Poems for Persons of Interest

  Heart The ruins here would shock a tabloid journalist. The ruins here would make an ancient V-1 sneer.  A puritan would shake his fist at heaven and turn atheist in ruins here.

  Round the Mountain She’ll be coming round the mountain.  So they said— those voices in the hollows of my head. The promise there still resonates and hums. She’ll be coming round the mountain. It’s been years now, but who’s counting? She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes.   She’ll be driving six white horses, and behind her chariot, symmetrically aligned, her troops will mass, in unimagined sums. She’ll be driving six white horses at the vanguard of her forces. She’ll be driving six white horses when she comes.   And we’ll all go out to meet her at the gate that gapes on life, where even now we wait, and strain our senses for her distant drums. Oh, we’ll all go out to meet her at the gate, just like Saint Peter. Oh, we’ll all go out to meet her when she comes.   And we’ll all have chicken and dumplings, and that feast will spread for the departed and deceased, who now are out there, scavenging for crumbs. And we’ll all have chicken and dumplings, a...

  Sappho 31 I see the light of a god in that person— One of the people, yes, but with ears sharp as a bird that digs for its dinner in the earth He sits opposite you, harkening as you mould Sweet song   And when your charming laugh follows I truly lose myself— My heart beats ruthlessly against my breast, Thrusting to fracture these ignorant fetters that hold together No-one   In truth, my tongue breaks and spills me out, In a moment, the fire will peel from under my skin and split me open— You are the apple of the eye of heaven, singing out But damn me, I can’t hear a thing   I sweat and tremble but To him, it seems all sport, hunting you, while I wilt like yellow grass Discipline me, I beg, as I lie dying, train me to be you Make this lovely song ring clear— Give me the courage to bear it

  Taken Remind me again just what I’m doing here Just when I need it, when I stray in dreams That are not lucid, cloudy as dark beer That renders maudlin till the drinker deems All fortunes blurred. But men duller than I Enjoy without desert—or even with— By measures I don’t reckon but defy, Since all of them defy me to the pith. So weightless in your muslin hippy dress, You stretched me somehow, straightened out my spine In moments; yes, you made the air confess My rightful presence and shored up the mine Beneath my feet that threatened to collapse. Of course, you would be taken. Yet, perhaps…

  Medusa, Preparing to Turn a Man to Stone ( Mosaic Floor: Medusa , the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) You ask why my poems are locked between my teeth; dear sir; innocence is perjury and the world  broadcasts my vice, therefore I have no choice  but this mind, this monologue; you say the world has changed; I must look outside; you claim I will find towers well beyond Olympus; green tongues, flushed cheeks, venom on tap;   but windows are for fools; I am stone; the Lady  of Thought offers no space for self-reflection; perhaps  she has none to give; my self-portrait is a mosaic  of shattered mirrors; took hours to make; I adore it so;  any robbery would be such egregious sin; see me there, a round-faced girl, hardly a knotted misery; so  sweet, so fresh, so gentle; young to the world’s terrors.