AIR

[Worm of Despite]

Sundering

Far lais
Fall and tumble
A weathercock turns

Spring approaches
Distant glimmers
A heart fades

You roll
In chaffs of wheat
Here is the you
You leave behind
Another you
Inside this poem
Another

A fire sits
Voices call
How old is this lai
I do not know

A benison against the stars
A final memory

II. Time
In memoriam
You wake
I’m alive!
Isn’t that what we say?

III. My
Love lay
In bone-white memory

She lay; she lay

Shadow twines

IV. The us
In I and I in you
Paper hangs

Wind covers
A glass or slate
Who remembers
Voices speak
None remember

Fire and faith
And spirits
Fade

V. Time
Arcs; light
Sweeps

Speak;
Soft
Cool
Morning fog
Hills of no meaning

Hours hourless
You fade

All is well
Distant wheels
Roll soft

No earth
Or rain
Or wind
You fade

Sweetly wind blows

Plains of light
Rippling haze
Who is singing
Who to nothing

Passion in void
Void in form
And time
Unending
Whelming
Here
We end
Here

[Worm of Despite]

Lost Poems

Oil beats
A shore
Water lay
In effigy

I wake
Call for you
You descend
On a pulse of wind
A gentle word

You lay in shadow
Waves cover
Who is speaking
Breakers beat the shore
We speak about our hearts

II. Wind
Is silent; pines
Lay in memory
A tone lifts

Space descends
An opening
Voices speak
I cannot penetrate your mind

Chimes beat
A screen door

The storm is passing
Wind whispers
Day is ignored
Sun glints
Wind lay furious
And calm; light
Without end

What is this earth!
A creature crosses sky
No answer

A truth

III. Day Five

Day without end
The snowman sits
In no snow

Unpiece a branch
Tethered to the wind
Throw it wide

I call your name
From shadows of trees
In shade
Branches fall

I love her
I long to love her
How wrong is that

A lateral form
Of crushed branch
And dead grass
Slick with rain
And winter

IV. Notes

Awake—take your pill
Awake—take your pill
Wake—take—awake

Yell at heaven

Breeze twists
A cry

V. Peace imbibes
Wind still
Sun delicate
Walk about

What do you see?
An aching beacon
Of silent repose
Light forms a heart
Sit a while, will you?

We are here only a short while
In an absent shore curling
Back to mystery
Sit a while, will you

Paint is creased and old
It is dying; so am I
Bed without mattress
Eaten by rain and time

Perhaps a tree grows
in the center of your hearth
Branches, leaves
Clinging to the stones;
Clinging
To your midnight breath
and mine

Speaking
Speaking

[Worm of Despite]

The Whisper

We lay
In light
Sun pulses
Hills wave
In heat
And life

Wind is playing
Life is long
Sea and sand meet
Tracing up to sky

We wait beside the pools
By patterned walls of light
Never knowing our hearts

Someone plays music
Life is long
A fountain plays
Life is long
Form—and light
Fall here; just so

I love you
Though I never knew you

Wind is playing
My heart’s longing
Laying in the corner
in the corner light

II.
Day descends
Sun stretches
A far-beat remembrance
How long
How long will we live

Wind speaks

[Worm of Despite]

Hymnal

I just love
How
The light falls on you

Its promise
Like
Impending rain

Come dwell with me
Till I’m no more
O, greyest grey
Dwell with me

A light will fall
Your promise
Pours

Fields and sea
Blush to day
Eyes and life
Accost the air
Verdant spring,
O, winter’s call
Soars to me
Year-by-year

Dwell with me
Dwell

II.
And when
The voices fade
They’ll
When the
Voices—fade
Dwell

When the sea
Falls to air
Dwell with me
When the hours
Turn no more

When the line
Of night and day
Fades away

Someone
Once
Said;

III.
Faith in the noon
Windows and slatting
Expose our forms
Rising interposed

Children—children
The brook whispers
Children
Water steams

Day wells
In and out
Of phase

Forms of strife
White and bending
to black nothing
Causeways bend
Or strobe
To nothing

Speak—
Child; each child
Woke; to arise
Speak

[Worm of Despite]

Desire

Softly now
I see her face
Exposed
Upon a windowsill

Softly

I will never see her like again
And her tune
Drives me still

II.
Glimmering
And fading
The promise
Of a melody

III.
The hills are white with rain
The heart dry and faded
Mammon stalks the jungle
The engines call his name

And we think that this will never end
That the water in our eyes will never dry
We pray and laugh
Die and sleep

Suddenly we see a light
Suddenly a dark

Clarity

Rushes; a tree
Sat, a thrush
Calling
Calling

We think that this will never end
We think that this will never end

What of her
Her passing
Her eyes have faded
Die and sleep

The white of mirrors
Reflect a face
We think that this will never end

The trees are dying
Sunlight fades
We think that this will never end