Outside the hotel lobby

there’s a cool air waiting.

It’s followed me all the way

from New York City-

a reminder that Summer

always dies an

unremarkable death

on the first October

morning.

The rain is so redundant-
Especially in June when
The trees are green already
And I’ve spoken now the
Words that saturate me.
Dispensed in a single breath
They tether to no one.
Yet some little couplets,
Too harshly ripe for the mouth
To mime, are left to harden
In an honest man’s heart.
Oh, what does one make
Of a many Ballast Stone?
Will they keep me all the truer,
Or sink me ever-slowly?

Why call it a new moon
If there is none in the sky?
Darkness folds upon itself
As opened eyes at night
Succumb to black for longing.
One hand, holding shadows-
The other catching those
That spill between the gaps.
The moon is not new- it feigns
The dance of phase and full,
But it is not new.
It is an empty sun
whose gaping absence
stains the sky.

Pressing ear to ear
we hear the crash of
distant shores in the
echoes of our shells.

Somewhere that is not
here, the hollow wave
is calling. Somewhere
between our cheeks, the

static air confides.

Thickly warm, this white sky bleached
of the sun pads an atmosphere of
heady murk above our quilted sheet.
The city park takes the sounds of
sidewalks off behind the trees and repeats
them like overheard secrets to me.
They tangle through this Saturday chatter,
friends going on filling balloons with words.

And I see you there in your form;
the sun’s favorite child. A vision rushing
all at once to me. The rouge of June
has dabbed your cheeks and I can smell
the sweet dew formed at your neck.
It collects and it falls all the way down -
past the trees, past the sidewalks,
past this summer that is never-ending.

I am watching you and I am drowning, but
I can breathe and I can drink the waters.

Nobody poured looking.
Silver foam streamed down
knuckles and soaped the
floors where shoes danced.

Necks bulged from collars
with unending life; eyes
had no lids. In the dark,
they exchanged each other’s

teeth when the instruments
rang out, when they held
their final chords and the
quiet was for everyone—

but before the clapping.

So many fragments catching
light of the unseen sun make
like pins at the undersides of
my brow. I shudder - seek to
refuge for the inmost cellars as
the lighthouse taking storm.
Amidst the singing of the gale
and rousing foundation, in
this harrow-mounted minute,
I wait.

For navy velvet night.
For anything.
With much exertion,
I wait.

I stayed on a little longer here;
that’s what I felt to do - to linger
on and see the dusk-dark tuck
behind horizon line, mixing sea
to heavens, stars and water crests.

I am the one estranged- enveloped
in this estuary night as you whisk
away without my incessant march beside.
Know this: I’ve no need for you.
Know this firm and certain as true.

I won’t carry on or pack for home,
my breath be held. Nor shall I think
to my affairs, those paper clippings
crumpled in pockets. No matter your
faculty of consequence, I am more static.

So hurry to your constituents; you’ve
your clocks to keep! Make it sure they’re
fastly nearing tomorrow with flutter-
closed lashes and fragrant dreams.
They count on you to wake them.

But I will stay on a little longer here
in this place you cannot know,
in this place of stars and water crests.
That’s what I’ve always done to you,
to make you turn and call for me nicely.

Foolish man: plagiarize those
idols you so daftly confuse.
Shout their eulogies through
plastic smiles, in guise intuit,
in ruse.

Foolish man: what maketh you
such a worthy mirror for names?
Trust, those who try endeavor
forever to learn of their time it
pains.

All of you is but one color in the mornlit fog,
Pewter gray clouds in the painter’s cup;

Or of the idle man’s mind fixed to the sky
As a seabird, gliding against the wind

Who brought you here. There was a bay
Tan-blue when I came, lined in pepper

And green. But now there is only fog of
A morning that has lasted all afternoon—

And you have taken the whole of me.

A morning newsman
Goes home at 9:00;
Straight-laced shoes
At the kitchen counter.

The odor of a
Full day on him.

Today we lay audience to the echoless,
We, the marble busts and skirted plaque
Watch our halls fill like omni-broached keel;
Mouths agape spill waters meant for drowning.

Yet our chins are dry — feet rinsed.

And when again we read the words so sewn
Into our caucus of immutable stone, lest we
Forget the blemished hands who set them;
Casting into flesh Ciceronian hearts.

What sorrow neighbor’s plan, the folly of man,
Upon whose black waters Liberty sails afloat.
Their voices heavy sink silent down the wake,
Dissolving echoless, evermore.

Cascade skies caught us in wanting,
mouths open taunting spilling to the
camber of the stone. Alone, and of the
city grown silent sodden, dethroned

statues nod in discreet accord; breaking
hints toward questionless lips, Romulus
feeding from Aurelius’ quips. Even to
date with memory’s fare, we bare the

silver spoon: teacher’s teacher, grimless
reaper, it’s been months our hands
still prune, November rains of Rome
exchange the orange clouds of June.

The desert has no eyes to see, said he,
Voice cracking muffled as do boots to
Gravel crumble. Loss counted hours
Stretched taut upon the rock. With eve,

Solace shone salt for stars, and noirettes
Danced in periphery - drunk in repose.
A cemetery of trees leafless, veins of turquoise
Morning sky, reached for oncoming cloud.
-
Dear sister o’ westerly wind, cast in your
Wake a halfhearted shadow. Before long
My resin will lacquer these badened lands,
And your charity will be my taking for leave.

For I have met the canyons chalked in
Red, beheld mountains steeped in haze;
And I, as splendor’s witness, triumph. Pity,
Said he, the desert has no eyes to see.

And, with that, after the light
had not all the way gone

under the thinning cloud,
we did nothing with our

heads nearer to the window.
A splayed aquatic of tepid

blue became the air with an
underwater quality:

shimmering and filling and
mute. It stained the walls -

painted our insides. Absorbed, 
we plunged our hands steady

in the quenching reflection,
going where we always go

when holding our breath.

Terracotta tile, cool to touch of evening veil.
His heels soft as morning grip the earthen
amber glaze, burnished speckle aged like
broken shade under silver olive grove.

Procession of a gentle coarse patting
towards unwound sea.

Great abyss of depth I seek,
Defy their ‘plore to shallow.
Let the moor go and I’ll sink
Where no man fears the gallow.

Great abyss of silent mass,
I descend league from leisure.
Days mundane have come to pass
And rid my heart from fever.

Constellations singing bright:
Hello, fellow, conceiver.

You slide your heels on
one foot by one, craning,
like powdered flamingo
in masquerade under
lamp-light;

Watching me watch you
with full moon eyes.

Her voice-
a humming whisper
that clings to air;

Oh pestering
indulgence.

When does the sun
rise, sleepy Montmartre?
La ville fait rêver de toi.

A little cat woke me
to the glow of your lamps.
Me rendormir, je ne peux pas.