[In preparation for my next full-length book of poems, The President of Desolation, to be published by Black Widow Press in April, I’m posting here an excerpt from a still longer section of the book, titled “Five Books.” To compose these five I drew from earlier poems of mine, breaking them into fragments or stanzas containing respectively the key words “shadows,” “deaths,” “gods,” “dreams,” and “mirrors,” to each of which I added a newly composed coda. As a further act of retrospection and autovariation, they fit for me into the work of reclamation I have recently been engaged in. (j.r.)]
1/
I
smile into a mirror
&
my face
glares
back.
A
father holds his babe
up
to the light.
Where
will it lead us?
Heaven
is no place for fools.
I
run my fingers
through
your hair
&
feel the universe
shut
down.
2/
The
generals are gathering.
They
stare into each other’s eyes
through
mirrors.
With
a display of wounds
we
signal them
&
turn away. I am the last
because
the fire
deep
inside
burns
till it’s morning.
3/
Great
distances
are
mine. I plot
their
numbers
but
I know
that
every universe
contains
another.
There
is no end in sight
&
no beginning.
The
stars stay dark
in
mirrors
until
your fingers
counting
them
have
dropped away.
4/
We
look at every mirror
as
a mere memento.
Mirages
have arisen
&
we swim in them.
I
make my way by stealth.
In
a house of children
no
one reigns
or
sleeps. The walls
start
at the floor
&
touch the ceiling.
5/
Eager
to break through language
&
touch life
I
crack my head against
a
mirror.
I
hack at a false body
with
a stick
pushing
the flames apart
until
the heart appears.
6/
I
find a secret world in mirrors.
My
fingernails are pale,
my
steps are perpendicular.
I
parachute & strut.
I
seek acceleration day by day.
I
am a man who swims among the drifters.
Istanbul
is not my home.
I
turn a page & listen.
I
am as hard as nails.
My
body swells from all the sounds inside it.
I
show myself in dreams.
7/
Separated by a cranny
others
more aware
stare down at us.
We have no way
to talk together,
mirror neurons that respond
only to themselves
& not to others.
A place to stand
deep in the speaker’s mind
determines speech.
The plan is self-erasing
if we wait it out,
not one of us the worse
for wear.
8/
They were prey to
maneuverings,
played them with zeal,
to no end
that they knew,
to declare new beginnings,
bestriding a sand dune,
vacuums a god might
transform to a cosmos,
infinity’s mirror,
a place internal to place,
a procedure a king
once devised,
divination from innards,
a rapturous babble.
9/
A world caught in a
mirror
too vast to be
contained.
Infinities of mirrors.
The ones who see it
falter,
their hands
break
the glass.
They are the sorry
mystics,
misfits from
the middle states,
we spy them
on a distant planet,
hidden from time.
Coda to A Book of Mirrors
recalls a face
by looking past it,
looking twice
when once will do.
Reflection tells it all.
There is no better way
to measure time,
the little jesters
in the field behind you
shaking loose
the small words
clicking in their craws.
All is seen,
the mirror as a field
for memory,
your own face
foremost
a receptacle
for other faces,
old & worn.
The images not deep
but multiplied,
held on a shining surface,
we can count them
as they pass
& then return.
In a room
where all the walls
are mirrors.
you are a mirror
of yourself,
a phantom child,
elliptical.
The mystery of mirrors,
counted & re-counted
ten times over.
Right is left,
the wound across
your heart
favors the rise & fall
of breath,
the top & bottom
still in place.
Therefore it turns
into a game,
something to carry
with you,
the next time
the grave comes open,
& you enter
where a floor of mirrors
waits for you
& blinds you.* *
binds you
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