Swifts
How easily we enter into caves and cadences of the sublime,
rush of passion, swooping, swirling, circling a chimney roost,
diving towards it as does the swift,
at the very last instant to reverse the body
plummet into hollow darkness,
down and down.
One incisive gesture: claws catch brick edge,
thought and momentum turn upwards to zodiacal light,
feathers cushion the halt.
Safe for the night.
And the day comes to settle — all that winging
and whirling over marshlands, grasses tall, insect-rich,
sudden mud slopes of tidal rivers
and still backwaters, where the lust of crickets
shivers the moon into fullness.
Tapped free
In the 8th century, Nilalai Pidippan, a disciple of a saint
named Tirumangai Alwar, was said to have been able
to stop people from moving by tapping on their shadows.
A shadow’s shrug
is airier than yours,
its hatred, for example,
pure gesture: emotion, thought,
history distilled out,
or sieved fine as dust,
neutrinos going around the world,
through the world,
simply for the fun of it,
speeding,
unimpeded,
easy as pie,
a hot knife through butter.
A shadow
locked in an Argentine tango
with your desire
is tapped by an invisible monk, freed
to copulate with snow angels.
Offspring
the ephemeral blue
inside ice caverns
or underneath
butterfly wings.
Zig-Zags
There was my shadow on the wall as tall as memory
blocking the hallway putting in doubt what you see.
Take care of me, blurs of my actual eyesight.
Will the natural ever be enough, meanings diffuse.
I love to talk purely for myself to try to clear up things.
Now going to sleep, everything gets deposited
in the bank of night. I’ll see you later, waking thoughts,
the power and energy of morning, the Sufi dance
of the cells and Indian plaza dance calling back the years
forward into the day, with the heart beating working the way
from brain to toes and back to heart, something to say
reflected in love forever, seeking friendship, a cluster of meaningful
sounding boards for the voice, the necessary zig-zag of sanity,
checks and balances, give and take, what more can the day make.
At Cross Purposes
Touch my gray life no more.
Out with the insanity.
I can be outright selfish if need be.
My needs dominate, shaken to the roots
by your wandering about in my mind.
I’m sorry but stand on your own two feet
even if you can’t. You do have feet.
Out out gray bucket full of worry &
pissy days
& glogged up nights —
pour it out pour it out get
rid of it. My work remains pure
ahead of me if I get back on course,
not your course, your bad decisions and lost
opportunities, your lost way
will it ever be regained
will you ever recover?
My way sidetracks yours
at cross purposes breaking my heart
I myself pick up the lost time
of trying & trials & pieces
you left me.
Now I’m with myself again
my lost partner
is coming back, is here.
I face myself again
bringing myself back together
back to function & rich
accomplishment,
sustaining myself out of love
out of love for you
I set myself free.