"Dark Arrow Down"

 

The poet sleeps as he must,

 as he cannot sleep -

I am a lone boat in darkness, he conjures,

 inhale: the wind

exhale: whistle of sails

 

sometimes rocks himself

 as though orphan, foundling

or just mishap of love

 needy mouth of night, prone,

one foot atop the other

 rock, rock on water

 

dark arrow of heart moored

 to dark marrow of oar

simpers, prays

 to a god of man-like ears

 

now wind now sails

 in the blue-blood lair -

blue before the incredible

 indelible

catastrophe of air.

​

 

"Dome"

 

Every day,

five or six times a day.

I go hunting.

Any woman half my age

is no stranger to blood.

Seven, eight, nine times a day

and through the night, too.

What I'm hunting is you,

whom I've never seen or felt

but whose heart,

for all I know,

beats, beats now.

 

I, a reflex, lost another.

"Tissue," said the doctor,

adjusting his watch.

"Platitude," said my brother,

matching up socks.

"Is it such a big deal,"

said my mother,

rattling her pots.

 

Oh my brother, my mother,

did you not know that

that warm ooze for

 

     five nights and days

was part of you as well,

the swell that settled hourly,

the carrion knell,

the consummate cleansing

that only death can do?

 

I'm on the warpath now

stalking every moment,

certain I see red.

Just one spot

and again my heart

will enlarge, stretch,

curve like a dome,

to bury, to carry you,

           eternally, home.