In the world of
black and white,
there is . . .
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Poet to Poet
"People wish to be settled.
Only as long as they are unsettled is there any
hope for them" ~Thoreau
Poet, my life has been
an instrument for a mouth.
I have never seen,
breathing wind,
which comes from I know not where,
arranging & c h a n g i n g
my needs, so as to make
an opening for his voice or hers,
Muse, White Goddess, Mother with invisible milk,
Androgynous God in whose grip
I struggle,
turning this way & that,
believing that I chart my life, poet,
my loves-
When in fact it is she,
he who charts them-
all for the sake of some as yet
unwritten poem.
(pause)
Twisting the wind,
twisting like a pirate
d
a
n
g
l
i
n
g in a cage
from a high seawall,
the wind whips through my bones
making an instrument,
my back a xylophone,
my sex a triangle chiming,
my lips stretched tight as drumskins.
I no longer care
who is playing me,
but fear makes the hairs
stand up on the back of my neck, poet,
when I think that she may stop.
(pause)
And yet I long for peace
as feverently as you do-
the sweet connubial bliss
that admits no turbulence,
the settled life
that defeats poetry,
the hearth before which children play-
(not poet's children, ragtag, neurotic, demon-ridden, but the sweet
apple-cheeked children)
My daughter dreams
of peace as I do:
Marriage, proper house, proper husband, nourishing dreamless sex,
love like a hot toddy, or an apple pie.
But the Muse
has other plans for you & I, poet
Puppet Mistress,
d
a
n
g
l
i
n
g us
on this dark proscenium,
p u l l i n ..........g our strings,
blowing us toward cornwall,
toward Venice,
toward Delphi,
toward some lurking counterpane
a tent upheld,
by one throbbing
blooddrenched pole-
her pen, her pencil, the monolith we
worship underneath the gleaming moon.
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