Psychebabble (or, When I die I want to be made into a nice chest of drawers; or, There’s no man speaks better Latin)

Nothing is speaking to human consciousness:
not the gusts of Olympus blustering our brains;
not the gush of the Ganges bubbling our bodies;
not the snowflake stars dusting the black, or the silences between them, no—
we are just talking to ourselves—

Mother: What, Dan?
Me: Nuthin, I was just talkin to meself.
Mother: Well shur ya couldn’t talk to a nicer fella.
(Well, mothers are supposed to love their sons,
and I suppose most of them do.)

No—we are just talking to ourselves,
our brains rustling: crown of thoughts
a crown of leaves, branches spreading in our heads,
rooting down in the dumb limbs,
spine-trunk, root-nerve, sap-blood, leaves
greening and browning and new buds blooming,
fruits and seeds,
breezes the branches make themselves
by growing (a flung violin makes music too),
and “Timmmmburrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”!—

Ah the mouths we all are
Tongue-soft and tooth-hard
Spit-shined and enamelled
But red raw and rotten
Suckling and snapping
Laughing and grinding
Talking to ourselves
(Fill it and fill it—
I’m teaching myself Latin!
But there’s always a hole in the middle)


echo with the ghosts
of almost wholly-lost
                            but for them
                            nothing remains
                                         at all—nothing
              words hold
though only airily
              the fragile bones
of yesterday
                           loose as breath
                           but holding yet
                                          and tightening

Two Sonnets in June

“I will make this,” thought God, “I will make that.
(One of the thats can name the thises then.)”
And all He had to do was say each thing
And it was done, and good, and all was right.
And then came man, and this one thing God named,
And then this Adam named this that, that this,
And then God gave him woman, Eve, by which
To breed and lead to us—beasts did the same.
There was a flood, of chemicals and such,
Which bounced around aboard a barren rock
Holding all beings’ potential, earth’s whole stock,
Till tongues of lightning (maybe) made it twitch.
All life came from this flood, and this is good—
We all are equal, and there is no god.

There are no gods or goddesses abroad,
And nobody is perfect, heaven knows
(And it knows nothing, for it just arose
From our old wish to turn the bad to good).
And you’re not perfect, love, how could you be,
Being a mix of your parents (both mad),
Your crazy country, and whatever odd
Odds and ends you brought yourself to being?
Perfection’s for our Christs and Christesses,
Those dream immortals after whom we lust
Down in this rubbish bin wherein the dust
Of our desires is dumped—God bless! What’s this?!
Dear Goddess, as your eyes gaze into mine
The water in my veins turns into wine!

Four Poems (Rhymes in April)

Captive Flux
Who named the days? Tell me who!
What god or beast?
Valhallan? Olympian? Jupiter’s priest?
What lion in what zoo?!

And why label the gloriousness
Of our sun-bound spins?
Our relation to the fire begins
And ends anew each day, nameless.

Your music is inside me, Joseph—
The wind in Cretaceous fronds soothing my mammalian mothers,
The pressure forming strings of iron in the earth
Around my burrowing fathers,
The skin under my flesh,
Wind in my chest—
Your notes echo
In marrow,
Bones bored like flutes, mere oaten reeds
To sound your serenades.

To April
Chaucer, Eliot, Millay:
Poets have many things to say
To April. What would I say to it?
Nothing—it is a construct.
Yes, the moon turns,
The earth too (to dust),
The sun burns
Out days, but I distrust
All timeframes, the rigid
Collars of clock time
Dripping days digit by digit,
And the natural, cycling kind
Appearing to repeat, like April,
Like Friday, all coming alive,
But actually being new and making older, a mill
Grinding all things into grime,
Grimmer and gaunter grains
Of being—chains.
And after all
I guess that’s what I have to say to April.

Concerning CERN
Smash it, mash it, bake it in a pie—
White coats, clipboards, standing by;
Crash it, bash it, stand it on its head—
Smaller things are easier said;
Whack it, smack it, give it a thump—
Measure each mote of the insect’s jump.

Two Poems

Nameless, that is what I must be.
But even “I” is a name, and even “be”.
Anything which only is,
I must be as anything which only is.

                                               first thought: “which is like this”

                                               second thought: “which is in this way”

                                               third thought: “which only is”,
                                               might be called the final thought
                                               because it was the chosen one,
                                               but that too is a name.

                                                                       A poem to be called “Final”

Nameless, really,
Slip your name,
                                  the heavy breath of others on your birth,
                                  the heaviness of your own thoughts, of “your” and “own”.
                                  There will always be thoughts,
But let them rise like bubbles from the deep
And free themselves in empty air, leaving the surface calm,
                                                                        the water more fully water.