Long day nakedness. Wild, wet heart
name:
	Destined desert fruit snuck in the mouth 
	so near
to burst.
	Near thing so close to me; you are a
	whiteness that trembles too; mean to bleat
	and wonder at the blood; who has called me
yearling.
	It is to quicken; then the godhead,
	like a longing river that goes red,
	is nimbed by mouth and the steadfast
stillatim
	of death-long blood; three days paulatim
	in Golgotha—
Agape! 
	the mouth rushes,
	the swallowable life is made love 
	when Love of the man is sworn
circle
	and it is 
the circle
	I swear. 
	I wear 
your name: 
	I dress the embraces of half-lights made whole;
	I manner in the world. Should I picture you?
	shall I wonder at sight of the first? 
	though you are my eyes you see myself yours when I see you
agape—
	man’s edge making fruit
	when death is the fruit I taste—
and burst.
	I go to you.
	With softened heart of eastern earth;
	with a lamb’s bright eye to the plains
	of your heart and my breast;
	with my words the names for my words,
	a blue so aweful and deep;
	with god longing the garden-longing
	speech, always in me one by one, 
	always with me one by one:
	Stilling
stillatim
	when his tears fall from my eyes
	and into my eyes the tears
of the yearling.
	O dream
of the yearling 
	takes hoof in me,
	widens in me its comfortable spring.
Slow circle
	where I rest: that ever grows
	and roots in me: like a light inside
	me everyday, like the blooming
	of an impenetrable fire
	inside me everyday, like the blooming
	flower inside me everyday, and the
	candle of the flower, and the fire
	of the flower, going over me
	inside me everyday, drips and drips,
stillatim,
	in me everyday: 
	I am
the name
	you gave me.
	O to wake to the sound of your voice, O to be in the voice!
	To eat from the fruit of your voice, and drink from the leaf
	of your voice. To wake to the sound of your voice,
to burst
	at the sound of the leaf of the fruit of your voice. 
	How then,
agape?

After the night I crawled
into the wild roots 
of a woman‘s hair 
I smelled the hideaway
 	 	 	 	—so many birds
 	 	 	 	letting go of the air
Someday I will make a nest
I will sing 	 	and the branches

Here is a dark drink in its palette of potential ruin.

All August long leaves appropriate their triangular scarcity, are scarred.

If once we become beautiful, let us hope to do it beautifully, and just once,

                          Behind this gallery of mirrors, 

                          Remember how slow our seeing is.

The hounds batter the air, recalling one another in the night’s nécessaire, bow down.

A crisscross of unfathomable things take on phosphorous proportions.

And how many deaths. How the faceted face the light in the brief of believe.                 

In the rent of a woman’s cradle a man has only to disguise himself.

And if the tears come, let them come, a while, all at once. 

None of the old impulses, none of the lavender, a neck. 

And if ever he has need for light— he needn’t ask 

              Does it listen, clinging

To these foothills, as it does, with greater ambiguity. 

We have disassembled the clinging

Need. Ruminants roar their lofty inquisitions. Things continue, 

                            Can disappear. In the sleeping in, 

                            Even in the violet, velvet

Verge, fawns pass here and there, and do not pause.               

Tiny corner in the seen
tho what is dreaming? Face

your face

is proximity
in the hazel-eyed you?

Retreats blonde
unnamed of the remind evening

and takes
Bitten, takes 

A violent impulse
in this 		heat— 
lovers manage all sorts
of chemical exchanges . . . . 

the cats too preoccupied
in the windows with the curtains 
miss the light

behind it and behind the glass
summer conspiring
to defeat air

Tho, here we call—everything
for how it is named?

A violent impulse
in this		heat— 
lovers manage . . . .

all of the indefatigable
facts		Slumped in the dead
			light 

of one last spectacular freedom

Light in this deep → hope in the ecstasy of waiting or was it → There is this about wanting & the light → the vapors are abstract the fish at the surface of the surface of the water swim in small circles but we hardly notice & to say we hardly notice is its own kind of desire → To say then what unknown influence → All manner of life has been circumscribed & of wanting of little wanting down → We will get it down → here is my hand guiding your hand in the impossible reaching back towards me →

But if I was biting
& lake was just your eyes
in hyacinth time, what then

See this pressure is only light

O wild underwater thought
O that fire turning thru it— 

God! → to be its ampersand → like looking & seeing → like remembering & forgetting → Ah! & then to be that last green ordinary yawn of that green-blue darkening of night & the night → To drop from these clothes in the pale bowl of forms → O violet repose in the electric shadow of disbelief → in it → our silence & the terrific → flower

What goes on up there must— 
in this pity of landlocked light
—conform 
           to the unfathomable boundary

of speech
which only now, in us, is half-
           anonymous

and terrible. Because we do not speak?

           Or goes missing—stops in the blank

dark throat of wilderness, O darkness! 
Which cannot wonder, does not think—

nor feel for itself
in this great surge
           that is ours, our oncoming bewilderment. . .  

my hand in your awfully still hand.

SENSITIVITY


Wildwood? Then the feeling. oh green 
ecstasy of wading 	And the reaching!
Some coming along with their hands thru
the dark ‘A bit untamed’
		the practice of water
up there that simply glow. Voices from the river.
My body in a dead heat of voices saying saying
is the river this water 

WEEK


Terrible leaf. So big and calm
and in the breeze		Where there 
is room
Heart in the leaf
Half heart, its half 
And is good

Soft

NAME


Please have you seen the lake, or please
when it is in me. with no words

and it is me the birds running over it
In mini circles, O what sorts of birds!
their long calling. The slow

GREEN BATHING SUIT


How do you move your simple hands 
This silk summer how the memory thru— 
	The clear legs your feet pulling
	Inward aside water

Overnight, or coming up then
With pity. . . 	     O of softness
When the child’s tears fall from
His father’s eyes

Long since and the day is.

For one bright Cancerian summer. . . 
Whose apple apple
Blue center of the apple

And not for a lack of a miniature desire
Or the one bloodrush before 
A cold sets in. We are bent that way
Known viciously. Heaps
	Of a wracked arcanum
Are minor testaments of foolishness
And faith—they frighten easily

At everything. Girl with your Long Ago
Blonded by the West, you ill-
	Afford your absence, linger
Once-won longing, some lossless lingerie

We got nothing for giving and gave out

But slowly—Darling—

The blue Bedouin dress was made
Of hemp and is cold
The night moves without our wondering
Rain usurps the thought of thinking, does not rain

This, the invincible evening, says yes at what we say,
And hides no more the place name of this, too, our heart.
I am wild in it; I see nothing that the world can’t show me,

I coo. Who is not on display? I am widest awake. I will
Kiss what feels, kill what hurt, what hurts. You, fateful
Twilighting night, are like the last. There are so many— 

Their appearance the silver absence of all that happens,
And when seeing fails I look around. Who has had a lovely idea?
We are not the only made up thing. 

Not this particular sky, not this slow thing, going where it goes.
Not the air this early in the morning. 

But the question remains: how to empty
Something and make room for something else?

We fold the darkness for a blank space,
I manage some ice in the virgin glass—

Of the inner self, I imagine a woman
Going over it slowly with one soft hand.

The pictures do not align. The self
Is not made wholly of its own self.

And not this sunlight coming through,
Slowly, as the clouds part, glowing today.

Now, the crowded, colossal science of decision. 

The wan, sun-running swan before the setting of scenes. 

Aeneous women are dressed in the tasse of their waists somewhere all about these badlands 

And the hunter touches his eyes;
	
	Soon he will remember the long tail of his vanishing away.

The blind apple of one summer evening in the ruins of two too many dreams is too poorly understood.

A boy says: “Actaeon. . . Actaeon. . .” and goes to sleep in the plum isles of his lover’s lover’s hair. 

The trees are all quit of themselves. They do not go blindly instead, nor by the graves this close a home. I have made a point to tell them so. Pocketfuls of women are gathering in the brim moonlight of a terrible afternoon. Nonce! When do you get back (at them)? Carefully, carefully, the master might here & just, reading this newly in, in the frith. 

—

I am enjoying the cabbage soup & risking heartbreak everyday.

—

Tell the French: we are out of room for liars! Beautiful—in the ground they are already digging me up & say: silence! silence! Amis!

—

He smoked his cigar so near October; they get you that way. Through the eyes. But who is this, I? Only a place to put it. They get you that way. 

—

If we knew, we’d know it better, & I can like what I love. Und water, it can’t be the same just making such & such as it does. They are staring thru the water. What is it? Qual cosa? Leave it be. A prescription for the time it comes & (and) it can only go on, lately. They don’t listen, they only start. Try, try, & in the dark. 

—

So much left.

寒山 [Hanshan/Cold Mountain]

from 诗三百三首 [303 Poems]
shī sān bǎi sān shǒu

—

9.

琴书须自随，禄位用何为。
投辇从贤妇，巾车有孝儿。

10.

风吹曝麦地，水溢沃鱼池。
常念鹪鹩鸟，安身在一枝。

—

Qín shū xū zì suí, lù wèi yòng hé wéi.
Tóu niǎn cóng xián fù, jīn chē yǒu xiào ér.

Fēng chuī pù mài dì, shuǐ yì wò yú chí.
Cháng niàn jiāo liáo niǎo, ān shēn zài yī zhī.

Music and books must accompany you!
	Of what use are salaries and ranks?
I gave up an imperial carriage for a good woman
	My little cart is pulled by a faithful son

Wind blows over sunlit fields of wheat
	Water overflows in the fish ponds 
And I think of the small wren
	Who rests happily on a single branch

I.

I pitched at your interior 
     the hot thread shuddering

is green and gold

in the smooth aftermath
     of words

I only have to
     carry you

the small water

walk your tile
     to the end or

toward regularity
	which is easier

the touch
     being felt

     a little red

II.

so many in the first night’s root
     begin honey
         		from memory,

are the ghosts of is
		with blue 
in the face,

look like an argument
	for shape

and grind
     where other things end,

the ground, yesterday

	     whatever is

noise

寒山 [Hanshan/Cold Mountain]

from 诗三百三首 [303 Poems]
shī sān bǎi sān shǒu

—

7.

吾家好隐沦，居处绝嚣尘。
践草成三径，瞻云作四邻。

8.

助歌声有鸟，问法语无人。
今日娑婆树，几年为一春。

—

Wú jiā hǎo yǐn lún, jū chù jué xiāo chén.
Jiàn cǎo chéng sān jìng, zhān yún zuò sì lín.

Zhù gē shēng yǒu niǎo, wèn fǎ yǔ wú rén.
Jīn rì suō pó shù, jǐ nián wéi yī chūn.

I am fond of my reclusive life!
	Far from the noise of the world
I have formed three paths 
	With the clouds as my neighbors and guides

A bird sings with me
	But cannot answer the Dharma question
From its place in the withering tree— 
	How many years are in one Spring?

Horizonte

Ó mar anterior a nós, teus medos
Tinham coral e praias e arvoredos.
Desvendadas a noite e a cerração,
As tormentas passadas e o mistério,
Abria em flor o Longe, e o Sul sidério
Splendia sobre as naus da iniciação.
 
Linha severa da longínqua costa —
Quando a nau se aproxima ergue-se a encosta
Em árvores onde o Longe nada tinha;
Mais perto, abre-se a terra em sons e cores:
E, no desembarcar, há aves, flores,
Onde era só, de longe a abstracta linha.

O sonho é ver as formas invisíveis
Da distância imprecisa, e, com sensíveis
Movimentos da esperança e da vontade,
Buscar na linha fria do horizonte
A árvore, a praia, a flor, a ave, a fonte —
Os beijos merecidos da Verdade.

I. [4.18]

O sea ahead of us, your fears
	Contained coral and beaches and groves.
Unveiled to night and to fog:
	Past storms and the mystery,
Bloomed Distance, and the Southern Cross
	That shimmered over the first ships.

Severe line of the faraway coast —
	Slopes soar when the ship draws close.
In their many trees the Distance is empty;
	Closer, the earth reveals itself in sounds, colors;
On landing, there are birds, flowers,
	Where, from afar, there was only a trivial line.

The dream is to witness forms invisible,
	The distance imprecise, and, with the keen 
Movements of hope and of courage,
	Find in the horizon’s frigid line:
Tree, shore, flower, bird, the source —
	The due kisses of Truth.

II. [4.21]

O ancient sea before us, your fears
	Held coral and beaches and groves.
Once the night and mist were lifted — 
	Past storms and the mystery — 
Then distance blossomed, and the Southern Cross
	Illuminated the first ships.

Severe line of the faraway coast —
	Slopes soar when the ship draws close.
In their many trees the distance held nothing;
	Closer, the earth reveals itself in sounds, colors;
Upon landing, there are flowers and birds
	Where, from afar, there was only an intangible line.

The dream is to see forms invisible,
	The distance imprecise, and, with the sensitive
Movements of hope and of will,
	Find in the horizon’s frigid line
The tree, the shore, the flower, the bird, the source —
	The long-deserved kisses of Truth.

— from Mensagem [1934]

寒山 [Hanshan/Cold Mountain]

from 诗三百三首 [303 Poems]
shī sān bǎi sān shǒu

—

5.

可笑寒山道，而无车马踪。
联谿难记曲，叠嶂不知重。

6.

泣露千般草，吟风一样松。
此时迷径处，形问影何从。

—

Kě xiào hán shān dào, ér wú chē mǎ zōng.
Lián xī nán jì qū, dié zhàng bù zhī zhòng.

Qì lù qiān bān cǎo, yín fēng yí yàng sōng.
Cǐ shí mí jìng chù, xíng wèn yǐng hé cóng.

How ridiculous the path to Cold Mountain!
	No horse-tracks or carts
Hard to recall where the streams bend
	When mountain peaks loom above

One thousand grasses shed their dewy tears
	One pine laments in the breeze
Now that I cannot find my way
	I ask my shadow—why do you follow me?