It is the end of someone’s wedding,
or perhaps a boy is leaving on a boat in the morning.
There is a place for you at the table,
wine for you, and apples from the mainland,
a space in the songs for your voice.
Throw something on,
and whoever it is you must tell
that you are leaving,
tell them, or take them, but hurry:
they have sent for you –
the call has come –
they will not wait forever.
They are not even waiting now.
UNBECOMING
It’s unbecoming
to find you
in a place of entertainment
trying to forget
the tiny horror
of the last million years
Most of all
I dislike the brave violin
scraping against
the side of the massacre
as if to infer
that the killers are weak
and the victims will win
It complicates the nightmare
with a dream
It turns the nightmare
outside-in
Discard the violin
And put away your courage
Haven’t you noticed
how the thugs
and the blood-drinkers
are drawn to your courage
It is a provocation
in their sight
Give it back to the rocks
to the mud
to that which supports the mud
End this ugly experiment
with the human heart
Please do not tell me again
about the lonely railway station
where we undressed each other
in a hail of apple seeds
And this voice of ignorant
understanding –
experience the deep humiliation
as the tidal silence
refuses to affirm it
Stand there
in the vanity
of your solitude
Summon the short-lived tears
the shallow laughter
the comforts
that obey your suffering
that embrace your defeat
Stand there
goosefleshed and proud
high-breasted one
in the erotic rags
of religion
I sincerely hope
we do not have to meet again
at the next amusement
– 1979
THE OLD AUTOMAT ON 23RD ST.
I wandered into the Automat
Wearing a kind of religious hat
The meatballs were round
And the pancakes were flat
I asked G-d in heaven
To keep it like that
– 1970
TOO OLD
I am too old
to learn the names
of the new killers
This one here
looks tired and attractive
devoted, professorial
He looks a lot like me
when I was teaching
a radical form of Buddhism
to the hopelessly insane
In the name of the old
high magic
he commands
families to be burned alive
and children mutilated
He probably knows
a song or two that I wrote
All of them
all the bloody hand bathers
and the chewers of entrails
and the scalp peelers
they all danced
to the music of the Beatles
they worshipped Bob Dylan
Dear friends
there are very few of us left
silenced
trembling all the time
hidden among the blood –
stunned fanatics
as we witness to each other
the old atrocity
the old obsolete atrocity
that has driven out
the heart’s warm appetite
and humbled evolution
and made a puke of prayer
THE BEACH AT KAMINI
The sailboats
the silver water
the crystals of salt
on her eyelashes
All the world
sudden and shining
the moment before G-d
turned you inward
DURING THE DAY
I sit here
At the window
Waiting for you
To come jogging past
In your crucifix uniform
You remind me of myself
Perhaps (I wonder aimlessly)
I could comfort you
I love the furrows between your eyes
And the ravages of anxiety
Across your clenched expression
You have the new face
The coming face
The face of no objective experience
And you have chosen the path of muscle
Toward your sorrow
How private you are
In the minds of everyone
I salute you
Brave spirit
Who has swallowed so much
And tasted so little.
LAUGHTER IN THE PANTHEON
I enjoyed the laughter
old poets
as you welcomed me
but I won’t be staying
here for long
You won’t be either
– 1985
DEAR DIARY
You are greater than the Bible
And the Conference of the Birds
And the Upanishads
All put together
You are more severe
Than the Scriptures
And Hammurabi’s Code
More dangerous than Luther’s paper
Nailed to the Cathedral door
You are sweeter
Than the Song of Songs
Mightier by far
Than the Epic of Gilgamesh
And braver
Than the Sagas of Iceland
I bow my head in gratitude
To the ones who give their lives
To keep the secret
The daily secret
Under lock and key
Dear Diary
I mean no disrespect
But you are more sublime
Than any Sacred Text
Sometimes just a list
Of my events
Is holier than the Bill of Rights
And more intense
THE COLD
The cold seizes me
and I shiver
The wine
overthrows my tears
The night puts me to bed
and the sorrows
strengthen my resolve
Your name is burning
under a statue
Even when I was with you
I wanted to be here
The rain unhooks my belt
The wind gives a shape
to your absence
I move in and out
of the One Heart
no longer struggling
to be free
A MAGIC CURE
I get up too late
The day is lost
I don’t bless the rooster
I don’t raise my hands to the water
Then it’s dark
and I look into all the spots
on rue St-Denis
I even talk religion
to the other wastrels
who, like me, are after new women
In bed I fall asleep
in the middle of a Psalm
which I am reading
for a magic cure
– Montreal, 1975
LAYTON’S QUESTION
Always after I tell him
what I intend to do next,
Layton solemnly inquires:
Leonard, are you sure
you’re doing the wrong thing?
– after a photo by Laszlo
IF YOU KNEW
if you knew how much we loved you
you’d cover up
you wouldn’t fuck around
with the passion
that killed three hundred thousand people
at hiroshima
or scooped up rocks from the moon
and crushed them into dust
looking for you
looking for your lost encouragement
I WROTE FOR LOVE
I wrote for love.
Then I wrote for money.
With someone like me
it’s the same thing.
– 1975
LORCA LIVES
Lorca lives in New York City
He never went back to Spain
He went to Cuba for a while
But he’s back in town again
He’s tired of the gypsies
And he’s tired of the sea
He hates to play his old guitar
It only has one key
He heard that he was shot and killed
He never was, you know
He lives in New York City
He doesn’t like it though
MERCY RETURNS ME
A woman I want –
An honour I covet –
A place where I want my mind to dwell –
Then Mercy returns me
To the triad
And the crisis of the song.
THE TRADITION
Jazz on the radio
32 in the desk drawer
Brush in hand
Heart in sad confusion
He draws a woman
The sax says it better
The cold March night says it better
Everything but his heart and his hand
Says it better
Now there is a woman on the paper
Now there are colours
Now there is a shadow on her waist
He knows his own company
The surprises
Of patience and disorderly solitude
Knows the tune
According to his station
How to let the changes
He can’t play
Connect him to the ones who can
And
