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The
New York Ouroboros
The
day taints,
from
the forced march of the morning
to
the sun-wrecked afternoon.
The
sun makes its low circle,
lights
the office windows
in
our hour of usefulness.
Our
Lady of Windows
watches
the streets fill
with
her statue-blank eyes.
Even
the men who sleep in doorways,
the
leaky ghosts with shredded bowels
mad
from the sound of it all,
are
half healed by her, and thank her profusely
for
the hand that hits them, for everything.
On
the subway concourse,
businessmen
and cleaning ladies
exchange
rosary beads at rush hour,
hailing
Mary over and over again
like
an enormous wheel wobbling.
An
unconsciousness
stronger
than my own
runs
through all of it.
The
New York Ouroboros
is
a subway, with a face on either end.
And
they stare each other down
for
longer than I can watch.
The
skyline regulates heaven.
Night
is dark and forty stories high.
Up
too late, the city
translates
me back to myself
with
something missing
and
something inscrutable inserted.
What
goes on
is
more than science and history.
What
goes on
waits
for poetry to grow up and become worthy.
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Within
Immense Luck
High
water in rich lands
fried
chicken and vagina on my hands.
On
the good side of chaos,
lucky
are the souls who play us.
I
can buy it on the way to work,
having
slept in the shoeshine chair.
There’s
coffee for a perk
and
later, I bathe in beer.
I
see the lights of the airplane that flies,
the
lights of the bridges and the lights of the stars
from
the windows of buses and the windows of bars,
and
among infinite dirt and infinite skies,
conclude
I am the luckiest pile of atoms so far.
So
high that we suspect a peak,
the
pressure is uncertain
the
direction is uncertain.
The
whole universe is flirting.
And
there is breath enough to speak.
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The
Forests Turn to Information
The
forest is
turning
to information.
I
pass through its odd metamorphosis,
on
train rides down the short, familiar routes
from
New York to Boston, Philadelphia to Washington,
New
Jersey to Connecticut.
Life
is hard, the people in the cafe car say.
You
play by the rules and still you lose.
They
admire how they fit into the horrible world,
sip
beers past the quarries and backs of factories.
The
conductor claims a passenger took his seat,
and
threatens to beat him in the station.
The
engineer hands down the verdict.
The
passenger must move. But the conductor will be fired.
No
one wins. It’s the peace that keeps.
A
train ride is practice for when you die,
for
when you turn entirely to information.
This
time, you loop east, toward the ocean,
out
of the city, through Queens,
where
the husks of cars sit in piles
like
cicada skins in the fulcrum of summer.
Back
at the house,
the
wind tugs at the garbage on the barbed wire.
It
is close-the-damn-door
cold.
The
answering machine mumbles odd threats.
The
empire persists.
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