower east side apartment
still crawling across the Williamsburg Bridge?
Does the Jerome Avenue local
still clatter deep into the Bronx
returning from Margot’s,
all the way to Brooklyn
with drunks and night-shifters
dozing into dawn?
And tonight
in those shaking carriages
does a young man ride
burning and lurching
toward a woman’s heart?
tilts the world against me
I cross, recross
my track
landmarks have shifted
lighthouses stalked
to other islands
reefs where none were
fragments of earlier expeditions
useless
there is some treachery in this
and I am lost
hours
silent as nuns
figures in parkas
walk the winter night
clothes in their places
clean and dry
shelves of books
racked videos, CD’s
impressionist repros
fade into walls
the TV rock-like
its eye blank
the far end of my life
an empty room
we have words
on bracelets
diaries
stones
letters
crushed flowers
ashes
and the wind
that swirls them away
Continued at MORE : The Strong Force, Page 2
© Copyright 2-2-97 Martin A. Abramson. All rights reserved.