I.

New roads bypassed a tide of voices, fog-insulated

through endless dim eddies of sky, the dream signaled

a thud on the skyline: gravity swelled in the stinging sea.

I could believe a Man who heaped himself by frontiers of jokes--

sliding prone on march of days, despite the fate that silently poured

onto us, in measure, below. I never knew that she had arms and rose

in years between.. a chestnut forest, immortally,  like young men or a fleet

over blue knolls, the thunder fed nozzles of spring-- to die

with one white veil gusted, swinging, from azure winds.

As twilight slunk in, it diminished us and the black hole of history,

the torrent, a snake pulsing through fire, and the thunder shone

in the flint of lives beyond the earth: somewhere someone knew, the valley had been filled in,

streams and slopes meant more than lava of Hell itself,

where did the tree go? The morning sky, slunk away, accident prone

with the first cry of light retreating, a twinkle of stars, silent men rode

half-hidden, in the violent haze that lit the river's turnpike home

Like lost thoughts, or incendiary feelings.

II.

Beyond the belt there plumed a side that set new stars,

a rife of doom, a half-flicker of light, the eye's edge, and infinity banked

on angels, combustible in blood-streams, a glacier spun in the incorrigible reaches toward Mars--

From grey decks, the circles in balconies splintered, with disgrace, a deeper ether!

vigils... dispersion... the conjunction of violet shadows, hearts in hand, breakers

cocked the warmth of skin, like an instrument cliffward, wayward sheen!

the final ring, buckled and dropped without a cinch, so easy, so difficult, sometime, (in 2001)

the docile hourglass in our hands, and in short arms, scummed  the smoke-choked Sky, coiled a scrimmage

made out of sandstone and syllables of light, a thousand neighbor's suffering, all accomplished

was unresolved, the glare made the night bitter and cold. Take back

the nightly sessions that appointed orgies, cruising, men's cocks, and women

in the streets on this poor earth-- we became ourselves and settled back like solstice-diminished light in the Park,

nightly sessions refrained the search from beginning for them all, despite the need to walk beneath refracted images of a million cringing smiles, spelling SERVICE here.

III.

Take the whispered rush, veering toward light, the flight of strings, mouths of history-- gleaming staves that poured in reply, and vibrant breath, octaves that ached for God, wind-dropped send a strand of song, yoking waves, to cut into a long dream, smoking

like clouds in high cotton in a Tuscan sky, whose lark never returned, and  young or old bear forms of love and death, swarming air, justified chemistry,

say it and light forms--

A dab red, a laugh of mythic hails, the onward window fords the river toward heaven deathless strings! Come back and repeat this meditation without the backward keel, right where I dropped it, nowhere to go but up, Pledge among us one will step the Sun's