The Siege








On the day we accepted
your declaration of war,
Helen threw flowers
into the arena--
blood red poppies,
anemones of palest yellow,
one white rose,
flawless save for a slight tinge

of decay impinging

at petal’s edge.
You had already drawn your bow
awaiting the order to fire at will,
never once questioning
whose will held the power
to negate your own,
never once questioning
until Helen threw flowers.

(Image: Almond Blossoms; Van Gogh, 1890)

The last time I saw him......

(for Bolano and the others)







Night falls in silence
in a stillness of shadows
and muffled fumblings
overhead the faintest light
sets sail in a sea of ink.

Night falls on the neighbors in 2B
on loud recriminations
and batterings followed by
guilt-laden love
Night falls on the sound of a door slammed shut
and an ancient Ford misfiring.

Night falls on sirens
and barking dogs
broken down doors
shattered glass
untrue confessions elicited
in blood stained basements
the very words a knife of ice
interrogación de la policía.

Night falls on the cry of an owl
having realized that
wisdom is illusion
Night falls and
overhead
even the brightest light
is all too quickly
Extinguished.

Rescued

Come, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

By the waters of Babylon
barehanded we built
with bricks and sand we built,
by the waters of Babylon
we built a gateway to the gods.

By the waters of Babylon
barehanded we built
with stones from the river
ground and glued,
by the waters of Babylon
we gloried in the power
of blood, veins, viscera
we gloried in human strength, size
and in our deep despising
of the gods.

By the waters of Babylon
barehanded we built--
three and forty years of
unending struggle
earnest grasping toward the upper world,
by the waters of Babylon
we built until we reached the stars
and were called home

by a fist swaddled
in lambswool.

(Image: Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel)

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.
Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
----Psalm 137

Adrift

By the waters of Babylon we wept.
For the deaths of our daughters,
for the impotence of sons,
By the waters of Babylon we wept.
We wept the coal seared lips of the prophets,
the silent harps hanging in trees.

Sitting on the riverbank

Bereft bereft

we wept the very dust of Sion.

In remembrance remembrance
Bereft in remembrance
By the waters of Babylon
We wept.

Eos











Dark is the morning
we cannot see,
fingers search disturb

dead air;
a blind man seeks
any portal,
any blessed
ray of light.

Dawn wakes to clatter,
to boot heels and cannon,
her pale hair rent

by rockets' red fire;
Dawn wakes to shattered dreams of silence,
the sound of a swan in the distance

weeping the demise of her mate.

Dark is the mourning

we do not hope to see,

the blind man seeks

the deepest portal

reaches for even a cursed

ray of light.

(Image: Dawn, BK Levi)

Eris

Beneath the branches
of an ancient apple tree,
we wept for the passing of time.
We made our bed on fallen fruit,
breathed bittersweet foment.

Core revealed Cosmos--
one small worm

nibbled at seeds of discontent,

eating his wizened way

through blood and decay
into the hope of history.

(Image: Joachim Wtewael, The Judgment of Paris, 1602)

On Sappho Choral Fragment 2

Come to me from Crete
And make of me a holy temple,
An apple grove
Nourished by a murmuring brook.
Make of me a fecund meadow
Where horses feed on sweet grass
And slake their thirsts on
The dew of myrtle.
Come to me from Crete
And make of me
Incense of roses
Wafted about
Softly in the wind.

(Image: Gustave Klimt; The Kiss; 1907-08)