So He Lives

The day Rilke knew where Picasso had secreted
The painting he had finished in 1905
Called ‘The Family of Saltimbiques’,

—and since he had come to feel its urgency—
He made plans to go to the castle where
Ir was domiciled. He wrote, With all its eyes

The animal world beholds the Open.
But how could this be true?
The Open disappeared as soon as you pierced

It’s confidences. The conditions in which
He found himself were dire at best.
He could hardly speak. His throat

Would thicken and his tongue would
Become coarse. The pain would throb
In his throat like a match set aflame.

The Saltimbiques were old and humble.
They had discovered we must dream
The way the animals beg our dreams

To materialize: They don‘t want luminescence;
Further, they don’t want us to know
That to ferry the dead was unreal.

The precisions of poetry can have no age.
What’s written must belong to the earth.
And be alone as a prayer is. So he lives.

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Candle

Hallelujah

Listen, the Warthog

The words lie. They slide into the mind
The way a poet’s blackness can cause
A low refractory sound to trumpet truth:
Like hounds out hunting, or like the peakiest
Of weaknesses can suddenly become
A parasite, like silence. Listen, the warthog,
He comes as he breathes. He cannot flow like
The water mountains drink,
0r swim in the oceans like a seal
But he can be a harbinger of
A happy walkabout about to end.

He trots across the graves of
The long destroyed, listening.

Imposter

One of my Best

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Intitled