Go, little goat-girl, leap
the bloody brook once filled
with spurs and graybeards, leap
the hedgerows thick with Mausers,
nestled like hens on their
beds of rusted casings, fly
down lanes of lizard cobbles,
blackened by sparks, the tread
of long-gone children and
their frantic minders, lowing in
their hearts the abandoned world.
Run, little goat-girl, bind
these ribs with gauze and
breath, on silence like a
goat’s cough, turnabout and heel.
Shamelessness a bud, a jewel.
Steal first a sleeping child
and while we’re at it
pinch language from its cradle.
A vintner’s diary, astrologer’s melancholic
brood, a sheaf of French
songs, stripped to the letter.
Lists bristle with symbols, the
margins warehouse their crosses, ‘o’s,
and slashes, the world won’t
end if celluloid doesn’t arrive.
Only the clueless are calm,
sunning themselves in steel cages,
confident that blue follows red,
that bitter tastes won’t last.
How will I recognize you?
Ghost among ghosts among ghosts?
We are flavored by crimes,
swine snouting the sweeter scent,
pasticcio with its moss-cap,
turning up a missing vowel.
Disappear behind a wall of
iris and rain, mind unhinged
where desire drops its cot.
Keep out of the glider’s
lane, blades so sharp the
ice slits silent under speed.
A box kite, the spin
and lift of Tokugawa’s shrunken
tigers, stabbed through with light.
The world broken down to
please poor pawing Psyche, see-
thru miniskirt covering nothing, thighs
rouged with cartoon kisses, red
lipstick and a blue handprint.
A double-dream of spring
and winter, the doubling of
an archer one fatal step
behind, the echo of his
master’s voice, two seasons slain.
Open with a comforting medley,
sound of one hand clapping.
I’m all that’s left and
no one else is coming.
Bow strung taut, then abandoned.
Stop, little goat, and listen.
A bird breaks cover, a
whistle sails from earth to
treetop, the sky looks nude
and blue above the cut
field, crow-claimed goal posts.
Those who hear the high,
the low growl like thunder,
the midriff and its satin
strings, again the high thin
gold of arrows and that
one embroidered word, chanted aloud.
Turn away, tears sting and
offered comfort diminishes down to
laughter very far from heaven.