Prelude
Interrogation Ode
No new stardust in the microcosm
no extraordinary matter condescends
our marginal bridled constitution
cambers and weighs what chartered hearts lend
though they linger and answer not the dust
they withdraw an image predisposed
More southerly that the sacred ruins
workers, thieves in the dim light of conscience
solidified amoral economic
relics, accounts experimental
feelings of fear against destructionists
invasions interrogate pasque flower
windowbird at roadside sanctuary
cosmopolitan-minded mayors
on the value proposition who join
peace or chaos
reverberations of forgotten whims
towards the estuary of topstich protests
believing in the vacancy of local resignation
Melange faldstools elect war
demand credit from ruins
a Grecian nose revisionist arrest,
secures the nape of the state
its habit and the people their
blues geography.
Royal images, texts, police reports
represent Osiris from Erlangen
to Greifswald. Mountains of officers
wear greaves to protect themselves
from tourists.
A batted hymn
signs confusion at banquet robes,
naturalism laments its factoring
supplies dishevel the arching cords
with yesterday’s romance, the zeal
of our vacant mayor elects
treason for juvenile aqueducts
and the benevolent wives
of heresy republicans.
Yoashua goes ten miles
with an officer. They run from dogs
climb the inner city gates, they run
together. A thirty-foot fence holds
their weight. The pack of howling
miscreants laughs at the spirit of
winds climbing slightly above the heavens.
In dispose of our adolescent journey.
In the dying rust of our portals of
time drinking asphalt deciphering winds
in the slumbering lens of history.
Leaves broach the stomach of our
inseminating vows towards the ice shed
towards vacancy
and humor.
Two goats climb a decaying Chevy.
Yoashua and the officer in their immaculate
dispose of the breeches of our humor, twine
in the dust making spirited vacancy. One goat
shies away from humor. The King is dead.
Long live his children. Nero redivivus myth
invited into clay pools give birth to asphalt.
The gate departs. The fence holds their
weight. The dogs seize humor.
Finally they had to admit a hitch
“we’re coming,” the faldstools move
their chairs slightly towards exercises
feverishly together, “what he did to me!”
a state minimum, the thesis, the poor
hold dignity, policy, “sophistication claps,”
nonresidence hesitated
hogs below the inner city gate
the fence holding the weight
uncertainty in the meeting house,
regard for the law
assessments account
parties and dispositions
no small measure sought
Peter’s father in Victorian England
a businessman in reprisal, a nomadic
drunk foisted before the amphitheater
a wedding before the gate, the fence
rocking. Nero cast off his arm
for a population in grass splendor.
A quarrel of flower-vases. On fairgrounds.
Prologues and proclamations. Osiris in
Paris. “Osiris, Osiris, reclaim your imaginary
bead of sweat. Carry me to
ill-humored indefinitive gestures.”
“Cholera,” Osiris cries. “Cholera.”
The Russians found this acceptable.
The free world puffed, preserved
Yoashua’s song rehearsed
dangerous resistance as
a psychic entity.
“Kinsmen, my friends. We have a few
hours.” Peter denounced the waste by
the flowers. The dogs by the gate secured a
new home grieving under the eclipse of the wind
tattered and strung up by letters and foam
another memory condescends.
Was it more real than inner city lights
a patio rose less likely than true
or slavery unsung in Paris or Rome
silent resistance or positive antagonism
a blight unearthed and drunk on morning dew
We hold candlelight vigils
for the dogs. Pretending to be certain
of the heat of May with ashtrays and
peppermint and long old shoremen dancing
at the sight of Peter where Osiris
washes pedunculate oaks and strives
with the turnstyle. The fairgrounds. In a
moment we will be certain. Negative
symptoms become a way of life. The dogs.
The dogs are remembering their children.
From Erlangen to Greifswald. They are counting
their children.
Swallowed moons in hollow cars. Bones left
for certain change. Resuscitation witnesses
with negative symptoms. Exchange vows and waits
for certain leaves in ash drops, hallowed
no longer vacant but the means. The means Osiris.
How he couldn’t wait to shovel passports
in the snow in vacant lots ritualized by fire.
Do not interrogate the wind
for extraordinary fire.
Do not sell another man’s labors
and do not sell the earth.
Chapter One
I
I was shown myself wearing a mantle like Elijah
Blowing smoke into and under a sea
Somewhere that sea is quaking
On that day, teachings north of Medina
Show evidences to bibliographers
Saw himself, song of the celestial
References to sacrifice
The universities will open
Find expression or some martyrdom
A Jew in the south
No longer heaven’s punishment
Atonement for change
Compelled him to write
Papers and letters
Relations to attorneys
A badge in the south
Hymn of provincial tidings
Through works disposed appellation
Often published dedicated
Figurative tidings
Contains scarcely letters
Pumbedita sees the ends
Of sabers, no loft
Or retrieved ends
I have not passed through
Safely, or acquired all
There is to know
My favor
Has not reckoned
My place in the south
I wrote a poem on
Greek logic, a professor
In Chicago found it unfaithful
Osiris, sing me you
Bird’s nest, so that I
May write out the line
Osiris, judge
My song, so that the
Emanation of my vows
Will promise no fools
End, but so the imaging
And magnetic toil
Will not be forgotten
Or displaced in the
Relief map of our labors
II
Osiris, I have heard your green trials
You imitate laughter and break the soil
As all men do you reach for the unheard
You, who insist there is a second moon
Have not toil or balcony to break
Bemoan the pillars, the Jew of the south
Who took shore leave with such pitiful grace
A disability check did no wrong
Osiris, you did not hear me breathe
I was strong despite your heavy neck
Was it you whom erupted upon pillars?
Your neck against the grace of evening dew
You were made mad and you were made judge
Who marked you with asphalt and lean tidings?
No surge assumes earthly wisdom
No drowning bay takes heed of time
But rudimentary windows bless
Tired dolphins seeking redress
There is no asphalt in this lonely subjection
No pearl she held up to her family
She crossed diligent vales upon myrrh
And nylon refrains from breach pouches
Saluting parting stalwart dreams
In derision for petitions unanswered
Did He hear the winnow sand teeth
Did He redress the stalwart dance
Under derision for asphalt dreams
There is no exception save his honor
His shattering teeth mark no end
No indifferent salutary dances
End the strange window at his stead
His trumpet call pedantic loathing
Insinuations redressing time itself
Were there ever winnows in steep houses
Ever lost iron maps stolen in parsed lungs
Or reverent tidings losing our journey
For the Lord who saved us from his hand
Jacob showed me ha-Shem’s hand
His awful stature and merciful grace
Was I saved from slavery to be a servant
To fitful ghosts with razor teeth
That disenchant a moment’s peace
With long oar strokes that see no end
To the bruises of our heroic might
We disentangle the lonely deserter
With marveling dispose and frightful ends
Makom did not leave me so disheveled
To see no peace for my own end
I see the tired sterling’s map
Our grace is fortune but what whit is end
The help of truce did leave us lapping
Where heirs fit to tide lost measure
Squeeze the trouble truth lashes
From lips and dowry hemorrhaging
We were not fit to retire
No, no stolen academy left us well
Remember me ha-Shem, Makom recall
Yisra’el establishes better years than this
Yet I cannot stand before you
Or redress on my knees in such pain
Remember me ha-Shem, Makom recalls
That I am not a man of better needs
I think that’s laughing I hear from ends
That seize no truth or uttered hold
No redress, just laughing
And stalwart dances that left us near
Remember me and all my calling
Did I salute a bitter dream?
Was my God angry with the rivers
When He looked and saw only me?
I am made irresponsible
A fool with gold, I cannot cure
Did Osiris seize my skin
And leave me laughing
Am I eating grass in the whispers
Am I forming clay at such an age?
Look at my lines, judge my song
Did evening leave a brow so disdained
So early am I fallen to whispers
I did not die at tender age
That I must recall, remember vesture
Or leave saddened line for morning’s fortune
And glorify the wind to seize my comfort
Oh, man of manners hear my case
Judge between me and the winnows
Rehearse the stolen tiles from such a draft
Remember not to envy might or hardship
Or lose your wits along my refined edge
I am not a man who calls you lightly
I know you are at ends with laughter
And not afraid to break the soil with your teeth
Or time the trial with what you have not heard
Give ear to my taste, oh man of letters
And do not give heed to such a heavy neck
Osiris sings for jewels, wealth, and promise
But does not recall the moment that we mend
I do not argue with time to break the water
Or leech a bottle from his neck
Only you or I oh man of letters
Ever did rinse a subjective truth
And toss it to the wind
I hear you calling
You said it would take days
And then adjourned
Did I not get through to you
You hear me calling
To break the bond of silence
And subject the truth
Chapter Two
I
Am I supposed a man who heard you call
now break the wind and have it out with me
no subsoil winnows
for your early fall
do not believe Osiris
has a better fetch
he is not addressing
his rehearsal
or announcing
his imperial state.
I first met Osiris
at Przemysl
Russia’s cloak of arms
did not deter me
from seeking a song
of acquiescence from him.
“No more will we
ride on steeds”
Oh ha-Shem
would you have me sell everything?
My Mother’s curio
which stores my books on Jewish heritage
and the books with it?
I have turned back to you
with complete transparency
please remember me
remember me in your mercy.
I have felt ha-Shem’s might
I was reproved by Him
I asked God if He was angry with the rivers
And the Lord said “No.”
Oh hear me man of letters
Eliyahu came to me
with a touch of ecstasy
He began the healing process
I met Eliyahu
though I did not see Him
He grabbed by arm
to shake my hand.
Believe me man of letters
Eliyahu is kind
And the Lord was not
angry with nahar.
II
Haggai whispers many promises to me
that I, in my torn carpets dancing,
will continually be blessed like children laughing
And the dance they will preclude
will be a song of flesh torn by want
by esoteric want and a need to be filled
I can feel Haggai speak to Elijah
I feel Elijah embrace my arm
as if bound by tefillin
He is telling me to pray, to kneel
on the ground, on my torn carpet
The pink and the dirt, and the indecision
that wraps my wife’s remorse
She is somewhere else now
probably with someone else now
what do I have to preclude
But oh, an interrogation song
that gave me my life in return
and song in indelicate waters
Touch any of these
“The vine, fig tree, pomegranate,
and olive tree”
I will see the blessing of Ha-Shem
and my wife will not be the same
but an open, empty brook will cause me,
tired lanterns, monoclonal derivatives
sang for violet crass tidings
a pathway for diving dreams that
eclipse lector statesmen and retain
the want, the bear above us in the tree
pointed out by my grandfather on a green
lectern, Russia by the way, Przemysl
and Oxford at the nightgown press,
slowly towards my father
slowly past the judge
Oh give me fruits with Elijah’s song
with sparing weights and new dreams
let him be a kymograph for my dreams
and relent strong trees for all my neighbors
that sing of gray-toned ruins that dance
on the railway of morning sparks
My wife ignites such wanderings
I meet a prisoner with torn knees
they were not the same
but I shared a room with both of them
on separate occasions, calling me into the water,
to Venice, and other men’s dreams
and I saw there was a ravine
with an outlet and water ran through it
but it was not God who was angry with the waters
Chapter Three
I
There were seventeen streets last winter
Forced labor cemented in the avenue blocks
Ten men for every child sought Quebec
There were doves and strangers
Among the farthest stretches
Bring witnesses, bring money
Bring silent strangers to request an absolution
Request stolen breath from our emergency of time
Let not one hair fall uncounted
But an emergency of breath brings us closer
To finding the railway that leads us from
The refugee camps to some certain timbre
Take me to the farthest island
Show me it will be over soon
Let Mashiach bring new wine
May Elijah come this fall
And show me my arm is no longer bound
Mashiach will stem the arching tide
And all the loose soldiers will vow
To never take up arms
For the peace unknown to man
Is certain as the spring dewlap tidings
And certain in its need for remission
Voice the hunger, the labor pangs
Bring a new epiphany to every man, woman,
And child, see the arching bond of tears
And remorse for forever altered days
That leave no regret or assumed foul
Spellings, but breathe the last emergency
Where no more blood will be shed
No more chants of discord will plaque
The summer days or leave room for
Mistaken entries in tattered lost journals
II
There is no need
to rename the song
Doing so would be to
worship the work
of our own hands
We only need to open
the doors and open our
hearts
Ephraim, hear the God
of peace
Hear the God of justice
our goodness is like morning
clouds
We dissipate in the blowing
wind
We mark our words with
sweat and honey
Curds and wine
She dances close to me
and reminds me how long
I have been separated
She gives me a reason
to move on
Judah hears her song
Somewhere deep inside
Go deep into the rocks
“Those who add house to house
And join field to field
Till there is room for none but you
To dwell in the land”
The song can be
as it is
“Shall stand firm above the mountains
And tower above the hills
And all the nations
Shall flow in with joy”
Judah hears her song
deep inside the rocks
Oh Ephraim dance
with the joy
Of a shared house
that all the people
May enter her song
Oh Israel
Judge my song
That there may be light
in the morning
that remains behind
the drifting clouds
The storm enters
the dance breaks
And she is standing there
triumphant and at peace
with the rocks of her tune
Chapter Four
I saw Gabriel in a dream.
She had the appearance an animal
and crystal that glowed with fire inside.
She was crying
in somber matrimony
“Do you hear the sound
of the wicked wind?”
Recognized my doubts
“when you get the kingdom,
if you get the kingdom…”.
I rode a black ass towards Russia
which refused to listen to reason,
She is not there she swears
she heard me cry
the Secretary of State saw her wrath
she responded my cognizance, as if peregrinate
water frost,
stolen in time
stolen in amber waves
She glowed, machinery in red, white, and blue
comforts, stolen in time she howls,
she asks
“but there is no reason?”
a perfidious comrade asks for time
conceals the jury with hangman triggers,
switches on the backs of complaints
for misers, for juries, for
water frost
pergola sands eat nothing for days
take showers together
refuse to be seen
refuse God’s acceptance
in peridot moons
on sailing ships, towards
unglossed basins,
carrying away
hands
Pesewa carried through continually forever
throwing stillage on grass staddle
piercing mendicant lauds with surprise and jeer.
refused basins glow in her hands,
they cringe and couple notions of shelter,
movable air, resolute and brave.
She is including yesterday’s work, rueful
and parched. Her stomach flown in gulfs,
precious majesty, mounds across another.
marginally scornful puppets broker
empty covenants with diesel married to margate pines,
suitable for armies, for tithe, for hollow ledgers.
call morning glories with repudiation, in
calm pasture frames, revoking indiscretion.
asherim plate houses,
bronze silhouettes
settle onto periglacial limbs
dilapidated limbs tower over tall green houses
and rudder silently against the ways and means
of angst and guilt
infantilism projecting its fostering
customary expenditures
for bronze silhouettes
of Elijah,
He stood
and protected
the failing projection
from idle green houses
that march in the circumference
of dreams that settle
into forked driveway houses
and denote the settlements
for roads to Zamzummim.
the green stem
away to fossil
puritans in the road
denoting human
in the path we have forgotten
for insults on apricot overlords
mammoth tigers unemployed
liberated in the country
harmony with white variegated trenchancy.
perianth anthems
sing crystal
sing lime
sing the words together
toward morning
toward shelter
toward comfort in periclinal guile
be my morning
be my shelter
She asks?
Chapter Five
I
Child labor in Sierra Leon
Breaking rocks to pay for school
At a quarry in Freetown
Gabriel leaves a cloak
To cover the children
From the falling rocks
Oh, cover me as well Gabriel
Hide my face from such ruins
May the break of day
Bring new earth
And protect the children
From such agony
May the earth move
Its brittle platform
And seize new dimensions
Far from austerity
Bring me Eliyahu
Send him to the children
May God break the dawn
That wakes such faces
And leave new earth
In the dust of our dreams
God is not angry with the waters
But he is angry these stones
II
cheer for water, for the end
of sabers
give the sound over regimes
it is itself
where children are floodwater
bring to Peace a phonetic gouge
that disfranchises
imperial constitutions
and Lives
what tides the children bring
where love dispossess the
merchant
and sails on the morning
hymns
of God’s kingdom
III
Man, Go to the Plains
Take yeast from your stomach
And tell me, what does it say?
And I looked,
And a star fell from the heavens
Among a thousand ashen crops
A messenger swung from a rope
With a lancet in her mouth, saying
Who are these who play
The harp like David?
And all the small children in the earth
Rose up to judge the acts of man
We were saved by the messengers sword
Who wrote redemption in our foreheads
She conceals the clouds for the right standing
The harvest glowed in awestruck colors
Taking reality, form and bending it to the earth
Two books were opened
One was burned with every site of blasphemy
The second was sung
The children of the morning
In the Plains, in my stomach
Hosanna, Hosanna, with every note
There were no more refugees
Or stunted details
But morning and glowing wheat
And the emblem of her song
Chapter Six
I
I hear many birds
In my song
I met Yoashua
And I must admit
He did not defend Osiris
He leaves a snare for all peoples
He asked me to follow him
And I did
It cost me my life
I did not stay the course
Long enough
To welcome a complete end
Hear Osiris
He does not refute Yoashua
He does not give weight
To men of long journeys
Or harpsichord memories
That dive into the dispose
And grieve for woven entries
In my wife’s lost journals
Oh, man of letters
I speak from experience
I did not know the day
That Yoashua’s temple would quake
I did hear you
Late, but clearly
I heard Ha-Shem
“See clearly,”
See, what speaks
To the children
Of our dreams
That wake with moonlight
And condense the spirit
Into moving hymns
Of lost entries
In lost journals
I hear her call
My song and my fruit
My vineyard is chosen
My regrets stand tall
I demonstrated my judgment
When I walked toward Osiris
With a song
And a perpetual honor
That did not leave
Me predisposed
Hear prison reform
Hear songs from their entry
They are leaving
It up to us
They are leaving
It forever
And a song stands beside her
From the waste and the river
Hear the ships
Go by
Do not interrogate the wind
for extraordinary fire.
Do not sell another person’s labors
and do not sell the earth.