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SEPTEMBER 1997 (con't)
6.
This morning
The steel-clad waves
Laced with white stretch marks
Are pregnant with night rumors.
In the cliffs of memory
A whiff of scent—
Mother's hair—
Like a swing in the wind
I lean into the stab—
Somewhere
A gate creaks open—
Hilarity is in the air.
Heat:
A balsamic poured on mortals
To sear the open wounds.
Fever:
White flames dancing on
Barbed wire fences.
Smoke:
Afterthoughts quenching
The riot of sensations.
There is no denying—
Only red survives
The blood-stained pitfalls
Of life—
Hail the red!
Night flowers root in
The steaming red lava spills,
Mercy preens itself there,
And there the black rose
Sprung from the black pearl
Comes into bloom.
Hail the red!
Black rose in hand
I dance a jig.
7.
Light was invented
To illumine the dark mirrors.
Light is also strangled there.
In a hurry now to burn
What will succumb to flame,
I must start over
Again—
Three times already
Have I climbed the glass mountain,
Each time by a different path.
Three times already
Have I tasted the waters
Sprung clean of the rock
And each time I was born
New to the world.
So it is—all there
As promised.
Treacherous all the same when
Life goes on as usual.
This time I shall go up
Nameless. Bone naked.
Leave no footprints to tell of
My addiction to high altitudes.
And no hilarious self-ridicule—
I am in a place where
Blood-language is spoken.
And the core holds.
And when the core holds,
The stab the gasp the shudder the chill
Are everywhere the same.
The season to be reckless is here.
Letter from Paul Celan—
"Light was. Salvation.
Seven nights higher—
Seven hearts deeper—
Seven roses later plashes the fountain
—and he who I am
forgives Him that I was.
The listened for reached you.
Stone, wherever you look, stone
let the gray animal in.
Do not read any more—look!
Do not look any more—go!
And at times
when only the void stood between us
we got all the way to each other.
I suffered up
again
into life." *4
8.
Celan, you say
Don't read—look
Don't look—go—
I went—
I broke the seal—
I entered the chill
Within—
I did not turn away when
In the gaping malodorous void
A monstrous iodine eye
Leaned into my face—
Fear whispered,
Breathe!
I did, and IT
Inhaled my breath—
IT IS
ALIVE—
Under my eyelids
A moon-pale steed
White winged
Was grazing moon frost—
I leaned into the vision
And in the small of my spine
A will
Greater than mine
Uncoiled
Head rising—
It was the face of Hunger
It is the Shewolf
The Hunter—
She knows the angle of light
That leads homeward.
She knows,
When hunger contours shadows
Fear in the gut is force.
No longer molested by experience
Her heart no longer bolts
When stalking.
She zeros in.
Hunter,
She knows—
The taste of blood on tongue
Strips the world of detail,
The eye trained in darkness
Is ready for the unexpected.
The Shewolf knows—
She will lock jaw on the kill.
Savage is my name.
9.
Having stood still before
I see death vigilant.
Having crossed deserts
I don't look at the horizon
It walks me in circles.
Things are near today
I better get used to this.
In the geometries of dreams
The Queen Bee ascends
The steep steps
To a sky plaza
Of some ancient
Civilization.
There
Seven white swans are waiting.
And there
On a bed of clouds
The Queen Bee was
Seven times inseminated.
The orgasmic ritual witnessed
By three white marble virgins
A white swan feather
In each hand
Attesting deliverance.
Heart giddy
Collects the overspill.
Seven hearts deeper
A blazing immensity opens—
"And at times when only the void
stood between us
we got all the way to each other."
Celan,
I am in love with you.
10.
Am smitten by droplets of water
Clinging hypnotic
To the tips of pine needles—
Each globule pierced by a separate ray,
Each reflecting a separate world
Singularly complete.
The pine bedecked with glitter
As calm as ever.
The sun swims up with a gigantic halo
The universe hopelessly
Eccentric.
The quick:
Unbound
Unbinding
Shimmers—giggles—leaps—
A white crane dancing
In a distant field.
In a distant hall
Heavenly voices rehearsing
In the presence of things
That give of themselves and
Ask for nothing in return
The quick ices over
When stared at.
A leaf slips into shadow
Shadow slips into light
And the blue gingham
On the wicker chair
Is attentive.
A stray breeze sits by me
Eager like a lover.
Celan,
The Queen Bee's dream
Has taken.
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