In Between Here and Then

in between "here" and "then" you
pushed the wrong button
and set the world atilt

give me ready-made sadness, don't
take the edge away, leave just
a few pieces of scattered romance

my hands cannot hold
my heart cannot fix
my fear cannot flatter

(if I'm as charming as I pretend to be)
rain is one thing
turning me inside out, by mistake, is another

in between "here" and "then" what's set in motion:
take me apart slowly if you please, while
I go on ruining all these songs

Found Closed

because, where earth and heaven were obedient,
a solitary woman, just created,
found any veil at all beyond endurance

(Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto XXIX, tr. Mandelbaum)

I take back all the apples
their scent, the green of their leaves, what good it did
to see this

my ribs are broken
yours, replaced
with the tongue of a whale
with the twisted frame of a concrete edifice

and for this we grasp
we gasp
for this

I take back all the reaching
the summit we taught
flight

I take back the point at which we touched
and slid
I take back entry
and ambivalence

I despise this
(love cannot be taken, cannot be taken back)
so I take back having fallen
the scent, the green of leaves, what good
we knew of this

this shelter
this bridge

I Cannot Night

I Cannot Night

I/You need a new rope
I/You am/are exclusive just this once
I/You seek/destroy light/life
I/You detonate
(unreasonably)
I/You start finish and in between
I/You wish to succeed
I/You write ious
I/You distract and are distracted
by this
I/You definition
of
I/You

Two Things I Have to Say

Two Things I Have to Say

I.
     desperate
sadness is short-lived, we have all been
fools from time to time and now and then this dance
discovers us

whether we are or are not guilty
dissheveled
or otherwise compromised
we forgive you

in the shadows, I don't
believe you

all things must be replaced

don't say distraction, say "importunity"

the wind is thumping and banging at the house
don't let it in

all things must be desperate
     be gracious
all the same

II.

I am listening to a song about a song that you are listening to
it goes like this:

wind outside crashes into and
the boiler downstairs whines along with

Debussy's L'après-midi
which the radio then declares 'revolutionary'

bit by bit
my body fails
and is followed by the Quartet for the End of Time

'time no longer'

the house continues to sing