dunctank

  • 1

    A sunrise emblazoned in mist,
    two travelers gone to make a wish,
    tossing pebbles into a pond,
    to watch the ripples until they're gone,
    to love what fades like early dawn



  • 2

    Christ is not a cigarette,
    your fifteen minute break:
    extinguished under your heel,
    returning to your desk.



  • 3

    Don't calculate, glide
    to the rhythms of your heart
    Follow its beat to its final measure
    because

    A tree cannot screw in its roots, and
    A bird need not apprehend the mechanics of flight, and
    The wind does not ask, "Where to?" —



  • 4

    I'm too far off in fairy land, my elders,
    I can't hear you cry
    You should know by now
    my abiding reply:

    I will not chase the scent of power,
    the promise of one more hour —

    power to create —my one ambition —
    time enough on my shelf —eternity —



  • 5

    I saw the future and the past
    spiraling into a cosmic whirlpool
    and all the books flew off the shelf in my room,
    sucked up as objects, and as moments in time,
    thus Van Gogh and Christ, and all the memories of Proust,
    collapsed like historicity as time became a sink,
    blending into soup and shutting with a wink



  • 6

            If words filled up the air. If words had a physical presence, a shape, a size, and if they hung
    there. Gossip in one corner of the room, discovered, would then outrage blow more poison balloons
    to combat. Words, valued but for volume, spoken but to seize up space, so that clarity is overrun, and no one is heard.
            Words fill up the air. Unclutter, speak to be understood.



  • 7

    There is a painter outside of heaven.
    "Come, come in," are the calls from beyond the gate.
    "No," he says, "for I have to paint with the fullest view."



  • 8

    To a Friend in Crisis

    I have seen the sun persist,
    breaking through dour, encompassing storm,
    to wave its banner of molten gold,
    and bless an Acre with its kiss.

    And, though it went away, overtaken,
    I am content.
    I have remembered in the downpour
    who owns the firmament.



  • 9

    Triangles

    The lanterns hang in parallel strings of pearls along the road,
    and, lengthening into the distance, suggest a triangle.

    The lovers, the frail and wizened lovers, whose sparse hair curls angelic white,
    move slowly down the sidewalk, tottering hand in hand.



  • 10

    View Through a Door's Peephole

    He-he! Out! he yelled from the door.

    She, naked besides the towel,
    missing an earring and dripping wet,
    walked barefoot down the hall,
    praying no one would see her.



  • 11

    You are not my all —
    You are an All —
    You do not complete me —
    You are complete —
    You are not 'my love' —
    My love is for —You



  • 12

    like dancing with a cracked heel, she tries,
    staccato, awkwardly, every other note,
    to possess herself with grace,
    and flashes uncertain smiles,
    a hand around her waist,
    that, soon, she lets guide her,
    as she succumbs to drought,
    enters a dark doorway—and exits,
    a token of depseration
    planted in her mouth



  • 13

    the brain surpasses binary
    it does not reduce to 1's and 0's
    nor snap to circuitry,
    its abundancy impossible to bind
    to teeny metallic rails, neat grey lines

    machines are brains dried up
    too brittle to transpose
    the teeming possibilities
    inherent in a rose



  • 14

    the clock tower struck infinity
    and its hands flailed like weather vanes in a storm,
    desperately seeking an hour to grab hold to,
    as the ground capsized beneath my feet,
    punctured like a drum, formless, sinking into empty space,
    I held to my mast and my mast dissolved,
    I prayed for my life and my life was lost



  • 15

    wholly flesh

    Valley's hillsides bent into green knees, blushing legs spread wide,
    loosing her tributary into the sea, gushing in ecstatic tones of
    knuckle of a rock protrudes the rapids —spray erupts —
    wetting shore's cropped grass —aspergillum —
    Sun's head bows, a tongue of light laps the quivering surface
    gurgling along, riding into expanse —