1/
The way her knee swells
& she feels it
swelling & it turns into
a babe’s head.
No one has a countenance
more rich
& no one has a mouth
that opens wider,
lets a sound like
dreaming come into
the room in which
they
wait.
2/
In the night
men go fishing for stars,
not a god but a babe
wields the trident.
Cables lie covered with
smut. Light
erupts
on a screen.
What you see
is your face
& the face
that you see, old
& blind,
is a face from
your
dreams.
3/
Better for the mind
to empty out
in dreams,
the way a body
falls, thrown
from a passing train,
forsaken.
They hold a plate
between them, on its rim
a graven message:
God Is Pain.
4/
The air has grown destructive,
finds a way
to bind you,
dark & swollen,
an old angel with
flayed wings
The searchers in the night
drift past you.
You will walk among them,
will give them solace,
only in your dreams.
5/
The
room in which the man
is
sleeping
splinters halfway
through
his dream
he
feels a flow
of
images escaping
from
his eyes
imploding
coating
bed
& floor
with
colors like a show
of
lights
in
space, a spectrum
half
unseen,
unsought.
6/
Gardens blossom where a hand
digs deep
the rows
of laborers,
small men forgotten
like the names of towns,
bend with the wind.
Bright words like bella
grace their dreams,
their days degraded by
inane lavoro.
Theirs are forbidden thoughts.
7/
Hand
in hand
the
dead walk in a line,
hoping
against hope,
like
children.
It is enough. It
is enough.
It doesn’t last.
The
false commanders
lead
the charge.
The
story, started
in
a dream,
is
winding down.
8/
French dolls like ghosts
step forth at midday.
Everyone is sportif
geared for speed
never to turn a shoulder,
to name a game for love.
Their aim is circular,
it follows where you lead them,
down a secret path,
into a basement
shadowed by
your childhood dream,
a lurking hole,
then up the backstairs
lost to sleep.
9/
In the dark dance,
sightless,
they are tearing at a bone,
their jaws like bears’
jaws
cavernous
their fingers dripping
porridge, clawing
at each other’s nipples,
keepers of a dream.
The blind man sees
no flame or smoke
but knows it all
by tasting.
10/
The
cavern of the universe
widens
each morning.
My head fills up with dew,
the
father writes,
having
no home but where
his
shadow leads him.
In greasy shirtsleeves,
heavy
lids, blotched faces,
the
men pursue
a
trail of tears,
unbuttoned captive
to
a dream,
a
starless galaxy,
the
deeper sky
a
field of images
measureless
& mindless,
absent
their god.
11/
The
man with a hole
in
his eye
sees
anew. A sphinx
fingers
a sphincter,
she
extrudes
false
colors. The night
once
was pink,
it
is now
black
& white.
Nerval
in a corner
spitting
his death out,
a
substance
first
dreamed,
then
stuck under
his
tongue.
The war goes on forever.
12/
“Release me.”
“Feed me.”
Whose design this is
they do not know,
but cling to cyberspace
as if it held
a clue
the outline
of a village
filled with snow
or circumstance.
The wise man runs from it,
like poetry
or dreams.
13/
Love,
like intelligence,
opens
a door,
to
let us in
still
blind
&
searching,
taking
as a sign
the names of God
engraved in
amethyst a counterfeit
infinity,
not
letting time
pretend
to halt
the
darker flux,
impediment
to where
we
set our sights.
Here
is a place to hang
a
flag, and there a hat
to
pull a flag from.
All
your little men
are
watching,
waking
from a dream.
There
is no predicting
summer
but
it always comes.
14/
Those
who are masters
needn’t
talk,
but
signal with a secret
nod
or wink,
concealed
assassins
brought
into the mix.
Involuntary tears,
a dream of executions, (C. Baudelaire)
smoke
rises between our teeth.
The
ones who loved us
die not one by one
but
now en masse,
the presence of the dead
in every corner.
15/
Inside
the house,
its
walls down,
ground
into a dust
that
only the dream
sustains,
those
who
were once alive
do
not arise,
but
one by one
by snakes (T.L. Beddoes)
their limbs are swallowed.
Almost
enough
to
make you
suffocate,
to lodge
like
mercury
under
your tongue.
16/
Our dreams were of suns,
of vermilion dragons
spangled with gold
from Sumeria,
pronouncements & omens
concealed, to take death
as a tribute,
a slave plunged
in water
& drowning,
becoming a wife
to their god,
a scorpion,
then a chimera.
CODA TO A BOOK OF DREAMS
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself
a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
No
world more clear
than
what we see
in
dreams
nor
more amazing,
numbers
bursting into
stars &
stars
enriching
what we learn
when
dreaming.
It
is no more than this,
to
sleep & be
the
master of the universe,
not
to be bound to earth
but
gathering a trillion
other
worlds,
to
count myself
a
little king
stepping
aside for time.
Nothing
is measured
that
the mind can fathom
waking. In the way
her
body beckons
when
you turn to touch her
coming
from a black hole
deep
in space
&
time. We learn to count
the
deeper images
&
those still deeper,
gods
& angels
dancing
on a pin. * * a chip
Before
the dream
turns
bad
in
which a pin* holds * a chip
all
we know
&
all we fear
I stretch out
flat
to the
Horizon.
I arch above
you
like a lid.
I vanish & return.
My name is Death.
The word extermination
resonates nothing
escapes. The world
itself ends in
a time
beyond all
time
where time
ends
leaving a
residue behind
of mindless
space
& still
more mindless
images the nightmares
that the mind
conceals.* * reveals
To run from
time
isn’t a
choice,
the stars we
see
are
overwhelming
& block
the view
or bring up
images
of light &
dark,
a flickering
across the map
of time,
the flow of
sand
in dreams.
24.ix.17
[16
excerpts from A Book of Concealments plus
a coda newly written]
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