this
garbage
.
He willed his thigh not to tremble
against his sonâs head.
He said,
Why are you here?
And they said, together,
We got some questions to ask you!
Then. Elizabeth asked,
Are you arresting my husband?
And they said, together,
Yeah. Come on, Buster. Move it
.
He woke up. The door-bell rang.
Song For The Shepherd Boy
What wouldnât I give
to be with you.
Hey. The rags of my life are few.
Abandoned priceless gems are scattered
here and there
I donât know whereâ
never expected to have them,
much less need them,
but, now, an ache, like the beginning
of the rain,
makes me wonder where they are.
If I knew, I would go there,
travelling far and far
and find them
to give them to you.
You
would be amazed.
I see your amber color raised
and those eyesâ!
brighter than the jewels, far
more amazing than the loot
of my looted life.
Well. Then.
There is my pain.
I never thought to think
of it again.
And painâs no gift
it will not lift
you up from the mid-night hour.
Pain cannot be given,
can only be tracked down,
discovered
somewhereâsomewhere within that catacomb,
that maze, that dungeon,
which my breath built,
and in which I begin to move,
now,
searching
for something to give to you.
May â86, Amherst
(for David)
For A.
Sitting in the house, with everything on my mind.
Stumbling in my house, watching my lover go stone-blind.
Come back from that window. Please donât open that door!
I know where it leads. It leads to hell, and more
than your blinded eyes can see. Come back,
come back, and try to lean on me.
Iâm here, Iâm here, Iâve gone nowhere away:
if only you could see!
How is it we have travelled, you and me,
through happy days, and torment, and not guessed
that we could find ourselves so black, unblessed,
so far apart?
You are my heart:
I watched you sleep and watched you play.
I slapped your buttocks every day.
I used to laugh with you when you laughed
and stand, when you stood up, and, with you,
watched the land drop down beneath us,
green and brown and crooked,
as we rose up, up into a sky
which we alone had found
and where we were alone. Too much alone, perhaps.
Perhaps we were as wicked as people said,
turning to each other for the living bread!
And, now: I have taken your hope away, you say,
and you think of me, sometimes, as the most
monstrous of old men. No matter:
if I could only make you see
how you must live when you are far away from me.
If only I could see for you, if I could for you spell
the vast contours of hell!
If I could tell you how, on such a road,
where I walked once, I stumbled and fell and howled:
how you must walk the road, and not be driven
into the great wilderness, by some false dream of heaven!
I have been there, and I know. But I know, too,
that nothing I say now will get to you.
You have your journey now, and I have mine.
And all day and all night long
I have waited for a sign
which will not be given to us now.
Love,
love has no gifts to give
except the revelation that the soul can live:
on a coming day,
you will hear, from afar,
I, your lover, pray.
You will hear, then, the prayer that you cannot hear now,
and, when you hear that sobbing, boy, rejoice,
and know that love is the purpose of the human voice!
Neuilly s/Seine
July 23, 1970
For EARL
I wish I had known more
than love ever knows, in time.
One imagines that time
gives the time
to quarrel,
correct, tyrannize,
and love.
Baby brother,
the light of your passage
has become the light in my own:
and I had planned it,
bambino
,
quite the other way around.
Enough. So much for plans.
Enough of calculations.
I will never see you
as I saw you,
again,
never touch you or kiss you
or scold you again.
You were very patient with me
very loving
but I was sure that I would die before you
and wanted you to be able to live without me.
So much for calculations.
So much for
Learning to Kill: Stories