from sky to sky they rake
our lives with pins of light
IV / Parasites of Heaven
T H E N I G H T M A R E S D O N O T S U D D E N L Y
The nightmares do not suddenly
develop happy endings
I merely step out of them
as a live-year-old scientist
leaves the room
where he has dissected an alarm clock
Love wears out
like overused mirrors unsilvering
and parts of your faces
make room for the wall behind
If terror needs my round green eyes
for a masterpiece
let it lure them with nude keyholes
mounted on an egg
And should Love decide
I am not the one
to stand scratching his head
wondering what wall to lean on
send King Farouk to argue
or come to me dressed as a fast
A C R O S S D I D N ' T F A L L O N M E
A cross didn't fall on me
when I went for hot-dogs
and the all-night Greek
slave in the Silver Gameland
didn't think I was his brother
Love me because nothing happens
I believe the rain will not
make me feel like a feather
when it comes tonight after
the streetcars have stopped
because my size is definite
Love me because nothing happens
Do you have any idea how
many movies I had to watch
before I knew surely
that I would love you
when the lights woke up
Love me because nothing happens
Here is a headline July 14
in the city of Montreal
Intervention decisive de Pearson
a Ia conference du Commonwealth
That was yesterday
Love me because nothing happens
Stars and stars and stars
keep it to themselves
Have you ever noticed how private
a wet tree is
a curtain of razor blades
Love me because nothing happens
Why should I be alone
if what I say is true
I confess I mean to find
a passage or forge a passport
or talk a new language
Love me because nothing happens
I confess I meant to grow
wings and lose my mind
I confess that I've
forgotten what for
Why wings and a lost mind
Love me because nothing happens
S O Y O U ' R E T H E K I N D O F V E G E T A R I A N
So you're the kind of vegetarian
that only eats roses
Is that what you mean
with your Beautiful Losers
N O T H I N G H A S B E E N B R O K E N
Nothing has been broken
though one of the links of the chain
is a blue butterfly
Here he was attacked
They smiled as they came and retired
baffled with blue dust
The banks so familiar with metal
they made for the wings
The thick vaults fluttered
The pretty girls advanced
their fingers cupped
They bled from the mouth as though struck
The jury asked for pity
and touched and were electrocuted
by the blue antennae
A thrust at any link
might have brought him down
but each of you aimed at the blue butterfly
H E R E W E A R E A T T H E W I N D O W
Here we are at the window. Great unbound sheaves of
rain wandering across the mountain, parades of wind and
driven silver grass. So long I've tried to give a name to
freedom, today my freedom lost its name, like a student's
room travelling into the morning with its lights still on.
Every act has its own style of freedom, whatever that means.
Now I'm commanded to think of weeds, to worship the
strong weeds that grew through the night, green and wet,
the white thread roots taking lottery orders from the coils
of brain mud, the permeable surface of the world. Did you
know that the brain developed out of a fold in the epidermis? Did you? Falling ribbons of silk, the length of rivers, cross the face of the mountain, systems of grass and cable.
Freedom lost its name to the style with which things happen.
The straight trees, the spools of weed, the travelling skeins
of rain floating through the folds of the mountain-here
we are at the window. Are you ready now? Have I dismissed
myself? May I fire from the hip? Brothers, each at your
window, we are the style of so much passion, we are the
order of style, we are pure style called to delight a fold of
the sky.
C L E A N A S T H E G R A S S F R O M W H I C H
Clean as the grass from which
the sun has burned the little dew
I come to this page
in the not so early morning
with a picture of him
whom I could not be for long
not wanting to return or begin
again the idolatry of terror
He was burned away from me
by needles by ashes
by various shames I
engineered against his innocence
by documenting the love of one
who gathered my first songs,
and gave her body to my wandering
With a picture of him
grooming her thighs for a journey
with a picture of him
buying her a staring peacock feather
with a picture of him
knighted by her
