Transparencies and Projections
TRANSPARENCIES
“a sunlit unity,
desperately sought.”
-Keith Wilson
for Barbara
Transparencies
this was
what it was,
luminous,
till at night
it was dark in quiet rain
a measured step
in a dark place,
breathing, regular as footfalls
beneath the overhanging rock
sometimes, driving on the highway
between one valley town & another,
i will see old women in black
scratching the dust with sticks,
or a man walking beside the road,
followed by an ancient dog
that trots across his path
& glances up, eyes glazed
in the falling particles of light
the sudden sound of water flowing
over rocks, around, beneath
the roots of trees
gathering
in dark pools
at our feet
Edge
these walls need
not contain us
there is a door,
see, there are trees
beyond, I will
take your hand
if you are afraid
Viking
i like to think of my blood
sailing with Erikson
through the long and cold Atlantic night
having turned West
not in flight
but in casual exploration,
raising the green land at morning
foraging the sparsely peopled shore
and pushing West against the wind again.
Water
we live
on the surface
of our skins
water sliding
in between,
the window
in our shower
open, neighbors
looking in
not looking in,
it hardly matters,
your breasts
slip from my hands,
we love
beneath the surface
of our skins,
in time & under
water, we
love
& sink
& swim
Secrets
destroyed, she said her
heart had been destroyed;
the word came from her mouth
as from an old, yellow-paged novel.
lilacs,
a trace of honeysuckle.
weeds, growing in the rooms of an old house,
razed to the ground.
burned,
destroyed.
rooms, imagined, open to all weather.
secrets withering in the foreign air.
Opening
suddenly it opens
suddenly
it
opens
the whole damn thing
flowers
a woman
i had never thought
of wanting, never
pursued
in the sudden down
pour
waiting, as though
it had been always
the fist, hard as rock
opens
against my wish
flowers
spring
from my fingertips
Theme and Variations
you are loved
The Horse on the Hill
this was the time
he’d had enough —
cold rooms &
empty arguments
speaking, as though to a shadow
he wanted to give it to strangers,
cripples & misfits
collected from
all-night cafes
high above the house
he knew it was waiting
pawing the ground, tail to the wind
Moving Out
saying goodby
is no trouble:
a house is a skin
to be shucked
wriggled out of
room by room
closet by closet
until what remains
is piles of boxes,
a few empty hangers,
a heap of debris
on the kitchen floor
which never seemed so wide,
a neighbor’s dog
who come to say goodby
from a respectable distance.
Dreaming
a desolation of friends
parting in the early evening,
dry voices under a closing sky.
she turns
to him, the one remaining, watches him
watching the other, moving away. her hand
at his sleeve, reminding and warning.
there will be times in the changing light
we cannot see each other’s faces.
Four
Dead Man’s Float
milwaukee, wisconsin. sometime
near the beginning of the war.
a 4th of july parade, amid news
paper reports of bodies found
dismembered, dumped in trashcans
along the lake michigan beaches.
we decorate our tricycles
with fireproof red white & blue
streamers. we pump along the route,
waving our flags, grinning
at patriot parents. later
that summer i fell in a lake
& survived. my too-old-for-the-war
uncle began to teach me to swim.
arms out. legs out. face
in the water, holding my breath:
learning to live, practicing death.
Touch Stone
feel it
press-
ing at
your finger
tip, feel
the stress
line run-
ning from
its heart
to yours
Aftermath
the comfort i had expected
came to nothing
a hard dream, green
walls, black sea
the last wish for
an angel . . .
blonde,
nameless
Things Make Funny Pictures
we stood there,
figures in a landscape of our own imagining
wondering when to begin
PROJECTIONS
1.
you cannot dream
you are something
inanimate, he was told
but he dreamt, he
dreamt he was a stone
lying at the bottom
of a clear, cold, swiftly-flowing stream
& someone kneeling on the bank
picked him up, put him in his pocket, & carried him away
to a small town,
took him out of his pocket
polished him tenderly with a soft cloth
threw him through a window of a small house
where, on a living room carpet,
he was suddenly at home
2.
there were things he could speak of
to no one
& having no confessor
he would write them in narrow-lined notebooks,
locking them first in a drawer of his desk,
then piling them on a closet shelf,
burning them finally & stirring the ashes with a stick
one night, on a bus to Montreal,
he unburdened himself to the wife of a man he didn’t know,
who listened in the darkness
& carried it away
with her
3.
(beginning with a line by Edward Dorn)
there is no warning, you won’t recognize anyone,
the walls of their rooms will be bare
their floors, uncarpeted
if you look into their eyes
they will stare blankly into yours
until you turn away
& when you leave, if you leave
they will not say goodby
or warn you of where you are going
4.
she knew the habits of his mind,
how in the basest of cities
he would prowl the streets
looking for god knows what
or avoiding . . .
would it be her?
& coming back to her
after three days once
spending his time
with who knows what seedy friends
in Lexington Avenue bars
coming back to her
without apologies
without, it seemed,
regret at having to come back
but only to be gone again someday
5.
it was cold, he felt
that his flesh was rotting
the notion trembled
on the brink of war
yesterday’s newspaper
lined his shoes
& the little boy
his hand in his mother’s —
who is that funny man,
why is he on our side of the street
6.
what she feared was a life
among strangers, among
those whose hearts
are unreadable in their faces,
untouchable,
those whose eyes say
you are not one of us
you are not from here
you are alien, foreign
even that you are
is doubtful
7.
he liked to pretend
he was somebody else,
go up to a girl in the bus station
strike up a conversation,
buy her a beer, or a cup of coffee,
telling her he was a rich Texas oilman
maneuvering her to a nearby hotel,
listening to her life story
getting her to bed
disappearing
before she wakes up,
not for a moment believing
she was who she said she was
8.
no good, their trying for it,
they made love quietly
out of old habit
sometimes so close to
something, of which they dared
not speak to each other
so close
they could nearly
touch it —
9.
having spoken, he would now remain silent
give them time to digest his remarks
& act upon them
if they chose not to . . . well,
that was their business
no fault of his
if they, through their own blindness
& stupidity, brought disaster upon all their heads
give a fool his head
& you give him nothing
10.
the female animal-tamer
reclining on leopard-skin pillows
surrounded by an all-male, animal cast
the problem, he finds, is achieving
incident, without detracting
at the same time from the central voluptuary
teeth bared, breasts prominent, hips
curving toward oblivion
whip in her hand
11.
(beginning with a line by Robert Creeley)
into that consequence
of dreams
he had not knowingly
dreamt,
under the darkest
of moons,
seeming
to know
but the end
of it,
moving
12.
it was no night for me,
no night for walking streets, waking dogs
who always wake & bark at people walking
late at night it seems
no night for
looking for the window of a certain girl
more beautiful than any, a girl
who undresses for bed & stands
each night, in the light at her window
offering herself to the eyes of the first passer-by,
turning her lights off & slipping into bed
a fraction ahead of my lurching around the corner
13.
just between us —
she doesn’t understand me,
never has
seems to want
a father, not a man
turns away
whenever we’re in bed
so, you know, a little trip to Juarez
now & then
understand me,
it’s not that I don’t love her
she’d never understand
14.
hearing him say it — i love you,
two days in the country
an abandoned farm he knew about
the long bus ride
& him at the end of it,
grinning
awaking naked
hay in her hair
nipples erect in the cold sun
it seemed she had only dreamed it
& country was far away
15.
between the beginning of it
& now, so much time
had passed he had forgotten
the purpose of it
the persistent anger
he wore each day
like a garment
there were times he could be caught out of it,
be caught in a smile
or a broken laugh
someone would point, & he
would put it on again,
feeling his nakedness
16.
tonight he finds her unyielding,
remote & hard, not coy
you only
love me for my body, is what she says
which is the truth, but he
won’t tell her that yet
17.
coming across trees
parched & angry
deciding that she
deserves whatever happens
to her now, finding
water in the shadow —
to sleep then & wake
conscious perhaps
that some things were
not as bad as they’d seemed
relaxing, forgetting
shooting a rabbit for supper
18.
it was something about the shoes,
the way they pinched when she walked,
that brought her back
he fetched another pair from the rack
at the back of the store,
slipped one on
holding her right ankle in his left hand
wanting never to let go,
but letting go & never
seeing her again
19.
the walk through the fields
they had looked forward to,
she in her way, he in his
at a certain point
he would take her hand
& lead her to a grassy spot
where they undressed, lay down, made love,
as they had each summer of their life together,
she, watching the clouds float
thinking —
things like this
should have their own & proper names
20.
this full-grown, clown of a man
walking out with her
on the beach every day
telling her jokes
picking up colored stones
& showing them to her
did he like to pretend
he was her father
he liked to watch her
from the corners of his eyes
the half-inch of white flesh
at the edge of her bikini,
the gentle curve of her breasts
at the door of her room
he would have liked to touch her
she seemed suddenly angry
did she like to pretend
he was her father
21.
something about the doctor’s eyes,
a shiftiness perhaps, unsettled her
causing her to pause
in the ritual disrobing;
beyond
the window there was nothing
until, below, in the street, a bustle of traffic
he felt her recoil from the cold
of the stethoscope, he thought
she had called him by his christian name,
which was Charles
there were times that he wanted to kill himself
22.
at times it seemed to him
that consciousness was all
there was to it, that nothing
further was called for
in such moments he would take pleasure
in recalling to his fingers
the feel of a knife
slicing into flesh
forgetting the feel of his flesh
straining toward the knife,
as though darkness
was all that was called for
23.
the thing was white,
it had white eyes, white claws,
white hairy armpits
the sky & ground were winter white
as the thing crept toward him over the snow
slowly, flashing the whitest of teeth,
whistling whitely under its breath
24.
during the night,
yells & screams, occasionally
the sound of someone running through the street
there was the knocking at the door, & then
he fell asleep, dreamt of a girl
he had known in another war
in the morning he arose & opened his door,
they were hauling away the dead bodies
hauling away the dead bodies
hauling him away
25.
her two legs
passing each other with each step,
breasts, bouncing slightly
slightly smiling
at men who will never
possess her, their fond eyes
& instantly knowing
the sharp, bright eyes
that do not turn
away
26.
(beginning with a line by LeRoi Jones)
in the image of themselves, to be
uncovered, shown for what they are
& never let to sleep without the dream
made for themselves
to be opened, as with knives,
their innards read for futures,
projected on the walls of a cell
sickening & dying
27.
he spoke to her quietly
in a nickels & dimes sort of way
but touched
on the prospects before them,
hinting at problems
she was unconscious of,
she standing in their back door,
watching the sun set behind the mountain
thinking how lovely
it was in the evening there
28.
after new year’s,
back in the office,
telling them how it
had been, how he
had met her in
Times Square, at
midnight, as the ball
was falling, & buying
her a drink, taking
her home with him,
she, lightly laughing,
waving a hand, how
in the darkness she
bloomed, a pale rose,
opening, in the early
hours of the year,
accepting him, taking
him into her, & he
seeing in their eyes now,
they didn’t see it
like it was
29.
Bill & Joey were friends, they sat
next to each other in school,
read the same books, talked to
the same pretty girls, who couldn’t
talk about either of them without
mentioning the other in the some breath,
the some breathless way
when school was over, Joey or Bill would say —
walk me home & then I’ll walk you home
so, together they’d walk the sidewalks
between their two houses & all the girls
would envy each of them
30.
in Juarez
one Pedro Morales, a civil servant
roams the streets, throwing poisoned meat
to the dogs, flinging
their deflated carcasses
onto the back of his truck
farther south
the Federales burn marijuana patches
& poppy fields
in many parts of the world
men stoop to the doors of ovens & furnaces
banking the coals, faces the color of fire
Pedro Morales watches
the burning of his dogs, the firing
of the oven, the flaming village
behind him
his shadow
takes on heroic proportions
DOUBLES
In Retrospect
it was never like that,
our memories play tricks on us
in this place
the day you burned your hand, remember?
almost like any other but for that
& yet it seems less ordinary
* * *
but what does ordinary mean, when we speak
of the days of our lives
the living of our days
there were places that we liked,
the walks along the river, high
mountain lakes
people would come and go,
& we would like
many of them
rarely, a walk in the rain
* * *
looking back, we see it, see the peaks
& valleys of it, but without
the passion, the exertion of it
this place is another world & we
look out through the window of it
on the other, where we were, lifeless
The Complex
i.
several moments of silence
& then the beginning:
a hand raised
& frozen
in a gesture
which may have been
threatening
ii.
three days of rain-swept streets & sidewalks
people neither coming in nor going out
our meals brought in to us on trays
thunderclaps rattling the cups in their saucers
iii.
rumors of history
a blinding flash of light
the radios all silent now
too late for love, she says
& reaches for the sugar
In Summer Wind
i
the dead bird rises,
the dead girl walks by the river
her breasts,
her face
more radiant than in life
ii
& likewise here,
the living will walk among the dead & the unborn
& their glances,
their curses,
from another time
which is the same time,
shall fall
heavily upon our shoulders
And Then
consciously,
the rear guard was massacred
under the eyes of the silent, yellow flowers
a bird
flew straight to the cottonwoods
look come
hear feel
october rocks the mind
Slow Motion
did something move,
was there a word
i didn’t hear
the sagebrush has come
into flower
was there
anything
else
From the Lakes
these same small birds
this rough-hewn wood
these figures carved in weathered stone
it is unknown
whether those
living in this forest
are priests or gods
the man who lives in the cottage by the river
claims that the forest is uninhabited,
he worships the thunderer
& the three mothers
* * *
through the door we heard music
though no one answered when we knocked
looking through the windows told us little
about the inhabitants of the place
the kitchen was a clutter of utensils
a fire was burning in the den
a white, blue-eyed cat slept on the neatly-made bed
the dog slept near the door, the bird on its perch
there was no one there, we saw this
& went back into the trees
* * *
riverman came from the lakes where the big stones are,
came here looking for people, looking for women
riverman found two girls, abandoned in the woods,
took them home, blonde, blue-eyed girls
riverman took his pleasure with them, took
his ax then, chopped them down
a fire burning, at the mouth of his cave,
this happened many times, fire burning many times
Rio
by the river
perfectly reflected
cottonwoods cottonwoods
reflected perfectly
by the river
Only This
a small sky, red shadows
opening the mountains
to the turning wind
a girl moving leaves
with a small foot
Doubles
i
when i first spoke
it was in a park
it was almost sundown
i was hungry, i said to
she seemed to have heard
but turned
her eyes followed the sun
i said i hadn’t slept
for three days
hadn’t even closed my eyes
putting a finger to her lips, she smiled
& called me to her
with a sweet charity
i hadn’t known
was in her nature
* * *
only the utmost restraint
prevented my rushing forth
to kill both of them
the two of them
wallowing in the grass
she, taking his cock in her mouth
like a common whore
sucking it
until he came, shot his seed
into her throat
ii
his people were a proud & ancient race,
they would never let a crime
against their house & name
pass unavenged
it was through the gray, slanting rain
they rode out, fifty strong,
armed to the teeth
the hooves of their horses
made sucking sounds
in the wet ground
three days later the women
saw them return: bloody,
unlaughing
* * *
the young boy watched himself
moving over the meadow to her
country girl,
sitting under a tree
waiting for him
or another
for Drum Hadley
iii
they were in this place where the land
stretched level for miles,
unbroken but for the raised stones,
an occasional prefabricated house,
a television tower blinking off & on
they were in love, riding along in
a second-hand car; there was something
in the air that made them expect
to see the sea come up over the horizon
the horizon came & went, another
took its placeno sea;
more stones, another grubby cottage
one country out of
many that they didn’t know
A Dark Door
i
this is the place of torments,
the place where all things come together
this is the place of pleasure,
where all things come together
ii
listen to what she said:
in the dark angles & secret places
of this room, where sea-wail can be heard
through chinks in the stone
in the deepest shadows of the night,
by the dripping walls
you may stretch forth your hand
& receive everything