I Came To Celebrate

I came to celebrate

after everything there is to be said
there are the songs the blood sings; the light, the darkness,
a sort of gorgeous mess.
and if you find my body - look for this in my shoe

how was it possible i took everything for granted ?
not fidelity, but truthfulness has been our pledge.
i convict you of murder. but ultimately i punish you for your love affairs.
and i wish, my wish - that the liar who holds power over others
dies of a soft and natural disease.
i run to my death as the earth spins
without it’s blue blanket of ozone.

in the end anne frank just put on her coat and walked out the door.
what do i fear most ?    a simple game of hide and seek.
why must i ruin everything ?   ( and always very tenderly -
i miss you, the stone wall, the way the swing swung.
i cried  -   the moon was a horses skull.  the air a dark apple

why did i think if i loved you i would be safe ?
it is given. it is taken back.
we took our chances. we just took our chances, as if we had a choice.
it took one line - a love affair that fails
and what is still left, even after everything - after many things are taken away ?
configurations of love and roses.

what is this fluidity that i move in ?
a paper-måché ship in an undulating plastic bag ocean.
i am losing the vague dread
what is this curious lack of depression ?
this lack of fear ?   this buoyancy?
this free sailing, all of a sudden
because, what, after all, is wrong with now ?

she speaks in a small blue voice.
i surrender.  i grow old roses : they are blue and open up in water.
shubert gets up having left the symphony unfinished forever, and finally named that.
because to love with a vengeance is our best defense.

what happened to us ?
this dangerous clearing - i am afraid of the desert -
known for it’s mirages.  and without dunes
i wish very much we could talk alone - every moment was a gift,
a blessing - not so much for what you gave to me - but what you did not take away.
and yet - in a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.

what is gratitude  -  this reconciliation that has caught me off guard ?
something half heard, just out of reach.
i want a shield but not really.
i tremble through thunderstorms when i think of a place we can still go.

when they speak of the bluefin, the yellow tail, the great red;
the fishermen’s eye’s haze over :  seeing something far off.
i dream of fish in your stone pond. one gulp and i am intoxicated.
i prepare for nuptials on the other side of the abyss. look, even the nuns are swimming.
green,  how much i want you, the sea, the bullet, the rose.

drink this:  the essence of wandering in the wilderness.
the sea in my veins -  whispers in my heart.     tell me you are there!    

a little something for the pain.
i wrote you 100 love letters,
i wrote you 1000 love letters,
i wrote you a million love letters.
you never got them all -
and the seduction that is,   that has always been   language.
hovering,  -  i must seem like a shadow on the bed.

can you imagine a language sufficiently transparent,
sufficiently supple, intense, faithful ?
so that there would be reparation
and not only separation ?

curious
how every movement ends softly, .
curious
the effects of flying on sexual response.
i wonder what would make one person do that

" i make no apologies"   the broken statues say :
" we are ruined and beautiful "     " we are broken and whole "
   in a geography book               i fell in love with the world.
with a loyalty i bound down the sea soaked steps.
my destination scarcely visible, but glimmering red in the distance.
my little boy dependence on the breast and the smoke she spouts -
whispers in my heart the ultimate trust -
to let go in the dark.   this dark and joyful room.

close up you are like a statue .
i need days not hours like this with you.
the shape of your breast against the sea,
on sienna tiles, on clay earth, on molten river, on rocks
my hand reaches for a distant undiscovered planet -
the unexplored coasts of your body -
and though it does not seem possible
your breast rises with each breath

i watch you undress
over and over
in the dark
in the forest
for them:   Shubert and Mozart

i feel the bird-catcher is near
in the event of a power loss -  all seats can be used as rafts
i am tied to a tree
a firm tug starts the flow of oxegen
in high pitched sounds,
melodic and softened consonants -
forming perfectly realized evolutionary partnerships
i’d like us tonight up against the wall.

beautiful, beautiful still.
strange the way the joy keeps changing:
uncountable love, all unforgotten, all cherished.
fires in fireplaces
the feathery sleep of infants
i know a place brighter than a million stars -
you can’t believe the fruit there.   come soon.
if you find my body, put flowers in my hair.

the gate leading to the mosque says " open me "
it is held together by nails and tears
take my hand.  free infinity from the box.
trembling in the night i wait for icarus to whisper in my heart -
of extremely rare birds and wings made of trees
two bears,  eagle  raven  
la dolce vita,   la strada

the poet writes love, the poet writes death.
the hovering and beautiful alphabet as we form our first words after making love
the child practices her alphabet. the child practices the letter a
makes a mountain.  and crosses it.
writing in a language that heals - the poem demands the demise of the poet who writes it,
and the birth of the poet who reads it.
the dream is to arrive at a language that heals as much as it separates
a tiny hand carefully draws the letter a
the dreaming blind poet sings a wordless song
his destination, always the sea.

as i listen to the music that is silence
i will bury it two inches beneath the surface to protect it from winter
i whisper in your heart.   i tell you i am there-  as we listen to the music that is silence
and the wheat being scythed all night.

if i tell you that everything’s been very "interesting" -
that there’s been lots of learning & growing" -
you’ll judge, i’m sure, the extent of my despair accurately.
i think of the dancers and how hard they listen
to hear the music that is silence.
they learn to love the questions.
are there any questions ?  what is sex?
is it holding hands ?  is it imagining someone whole ?
i ask  as the first effects of people incapable of actually living kicks in.

" what path ?"
" to there ?"  
" yes? "
accuse me again of over reaching.
as we form our first words after sex

flowers in the dark it was called
it was called at the border of silence
it was called on the verge of disappearing
it was called like the sweet apple that has reddened
it was called the darkest night of the year
it was called try not to be so afraid

no joy can be, no joy , without acknowledgment of all the things that can go terribly wrong
when fiction explicitly becomes the drama of explaining the world to ones’ self.
and the poems the drowned man wrote,  and the songs,   and the way the story will end
are beautiful.  - then there is pain . but not suffering.
if you come back, look for me,    if you have only one wish -  blow out the candle for courage.

Vincents last words are: " zoo hen kan gaan"
   ( which can mean
i can go then,
i want to go home,  
this is the way to go
Zoo Hen Kan Gaan