Saturday, November 20, 2010

Valhalla

In the realm of the saved, who dares suffer pain?
Happiness is a word abandoned in the midst of Being.
Around the edges of this city is where we all live,
all trees felled, rivers dry, oceans at permanent ebb,
birds and animals trapped inside where bipeds dwell,
nothing necessary on a sphere turning everybody
into hero, sexuality is rife, money obsolete, for who
would die where the body more than equals the soul
although flesh could never rise, nor here can yeast.
There are as many climbers as there are many divers.
Remember Melville in that chautauqua audience
hearing Emerson for the first time, swearing
"I love men who dive!" and we think he said it
aloud but no, he walked off without telling anyone.
All he thought he wrote down and was never unhappy
for how could you know God exists? And yet why would
he deny there was this craving within him for miracle.

Were I lucky to be in such company, I who love
women so much I have grown hooves where feet
once were, quadraped, horse, satyr, ah . . . what else?
The crows and ravens walk the yard where no grass
grows. Paula loves the crows. I love the ravens. Irish
Cathleen loves peacocks for the way they send
their plumage into blossom and tomcats for their
ample fucking many pussies in dark alleys of desire.
"You can learn from them," she laughs, "I do, I learn,
I know what it is to bristle on the fence and feel
the steel of his rod enter the valley between my legs."
What do I reply? May I conjecture every lass is fair
or like you, black Irish. They dream like you in Gaelic.
When they wake they are hard put to describe
what the aftermath was like. I wish I could see
what I’ve been missing so long, the clouds never
moving and she my metronome of rain, rain, rain.

(22 October 2010; revised, 20 November)

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