Paris 1997

A Paradise of Poets

1imperial & iron stanzas of the daytime signal to construct a battery of tindrums like a shield like winter under a white sky a novel overture & ridingturning with the wind my unmarked territory clouds & tangerines a hand likewater scattering itself over your body like the little chum the spendthriftwho comes home to do the boogie who is innocent of charm & leaves a vacantswirl behind your eyes immobilized & seeking transit to another world thefirst star on your radio the disk that spins & opens sparks & letters forthe new machine

2looking hard canft see his face but turns the glass around his head goeswith it flying over germany a swan with red feet & a rage for time a senseof up we go & down the air comes slamming us against a ridge a crease ofmountains little villages in which the dead play with their children & arecalm so that you think of love & have a memory of warmer nights a green sunrising slowly from the tinny rooftops tinting the whole street down which thebeggars stumble in their finest clothes their hands outstretched to touch youwhispering in languages you cannot understand but rub against them with asmile that speaks of comfort following your footsteps down a flight of stairs& into what becomes your death

3a man who doesnft look at you in middle of the train the underground thedouble cave who rubs a bottle on his scalp (again again) who taps his skullthe wings pinned to his red shirt burning rolled up scrolls beside him & hisold feet caked  with dirt propped on your cushions sitting in the ghostlypresence of a pack of poets who themselves are beckoning & pointing to the manin red the ticktack of the bottle the descent to rub against his thighs hispants pulled up along his withered leg but otherwise no sound no breath novoices moving through the crowded train at midday calm embraces of the otherdead who ride beside him whom I had not seen before this day this voyage halfawake could stare down streets that pass us in the opposite direction & thethought that comes to me: if someone started in to sing here in the shadowswould the lights above our heads explode & would the car ascending now comecrashing back to earth in sudden darkness

4first liquid blood & now the feet shift as the trick car leaves its tracks &settles on the long road sovereign undisputed & at rest & when we take our bowsthe sky over our heads is like a scarlet wrap so still so full of little knobsthat spin & drive us crazy afs and bfs a world of letters swimming by ofnumbers written on the rims of wheels their crunch crunch leveling the bones &arteries a pool of desperation where we wait not for the time of day the pleasuresthrobbing in the open sore but deeper in a world where red is rouge & rouge thecolor of the bottom drawer the hidden box in which a knife is waiting come & seeit now & see the cross that lives in time change to a mote in someonefs eye a starto nail in glory bloodless on your door

5the sperm bed slippery as wax & teeth that split crack-crack the brittle bundles &a rush of velvet oil spreads out a chair is buried under stars & etchings of hardflesh & motors screwed inside the throat directing sound up from the bodyfs sourceslike a molten spear an iron in the gut the blind man canft give back although hefights & suffers cries & feels the world turn dark against him victim of his will &of the river of pale eyes & open nostrils snot & sperm & sputum covering his hips &sides & entering the body through a shining hole to add its sound to his to cross ariver to return to home to spank the tender flesh to flounce to pivot to extend &open to the light to reconnoiter to fall back to break & let the flow of matteroverwhelm us

6a man without a face is still a man a dog without a collar is no less a dog itfshappy time in paris bang-bang where a house without a bellfs a house without a wayto find your  way around it up or down or roundabout & running to a hilltop where aman without a dog is walking on his hands a voice without a voice is dying in yourmouth cough-cough a chain without a door is hanging from a ring a plane without awing is desperate a screen without a signal from the house of signals sends out sparks& messages without a name without an ace an icicle an ark a cup without a cup withouta nail without an answer on the other screen my heart stubborn receiver of the way itgoes my circulation deep inside this trunk my face the man without a glimmer canassume or know his eyefs in pain or know the way the circle changes when a grainis added to the circle

7breaking the passage he spits hard & lets it stain the floor to make a wash of red &having wished to go into the little house a soldier in a regiment of voles a voyagerwith no tomorrow at his call with no admission to the room no elders waiting penitent& silent & alone & so they speak of specters they proclaim the harmony of knives thestrain of waiting for it every day of never being back & forth but coughing where itdoes & letting his religion mark the time his love for someone he has never seen butcarries as a letter to the bank a payment in the nick of time & thinks how marvelousI am & how I draw saliva from my little throat & wash my face with it a cat could dono better or a rabbit that the world has learned to tame how strange mysteriousforgiven rapturous proclaimed orated nursed & searched for in the leather bag hesometimes wears like gold over his heart

8a paper in the hand goes up in flame & when the hand extends a second hand is waitingbruised with green & red marks in the shape of fishes lanterns quicker than the eye &tracks with ice along .ilieir ed~es lights like diamonds & like lasers make the maninto an idol touched by hands that rise up from the floor of tiles he doesnft feelbut in the dark he walks without his glasses with his arms more heavy than before &wonders who the thieves are waiting at the gare de lfest their subtle bodies lightas air not brushing past him when they walk guards of a magic world alive with messageswith pictures waiting to be seen no longer real no longer in domains of the imaginationbut hidden in the mind of the machine that now possesses them that holds the worldinside it empty void blank featureless mechanical retreating to a place where thosewho wait will be bereft of everything they know & will not know it

9like ice the streets shine black & gorgeous in the shadow of an axe a line that cutsthe child throat lets the air escape into an ear that doesnft listen eyes that lightis kept from so the sight is only of a dancer tumbling down a hole a cat that livesinside your chimney for a night & that you see no longer wandering among the phantomcats & dogs that clog our dreams & hide beneath so large a table that a city could fitunder it an act of mercy that the world denies that men whose faces disappear behinda cloth old fashioned murderers & robbers have no use for while the hand of one israised deliciously above the tender neck the tresses set aside & with a wind behindhim throws himself against it as the knife aglow with fat goes diving in