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| Photograph by Charles Bernstein |
I
would also say it
speaking would like to hear it
catapulting
from my mouth
not
like a flow of words
but
a barrage of pulses
one
athwart the other
mindful
how some spirit
wracked
you
who
were singular in speech
the
mysteries of mind
laid
bare in talking
discovered
first, then lost
the
way all times
are
lost when no one
counts
them off
a
dream expresses it
still
harder to remember
pressured
to write it down
they
wait a new device
a
camera to record
the
images in dreams
the
images in memory
of
days in New York
or
of walks in Paris
linked
in talk
&
warm embraces
on
the other coast
is
where we come
to
die at last
the
more we wander
conversant
with the dead
companions
all
stiff
necked & lonely
when
you ask me for
a
discourse
still
more satisfying
that our cheating hearts
hold back
then let it fly
2
the memories
of being young
your black hair
in the wind
later to be lost
like something
keys hair someone
a contingency
my noble forehead
that you saw
or claimed to
in the loss of
yours
the stream of
language
hard to fix
or to deflect
once lost
first meetings
faces also lost
like words on
paper
that we shared
carried over time
the thoughts
of sickness
shared with all
like dying
thrice denied
the distance
between
now & now
I do not see you
any longer
but know the voice
full in my mind
so much like mine
someone had said
imagination all
that makes it
sound
timed to my heart
that keeps the
beat
flesh sundered
turned to ash
imagination
only
can it be fair
to write
a love song
to a friend
3
from friend to friend
the voice comes
& the answer
that a stranger overhears
robs him of speech
the guest is half
oracular
nowhere he turns
or runs caught
in a web
or caught between
two open doors
is right for him
the way out west
leads back to asia
asia leads him
into wilderness
a bitter landscape
where no friend
survives
no gaze or touch
so tender
those who fight
for love
once living
know it as a taste
sweet in the mouth
though distant
at length at last
the friend is double
in your sight
but turns from you
the time to come
draws nigh
then shatters
& does the poem exist
when there is no one there
to hear it?
4
who does not dream
dreams deeper
by not dreaming
until the door
swings open
draws you to
sleep within
what forms
assailing us
the scattered
dreamers
curtains closing
on our eyes
in frantic bursts
lights streaming
take the shape
of birds &
stars
outlyers
move across the
sky
the eye in love
with tentacles
in mauve &
amber
the new year
underway
without you
then the rest
is dream
whether the images
arise or not
the screen goes
blank
foretold by you
the dreamer
here is the death
we feared
infinite space
to every side
absent all light
5
After Wang Wei
O my friends! there is no friend.
at Weiching
morning rain
the fine
dust damped
a guest house
green among
green
willows
urge a friend
to drink a final
glass of wine
west of Yang
Pass
there is
no friend
6
except the memory
the loss a dream
that will not stick
but comes & goes
as if we hadn’t
dreamed it
for which I name you
poet of the dream
in whose denial
dreams come forth
the word “desire”
foremost
pleasures first
a place as large
as Prospect Park
where others
feast & bathe
some sleeping
& the dreamer
kicks his shoes off
wades into a pool
the north branch of
an old estate
its master far away
then goes from room
to room in search
of shoes as prelude
to a silent movie
buried like his life
too deep for
tears
for which the word
the woman
throws at him
is hog (he says)
not out of shame
or fecklessness
but turning
subject into object
echoing the master’s
words the world
is everything
that is the case
waking &
dreaming
much the same
1.ii.2017
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