from Think of Lampedusa 1

I will tell you for the last time

my history, my wave

I have dreamed of you

as one dreams of an eye

without an eyelid

A story alive within these nights

where I rest with my eyes peeled

The roadsides

dead-end hope

I dreamed about you

like one dreams simply

of a hand

or of day

Light Dreamed

of morning

where the day relies

on the raft’s flame

a flame in agreement

with all these hearts proceeding

under venetian blinds

that have faded with the discord

~

Even what the blinds delete

will rethread itself

into rays of accord

Newly recomposed

the day and the night

sometimes the morning

will last by just a flame

but this dawn would be everything

It broadcasts the celebratory evenings

the nights in joy

morning on its way

I would confess to this dawn a hundred times

the shaky lines of this decision

the arabesque of my flight

the field of my exhausted signs

I am on the sea brushing

against those that the noise

of the waves consoles!

Those grown from the clay of palms

~

And I would light neither

mourning candle

nor candle for clarity

upon the eyes of the ocean

And in no water would I

gripe about the hardship

that has caused my tears

to reverberate

There is much worse than a raft

adrift

The earth that would wreck it

The dry soil of a once-brotherly conscience

The ocean of stories

that are tragically scraped away

There is much worse than a raft

in death throes

The earth

forgetting it’s a source of life

~

The earth’s mood

split by the same old insults

And the crying smile of an eye

that can’t take in any more

its humanity damned

And us, skinned

by the blow of words

scored bitterly

into our delirious bodies

And stranded in quarrels

which of the castaways speaks up?

Who explains the total loss?

Even for those who will leave tomorrow

there is much worse than a raft

adrift

This our forgetful earth

would edge out the view of immense

seaweed tangles

like lashes at the water’s edge

~

~

I’d say happy birthday

woman-of-my-dreams

muse-of-my-awakenings

For you this bouquet of accents

bent under the weight of

crystals from my jewelry boxes

And the wave would no longer keep its shape

And the shore would no longer be sand

but electricity

Phosphorescent all the phosphor

from the zenith to its plainest angle

Optimal Geometry

This geometry of the senses

is rewritten in the length of just one of

your eyelashes

But you’d no longer understand me

And by the wish of a boat-

become-bier

shouldered in an unexpected welcome

I’d be the wind

~

Sometime, with my sketching pencil

I’d like to whisper into her ear

what the morning breeze says

to the coastal sand

Words from the street,

simple and soothing but strong

Invigorating . . .

Words made of island sand

Words that have known the pottery of the sea

Words rolling in

that whisper what the morning breeze

would say to the coast winds

And my land

our land

would laugh from shore to shore at my aspirations

My land would laugh

at this dream of fresh air

~

My fantasy

dashed a hundred times

in fate’s spiraling eye

The winds like people meeting

then racing in tandem

bending the angle of each corner

Farandoles fan out in alleys

And evening’s moorings loosen

The dream is dispersed in the winds

like people spread and sewn into the planet

One becomes a tempest

while others make a small headwind

Farewells sometimes celebrated like weddings

nervous joy on the docks

And people would blow would gather

would grow in resemblance

No riddle

Nature would make consonance with itself

~

Free of my land

then I’d exclaim innocence

an innocence made of oxygen

I afford it to myself unconditionally

to avoid vertigo

Nobody will keep me from my morality

Innocence will perform

on an embankment that slopes away endlessly

Plied by my thirst I’d hurry there

at whim’s rhythm

without likeness

without worry

without the slightest concern for elegance

I’d reimagine that fire in the ship’s hold

the seasonal suicide epidemic

I’d say happy the castaways

they will be naturalized

Happy absentees

the toasts they’ll receive

Haven’t they lifted the elbow of that anchor

drank to the bubbles of this dream

or disinterred for us those nauseous Greek arts

the blasphemous infections

of the salacious little songs

~

And we’d rise on that seasick

echo

Echo where all of the secular angers

sleep off their drunkenness

The storm lodged in the ovary

of a sinking boat

We don’t want

words with sores at the corners

The false requiem

no thank you

Who wants sympathies after the fact

those plaster smiles on the rescuers

of already-lost causes

We’d refuse even the caresses

that languish in the memories of those we’ve deserted

We’d avoid the warm hand

in a morning so blatantly cold

~

And the art of antiquity

would rise toward us from the bottom of the ship

Blasphemous infections

salacious little songs

And we’d rise on the echo

of the sickening sea

Echo

where the secular angers

are sleeping off their drunkenness

But where in the hollow of one’s

self could this hope be reborn

That the White would not infinitely be worth

two Black as

if clefs pinned onto musical staves