I do not stare or plead with passing pilgrims to help me
there. I call it discipline but perhaps it is fallen pride alone.
I'm not the one to learn an exercise for dwelling in the sky.
My trophy room is vast and hung with crutches, ladders,
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braces, hooks. Unlike the invalid's cathedral, men hang with
these instruments. A dancing wall of molecules, changing
nothing, has cleared a place for me and my time.
Y O U K N O W W H E R E I H A V E B E E N
You know where I have been
Why my knees are raw
I'd like to speak to you
Who will see what I saw
Some men who saw me fall
Spread the news of failure
I want to speak to them
The dogs of literature
Pass me as I proudly
Passed the others
Who kneel in secret flight
Pass us proudly Brothers
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I M E T A W O M A N L O N G A G O
I met a woman long ago,
hair black as black can go.
Are you a teacher of the heart?
Soft she answered No.
I met a girl across the sea,
hair the gold that gold can be.
Are you a teacher of the heart?
Yes, but not for thee.
I knew a man who ,lost his mind
in some lost place I wished to find.
Follow me, he said,
but he walked behind.
I walked into a hospital
Where none was sick and none was well.
When at night the nurses left,
I could not walk at all.
Not too slow, not too soon
morning came, then came noon.
Dinner time a scalpel blade
lay beside my spoon.
Some girls wander by mistake
into the mess that scalpels make.
Are you teachers of the heart?
We teach old hearts to break.
One day I woke up alone,
hospital and nurses gone.
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Have I carved enough?
You are a bone.
I ate and ate and ate,
I didn't miss a plate.
How much do these suppers cost?
We'll take it out in hate.
I spent my hatred every place,
on every work, on every face.
Someone gave me wishes.
I wished for an embrace.
Several girls embraced me, then
I was embraced by men.
Is my passion perfect?
Do it once again.
I was handsome, I was strong,
I knew the words of every song.
Did my singing please you?
The words you sang were wrong.
Who are you whom I address?
Who takes down what I confess?
Are you a teacher of the heart?
A chorus answered Yes.
Teachers, are my lessons done
or must I learn another one?
They cried: Dear Sir or Madam,
Daughter, Son.
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I ' V E S E E N S O M E L O N E L Y H I S T O R Y
I've seen some lonely history
The heart cannot explore
I've scratched some empty blackboards
They have no teachers for
I trailed my meagre demons
From Jerusalem to Rome
I had an invitation
But the host was not at home
There were contagjous armies
That spread their uniform
To all parts of my body
Except where I was warm
And so I wore a helmet
With a secret neon sign
That lit up all the boundaries
So I could toe the line
My boots got very tired
Like a sentry's never should
I was walking on a tightrope
That was buried in the mud
Standing at the drugstore
It was very hard to Jearn
Though my name was everywhere
I had to wait my turn
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I'm standing here before you
I don't know what I bring
If you can hear the music
Why don't you help me sing
S N O W I S F A L L I N G
Snow is falling.
There is a nude in my room.
She surveys the wine-coloured carpet.
She is eighteen.
She has straight hair.
She speaks no Montreal language.
She doesn't feel like sitting down.
She shows no gooseflesh.
We can hear the storm.
She is lighting a cigarette
from the gas range.
She holds back her long hair.
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C R E A T E D F I R E S I C A N N O T L O V E
Created fires I cannot love
lest I lose the ones above.
Poor enough, then I'll learn
to choose the fires where they burn.
0 God, make me poor enough
to love your diamond in the rough,
or in my failure let me see
my greed raised to mystery.
Do you hate the opes who must
turn your world all to dust?
Do you hate the ones who ask
if Creation wears a mask?
God beyond the God I name,
if mask and fire are the same,
repair the seam my love leaps through,
uncreated fire to pursue.
Network of created fire,
maim my love and my desire.
Make me poor so I may be
servant in the world I see,
Or, as my love leaps wide,
confirm your servant in his pride:
if my love can't burn,
forbid a sickening return.
Is it here my love will train
not to leap so high again?
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No praise here? no blame?
From my love you tear my name.
Unmake me as I'm washed
far from the fiery mask.
Gather my pride in the coded pain
which is also your domain.
C L A I M M E , B L O O D , I F Y O U
H A V E A S T O R Y
Claim me, blood, if you have a story
to tell with my Jewish face,
you are strong and holy still, only
speak, like the Zohar, of a carved-out place
into which I must pour myself like wine,
an emptiness of history which I must seize
and occupy, calm and full in this confine,
becoming clear "like good wine on its lees."
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H E W A S B E A U T I F U L
