Only the fish have come this far where the long sweet tides walk out beyond the boundaries — I think that I have gone too far this time. There are no hands to hold me back as I walk here with my arms and legs. I am in deep water where the fishes go.

Everyone told me — and it’s true — that one’s affairs can’t be carried out in this peopleless realm. But the long sweet tides have arrested my attentions, and they have brought me here. I am in deep water where the fishes go.

There are no colors here — only an endlessness. I have assigned myriad names for their absence. I have said too many things that have no meaning here. I am in deep water where the fishes go.

To be caught on the hook — to come swimming in like a caught fish — gasping at life — this is my secret chore, my secret dream. But the long sweet tides have taken me by the arms and legs, and I am here, in deep water, where the fishes go.

Spring 1990 (?)

Autumn has not come and built a room.
The windy hills are not less mighty things.
I-75 is not gathering in the gloom.

My eyes are not as willful as the rain.
I do not think the ground has touched the sky,
(my heart is not a blind, unseeing thing.)

Far off like hills that beckon blood to fly,
the high and windy leaves aren’t what they seem.
They are not there to make me wonder why:

only in sleep do I approach the dream.
The high and windy hills of Tennessee
do not retain the echo of a scream

I did not propagate so suddenly
to wrap around the world (and build a wall.)
I analyze its abscence – just to see:

the world, it did not spin here like a ball.
These things – they did not happen here at all.

Spring, 1991

I see the shadows playing on the water zone
as by the fingered waterside I go alone
where the running hands of days are walking low
on fingers moment, instant, slow.

I see the stars are cradling on the water cold
where the fisted river locks its hands to hold
kilowatts that keep the numbers safe from harm
and frees them from their dark alarm.

The dam that’s on the river keeps the night away
two hands I rub together keep the world at bay
and fusing with attainment I would have them say,
“this is the day that hope is like a shadow play.
This is is the day that hope is like a shadow play.”

It was a nothing nihilated by the womb
that held me from that blind first spinning light too soon.
I rose to meet the colors of the day away
and could not keep the monsters there at bay,
those spinning horrors would not put their hands away.

My fingered eyes with which to apprehend the night
are pupiled hands that feel with their external might
the fingered crevice of the world to find what’s right
again to hold to that first spinning light.

My senses bind me to the living world (like rain
that’s many-fingered on the hands of sky) but then
I would that I would find the will within again
to keep my eyes wide open to the world and then
undo all that has been.

The dam that’s on the river keeps the night away
two hands could (rubbed together) keep the world at bay
and fusing with attainment I would have them say
“this is the day that hope is like a shadow play
with hands that make the shadows go away.”

Don’t count this hour misunderstood -
but see what’s common in a finer light,
and when the rain is easing in the street
conjure something cast against the night
that’s unfulfilled but yearns to stand upright,
and when such things, benevolent and strong,
cast their hue on some familiar scene
remember me with some such finer thing.
Remember me when in the rain the trees
hold at the hurting leaves and sprout lightsongs;
Remember me when round the moon the rings
are more fortunate and more easily made
into a finer view of things unseen.
Remember me with some such finer thing.

o sullen joy I was born awake;
I die sleeping in her long arms.

tomorrow I will arise from the ashes
and put my face between my hands.
I will bend in the reign of eyes that bleed.

and to her knowing absence I will give pause
for as I was born awake, so did I die sleeping
in the arms of joy that hurt.

tomorrow I will arise again from the ashes
and tomorrow I will, with eyes torn out,
renounce joy.

and I will not suffer this knowing eye, the heart.
I will not suffer vertigo’s fine glimpse.
I will not suffer the earth’s fine curve.

that such ignorance could have seen this noise in growing
is to be unfine and malevolent
in the maelstrom

ergo I will stand in wakefulness, eyes blinking,
and I will give it all away.
I will give my kisses to the sky
and my hearbeats to the aching earth.

I will give myself away and master solitude,
as I breathe the empty, where sucked time
through a closed fist closes,
for my one hour.

O People of time’s salutations, my love is gathering seashells by that hilled windy gathering place the sea (like dim worlds vexed with sound in the stuck conch, to undo this day the scaly wrongs that scuttle in the soul’s sea); for gull-winged griefs that drop their vowels on spat hills of light, my love is gathering portents like sea-made money for the truths found their in untruth, and hearing them there, I see them there:

Summer folk that come from cold to these great gathering hills and find one breasted ounce of ocean silver to keep like crying know that taut pants cringing came, the color of kisses, scattered on the sand grains like arms and legs. O People of time’s salutations, this shell and ear will bray there for the weeped hills that leaving love labored.

Folk of autumn come from fear, wracked by youth, grow old there where the hills recede — gather dust of water to glow the sun over with knowing that came too late. Sad gone days lean to and fro in the salutating tide that tugs the land for lack of care. O People of time’s salutations, this conch and ear will hear them scratch as the days go out to sea.

The morning folk that come from shadow gather wand watered proverbs in the still light. Great hills for these mad people who froth like waves for the sayings of ages. O People of time’s salutations, though eternities implode like new suns in their slow gatherings, shell and breath can not blow them out beyond sound’s ill reach where their sea goes endlessly rocking and mocking their finitudes.

The folk of evening come from labor, their wasted souls on hill and sullied waves dropped like shells in wrong places. Muscles matted on sanddollar days yield no virtue’s wages. Work is a shark’s tooth for the weary. O People of time’s salutations, shell and ear will hear them breathe though the sun going down can not.

Shell and ear for these splay sounds that daunt and dabble (by a sea of hilly days go on). But to pity and praise this great endavour, my love is seashell gathering by that same great sea while the waves go pithily out on this hill and monied water like thoughts and implications. O People of time’s salutations, this conch and ear will trumpet eternities in the long-winded tides that walk there.

Spring, 1990

hatred, fear and gutted baby’s blood
the angry squawls of love’s unsutured lesions
whine out a loneliness that is not eased;
in this not alone; infants hack their throats
out; murderers gargle their confessions;
this is the only love song ever sung.

crack of bones and snap of hearts, it’s true
these gutted squawls of love’s worn out confessions;
there’s time enough for everyone to die
in this the animal, the human zone.
these motherless children remove their eyes;
aborted lives will hack their wishes twain;
these are the only love songs ever were.

thief of time and robber of best wishes,
rendered desires that, chuckling, rub their hands,
(these angry squawls of love’s unsutured lesions);
lovers pull their tongues out — and a kiss
will leave you bleeding.

these are the things that leave one inert and staring –
these are the love songs that the earth has sung.

for so long now I have feared the cancer of silence,
the fall into the chasm of one’s own mind
and the absence of all distractions –
where there is no escaping the inward gaze
that finds oneself gazing out;
here is mindfulness of mindfulness;
here is the hand
that groping in darkness,
clenches and finds itself.

this has for some time been my most secret
and intimate fear –
for the hand that is there
is mauled and fingerless,
and the face that is there
is waxen with screaming
at the sound that it itself is making.

Winter, 1991

for Chet Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001). Rest in peace.

I checked the headlines just the other day.
They told me you had put down your guitar.
They said that you had gone and passed away.
The sun that rose is now a falling star.
And as I sit here strumming my guitar
I realize that pain is now a lay.
The music that once healed now leaves a scar.
I put down my guitar. I can not play.

Like myself you hailed from Tennessee.
Who knew where that glad guitar would lead?
Your laughing lute was clearly filled with glee
when you played “Summertime” with Jerry Reed.
And everyone that knew you just agreed
that your humility would find the way.
Your picking style was all that you would need.
I put down my guitar. I can not play.

Will anybody ever really know
why we were blessed with such a genius?
On every fret where your deft hands would go
you always made it look the easiest.
The music that you made was always blessed,
but now your magic hands have turned to clay.
The music’s over. You have gone to rest.
I put down my guitar. I can not play.

I’m just too sad. The music is no comfort.
I wish that yesterday was still today.
The music that I play just makes me hurt.
I put down my guitar. I can not play.

tonight I am fishing
in my rough bark
on the black sea.
I am reeling in the net:

that is full of babies,
heads’ hair fine like black faun’s fur
with white twitching
arms and legs.

The skin on their torsos
vaguely translucent,
I can see their hearts beating
like furious cuts of meat.

They are crying like newborns,
splashing like frightened seatrout.

How will I know
which one to keep?
I can’t eat them all.

As I ponder this
one falls in the boat
like a wet sponge.
It smells of fish and brine,

its tiny white chest heaving:
it’s still learning
how to breathe.

Perhaps it is learning
how to cry for its mother
who lives in the depths
where the sun can’t go.

I will keep this one then.
It will be tasty, I think,
with lemon juice and tartar,
perhaps a buttered slice
of honey wheat bread
as well.

And as I ponder
how poets eat their young
I throw the rest back.
With a splash
they swim away
going down,
diving deep like seabass
where the dark
maternal shapes
move like mountains.