Bear Song
When I'm alone I take off my skin
and expose the hair
and muscle within.
I stand upright breathing slow
at the door of my cave,
growling low.
Often the days are long
and I marvel at the world's working
though everything is wrong.
Misanthropic as rock or stone
I scowl at the sunset.
I live alone.
Apologia
Time is stretching out now, stretching
finely,
so fine I'm almost afraid it's going to snap,
crack and fly away from me, or else snap back,
leave a red welt slapped across my face.
It is all the important things
that have escaped,
that have faded or slipped away, or that are,
to be more correct, escaping, fading, slipping;
they are with me still, but barely within reach.
The unimportant things don't remain
either,
but it doesn't matter that they're gone, or going.
Unimportant things are like that: pale gems perhaps,
or like handsome coins whose currency is lost.
I look at everything. Everything
is laid before me,
like a country, blue in the night's thin light,
and I barely find the landmarks, trace you out.
Tonight I think I see your face in a knotted hillside.
How To Avoid Bears
I have read many times and in
many different sources
that the best way to not be eaten by bears
is to lie still and silent on the ground before them.
This is good advice, if it works,
but better is, surely,
to not be attractive to bears. Do not smell like honey.
Do not move like a fish. Do not breathe like you like bears.
Private Language Argument
Don't turn on the tv.
There's nothing there. There never was.
Whatever was before was never something much.
No. Switch the wireless to silence.
Leave the record player unplugged.
Forget the music that fills the days with its insistencies.
Come close this afternoon. Put
down the books.
Do not concern yourself wth the bookmark.
There is little difference from page to page.
Draw the curtains over the windows.
Turn the paintings to the wall.
Hold out instead for the message of this body.
Do not expect the telephone to
ring.
Listen only to the movements of this mouth.
Ignore the poems, they are true only half the time.
Watching The Sunset Silhouetting
Trees
Watching the sunset silhouetting
trees
I am reminded of nothing.
It is a beautiful feeling, freedom.
Poem (531)
Buying bread one morning I was
reminded
of how essential you once were to me,
of how, waking with the dawn's light
or drifting in the dark I would reach for you,
of how, looking from sky to street
to window to face i would note details,
store them somewhere safe in order to share
my views of the world with you, later on.
Placing the loaf into the carrier
bag
and leaving the shop I thought how strange life is,
how sometimes it will all change around,
how overnight omens and portents become weather
and how something as ordinary as bread
becomes the pivot point of an ordinary morning,
as if its importance was something other than
a brief excuse to leave your flat for a while.
Winter Lullaby
Sleep now my darling,
the winter is calling,
the daylight is dimming,
the snow will be falling.
Sleep now my darling,
be warm in the night,
sleep close to the stars,
use them for your light.
Sleep now my darling,
dream and breathe slow,
hold yourself close,
the winter will go.
