THE MUSIC ROOM

How can I answer, or even interrupt

The mechanical silence of the piano--

Standing where you breathed and sang

And filled the room with life and feeling,

Warm as the sunlight in the leaves

That stained the window yellow and green,

Strong as the beating of my pulse. . . .

Dead space where once someone I loved

Stood at the window, then moved to touch me--

An empty room, a strange place now,

The dusty loft of a deserted church.

Outside the window a car passes.

Pressing the pavement, the tires hiss.

Outside is another country

Where strolling couples meet and kiss.

Trapped in a mirror, my distorted face

Gasps soundlessly, without air, without space.

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IF THINE EYE OFFEND THEE

Matt. 5:29-30

Because his eyes offended, prying

Between buttons and thighs,

He plucked them out and cast them away:

Of small importance was the light of day.

Because his ears offended, hearing

Invitations and sighs,

He drove nails into the tender membranes.

Weeping, ecstatic, he embraced the pain.

Because his tongue offended, singing

Desire that shocked and scandalized

The good neighbors and innocent passers-by,

He ripped it out and hurled it from him.

Above all, he must deny his longing.

Because his thoughts offended--How

The images did glow!--he gave up control

Of his own mind and learned to seek not to know,

But only to believe what he was told.

Because his hand offended, and his sex, and

--Fie, fie, for shame! Must I

Tell all he did? Indecency I dare not name!--His hand

He cropped, the rest lopped off and cast like Satan behind him.

Free at last,

Because mindless, maimed,

Blind and deaf, without tongue or touch,

Maintained in charity and disgust

By mortified Saints

--behind bars, of course, on water and crusts--

Himself he hourly befouls,

And everything else for yards around,

Without knowing when, where, why, or how.

 

 

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THE APARTMENT

Dateline: 20 January 1969. With humble apologies to John Keats.

-- From having dreamed so long
With every song and love-scene ever played,
The couple locked themselves in and lay down,
Left the lights on, and stayed
(Locked in themselves)
While the TV went out of tone
(The shadows there
Squawked, more like parrots than before)
And then went out,
Not leaving even a cathode star.

And the newspapers piled up against the door
And the cleaning woman rattled her keys and called
And the manager came and went
And detectives dusted the walls and the floor
Without finding a print
Of foul play or fair: Except for where
A bouquet of red roses stained the air
Like a 3-D greeting card,
Nothing was there.

These two had gone beyond
Reality, desire, illusion.
A dream had ended; a journey had begun.
_

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

Allegory is easiest,

if you want to get spiritual,

or the erotic sublime—Sebastian

bound and bleeding, blind

for love of God in man—

Or the Catullan-sentimental,

“Admit this sparrow to your nest,”

Otherwise, the pseudo-surrealist

metaphor—an umbrella thrust

through a melon, a tongue

—or else: Sir Daddy, Sir, here I kneel,

(of course) your un-                          

derserving son….

But where can I find

the words, the way to make you feel

what I feel, how

when you look at me,

A globe of light suffuses my chest,

a sunflower spirals below

my belly, glows, grows golden tentacles,

pulling me toward you with electric force . . .    

Do you feel it now?  

            

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