More Poetry

or the first burning
the ghosts were
already in
the blue
smoke
the doves
of scattering
& children in red
robes giggling in line
upon line of bone white
fields the priests a pollen of
what stars grieve in leaving light
the coiling of green shoots in a cup
push into emptiness & let her be gold fire

or how he sipped coffee with his cigarette burning
the ashtray black in the cold morning patio
red clay tiles faded & thinly cracked
the dry land of New Mexico
a mirage behind leathered
skin will you cradle
his head in your
firepot hands
as his rivers
twist in
Eden
Eve
waiting
at the bridge

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 30 what dreams of Tibet

steam rises roils hisses
eyes of fire & flow
& a wanting of
a ready reed
a river to
bound
to bind
to tarry
a bit
before

the fall
the roar &
thunder—the tell
of being                   gone

she points to the map, says
in the real world this is
how it goes: one two
hold to it & weep

he says this is my world
two four let go &
weeping wants
its clouds &
thorny tides
the tangle of
nests & knots
burls & bruises
pools of flashing
furious sex & blood

& when she pales most unlovable
an absence where love is most wanted
an empty wanting breaking roiling hissing
the shreds & tatters of love & what is wanting

weave mad windows a dowry of clouds
gentle calmly cling to clear panes
thru to the cup of her well
the stars silver islands
floating in your
inviolate eye
a destination
of every now

leaning soft upon each
shoulder like a perfect friend

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 30 crashing into eternity open armed

crow at the wire fence
stone in its beak
what does it
want of a
round
thing

she asks what does a crow mean
as if a thing must mean to be
as if each moment holds
more than what it is

as if the broken
cannot hold
enough of
holding

the flies
at her eyes
stars’ teardrops
the remains of shining
or what sparks fireless on
a skin of lake water—weightless

will you mean more cupped in her hand
its black body tucked under the lip of the ridge
the fields swollen with the burial of a thousand wings
a knife of obsidian bleeding the horizon of its sheer counsel

which direction does a crow turn its gaze
the west is death & east is power
south wisdom north grace
go round—fenceless—
& gravity swallows
its own emptiness

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 30 as a crow flies

Ram Dass says
when the anger comes
when the grief comes
when the lust comes
when envy sloth
recriminations
regret guilt
shame

when these things
come as they will
as they must be
in their being
independent
of who you
are or will
ever be

let them pass
let them run
thru you
the you
who
feels
what
they are

they are not
who you are
let them pass
neither holding
to them nor being
held captive by them
let them pass as they come
& go taking nothing of who you are

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 30 you are beautiful: being in a cloud is not being a cloud: clouded mountains in the west

(& we are trusting,
rusting, the rue
of the sting,
polishing
the air)

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 30 the making of gold

a space abandoned—a place ill-used
becomes—is—haunted—
a heart a soul a body
—a home—

unexamined untended dis-
regarded unguarded
uncherished
becomes

—is—
unholy
a hell a pit
a wasteland

****

begin where you are
water it with tears
channel ghosts
into clouds

rain down
soften—sow
attend—garden
nourish—blossom

****

field the sky
with songbirds
paint distant hills
with vines & hives

unmask demons of despair
turn them into worms
to enrich soil with
their waste

everything in its place
the unholy is not
who you are—
come home

©2008 Richard Lance Williams May 1 earth is haunted if it is not a home (for Gaston Bachelard)

break out break in
break thru

unbind unshackle
prison is false

an illusion
make of

your world
an Eden

break
open

the present
that is

your life
as holy

a home
whole

begin with
kindness

your kind
is beauty

goodness
bliss

love who
you are

gifted
grand

exquisite as the breaking
dawn—break new ground

©2008 Richard Lance Williams May 1 break a way

a rounded square
she keeps her
corners with
all th’t’will
not fit(e)
wit’
all
th’
cracked
invisibles
let the ghosts
(rent this space
own the whole place)
run over the roof & under
the cellar you cannot slip it
it is emptiness contained
in an infinite cup
timeless time
drippings
of fat
slathered
needles unpiercing
what illumines distance
& o how its shape shapely comes

©2008 Richard Lance Williams May 1 the cornered absence turns involute

a small stone
in her palm
its amber
sheen
far away
a star still to be
yet to open in an
emptiness drawing
blossoms from those
eternities nestled in
folds of an angel’s
palm shaded fire
in the cup of
her want

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams May 2 the seed of unshadowing

she sets the table
sewn & sown
attention
& grace

nothing
is holy

nothing
is unholy

all is as it is
sacred in its place
shit & honey bread & stone
the quickly dead & the everlasting

lean into clouds of a brightly stirring feast
eating all that tumbles from the turning of ladles

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams May 2 the weather of the kitchen

& what is it to press a needle into air
turn back & gather a thread
the edges widening
the thin distance
there & here
before (ere)
the ore
the O
(re)
turned
(to the urn)
ashes dissolve
the moths like a smoke
her face in golden leaves shaking

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams May 2 the ore of being ever the point of (re)t’urn

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bowl of oranges
the table
gone

how her eyes
strawberries
finger &
thumb

its nectar
rivers a curve
of the cradled moon

or pools in his wanting
the silvery surface
a lost fire in his
blue lagoon

fresh water greening in its glassy depths
suspended in tender amber currents
thickened like a clear jelly
of cradling arms

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 12 called to the curve of her cheek

or when blinded falling
the red disease
what death
will beg
this
O
x

the dress unworn
the mad chase
of light from
her mouth
burnt or
broken
ghosts

do you let go
or does it
relent
a gravity
distracted
by the music
of another sorrow

love loneliness longing
the sorrow of the shadows
that widen in the depths until
the river is the sea the sea heaven
& there is no hole in the needle no curve
to turn again no tendrils to unreach the edges
of what holds to radiance to the skin of her touch

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 13 & what she wears away to the shining of absence

or waiting to weep
the blood like
knives or
if razors
were light
would darkness
hold less terror in four
chambers six or a honeycomb
abandoned the smoke of masks
or a corner of the Oaxacan blanket
unweaving mountains or backwards
the dead still walk into the room where
the fire cannot burn swelling the red wrists
turned up the spikes like rose stems cut from bones

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 14 what she would not reveal of the past undone

exhaustion
out of
h’aus
a g’ost
agoniste
g’one g’one
ist no(t) one n/y/et

do we need to spell it out
a ghost no one home
gone a not
ag’o’ny
a total
XX
X

no eyes no mouth
neither here nor
there nor in
the weave
no needle
no hole
blank

what do you say
when the light cannot break
& every port wants you to leave
thru the door & the next & the next
a new set is c’oming h’ome
& the frontier fronts a
g’ood b’ye (no yen)

knock it off, Ish
a hat a body
one eye
sees no body
a poor host of a cry
as if we hide in shorn sorrow
& love can never take us far enough

© 2008 Richard Lance Williams April 15 the etymology of too many doors: Odysseus in the ruins

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