THE INNER LIFE for Robert Creeley

It’s no secret
I’m little more
than the congress
of my thoughts

the body mostly
bewilders or else
carries on in
its ambient ways

god has yet to
intrude, the sun
and dirt feel much
closer, as do

friends and family
who are likewise
astounding in their
goodness, while often

there is no real task
at hand, one’s fingers
lightly sweeping
the dingy surface

of the keys, eyes
trained inward
as a thing incapable
of so many things

but pleased within
thought, the inner
life being the only
life according

to Noel, a quiet light
ordering shadows
about the deck
of a caravel, unraveling

lines to make some
headway through
the debris of a vast
and impenetrable

sea, it’s no secret
the heart continues
despite blindness
just as our eyes

only see a fraction
of what the mind
determines, perhaps
led by what people

call the soul, an idea
I revile, feeling
the center of one
to be forever

radiating outward
to tangle and be
wove, which brings
one back to the heart

which has always
seemed an apt if
pleasantly hilarious
metaphor to me

misshapen, muscular
tough as one’s fist

BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH SCULPTURE AT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

Q) Do you read the bible?

A) I am a part of something pushed
Further and further into the amnesiac
Conclusions of god.

Q) Sounds pretty serious.

A) Not as serious as the something
Pushing. I find it mostly
Preposterous, like a sudden
Clumsy moment stretched
Out for hundreds
Of years, maybe
Thousands, I don’t know, a number.
A thing that far eclipses
The natural
Span of a human being.

Q) So this is about nature, then?

A) You just asked two questions.

Q) So this is about nature?

A) That wouldn’t be terribly untrue, though
Terror is natural enough. And terror
May be true, truth
Often striking
A terrific note. This is
About the failure
Of truth, which masquerades
Cowardly in the guise
Of nature. There is no truth
In fucking, in dying. Truth’s greatest
Failure is that it succeeds.

Q) And for whom does it succeed?

A) I don’t know, women
Advertising pumps? Children
Wailing like tranquilized
Catamounts? If it is succeeding
For you, you
Should dye your hair
And have your fingerprints
Removed. This interview
Is fucking over.

EASTER

As if the old miracle
Had an inherent
Geography, my heart

Is wester than my apartment
Tonight, the cars
In the rain on the streets

Shushing us to bed, the sirens
Doing just the opposite, it’s too
Bad our grandparents

Are dead, I do covet
Their memories, broken
Beer bottles, straight

Jackets, the choir, the folk
Dancing tour, how
We brush and convert

These specificities we’ve been
Told, not actually
Remembering a single

One or remembering merely
A memory, slit
Wrists, three sets

Of twins, a baby mislaid
In Texas and what
Of me will go

Missing that hasn’t already
Dissolved into hair
Dust grates fuzz wax etc.

EXCERPT

Before I knew it I was back in San Francisco, living in the Sunset, my hand curled around one of the brass bedposts. I often spent nights like that, alone, in my daughter’s bedroom, listening to the quiet hum of the stereo as it merged with the static of the rain. I was sitting there again, near the foot of the bed, eyeing the many stacks of books I had given her, all unread, their covers gradually discoloring from the pots of dying plants she insisted on placing atop them. It wasn’t spite exactly, but a kind of dreamy inconsideration she dragged alongside her like a mist. I inched myself slowly to the other edge of the bed, near the pillows, and positioned my ear within millimeters of the window’s foggy pane. If I remained that way for ten minutes or so, listening intently, I could almost make out something moving through the neighborhood outside. This sound, or more accurately this almost-sound, was as near to real as my ear was to the chill of the glass. It was just beyond me, crisscrossing its slippery way up and down the hill, steadily moving closer to where the avenues meet the ocean. The listening had something to do with my daughter. She was out who-knows-where with friends doing who-knows-what. I had come to accept that. And if she knew I spent my time this way it didn’t bother her, just as it didn’t bother me if she didn’t. I too had grown weary of how a tall man lingers.

REALIZING 1982

John_____, a flamboyant vehicle
Of dissolution, died last
Night of undisclosed videotapes
After grappling for years
With a muscle car. Teenage
Starlet troubles had long siphoned
His interest in the San Diego
Chargers, a dream he first
Bean-counted as the third wife
Of a super, super lucky response
To dress code. Mr.______
Was always revered for his concern
With wristwatch irregularities
At the managerial level, often
Shedding large parts
Of the country’s largest working-class
Sideburns. Subsequent
To an unorthodox, 9 million
Dollar jazz saxophone, Mr._____
Remained open to quietly self-promoting
His own cocaine showroom. “John’s
Attitude was always jet
Black. He said he wanted people’s eyes
To stainlessly violate a golf course
In Bedminster.” These are the words
Of his brother Chuck-Jim, who
Added, “You can’t dismiss his unwritten
Opposition to the ‘Back to the Future’
Movies.” It was this flair for
Refurbishing British industrialism
That Johnny Carson cited as inspiring
His unbuttoned-to-the-navel look.
John_____ is survived by a jury
In Los Angeles overheard declaring
50 pounds of a supermodel
To help recognize the contributions
He made to realizing 1982.

THERE WILL BE A VERY MEANINGFUL PICTURE HERE

In the recurring caveman
Dream I wear my meat vest
And I love you, the whites

Of our eyes gleaming
Like cleanly-picked bones, we sit
Beside our fire, which allows us

To think outside
Predation and weather
And I wonder

If I would have the time
To love you otherwise, this thought
Unsteadies me horribly, like

Yesterday, in the hands
Of the pear-shaped Russian
Hairdresser, the way

Her sylphlike colleague steadily
Peered at me in the mirror
Over her steaming

Cup of tea, I felt like sleeping
In her eyes, the want to bed
Down in the space between her lips

And the mug, this is what haircuts
Mean to me, I am as a beast
Dressed in the guise of a boy, I wish

For a small, ardent thing
And am throttled by
It, by the lung-crushing collapse

Of my own desire as it comes
Into fruition, which
Is why I prefer my hallucinatory

Neanderthal life, days
Spent inching
Boulders from the ridge

Where below a pitching pack
Of mastodons tread trumpeting and nights
Where my dream

Within my dream is of riding
The mountainous
Eremotherium, a being

Whose yawning bellow fills
Forests where birds once ruled
The earth, luckily

We have no such ambition, our fire
Crumbling down to embers, your hand
Probing for morsels in my stiff

Knotted hair, I remove
My meat vest and I love
You, your bulbous

Nose warm against mine in the ash-filled night.

I AM NOT A CINEMATOGRAPHER

Winter has grown
Late, intrepid
Profiles momently

Gracing the construction
Barrier with weightless charm, a nearly
Chinless woman flashes me

Her smile, then quickly withdraws it, seeing
That I too am headed
West, I feel as if I stare at women

All day long, which I guess is a product of my being
Alone all night, so down
24th Street I go, casually flitting

From gallery to gallery, Cicely Brown
Surprisingly mute while further
Along I am greeted with a pleasantly ribald

Exhibition of buxom lady pirates, all
The while anticipating the purloined sandwich
In my bag, a thing

Which pleases
Me greatly, as does the birthmark
On the bridge of the nose

Of the girl in the deli
Buying a Diet Pepsi, like I said
I don’t want to die

A sad pervert, but I’m not yet ready
To apologize for the undirected
Throbbing of my peptides, as my annoyance

Grows at the protracted twitter
Of Japanese teenagers making their way
To Madison to shop

And make phone calls and soon
I am mired in the intricacies
Of public space, knee to hand, eye

Taking in a mouth as it talks almost
Disembodied, a woman’s narrow Currinesque
Nose bifurcating the slope

Of her chest, you do not make sense
Of it, of it you make conversation, even
Alone, little interjections

Of desire tippling at the eye’s wet
Scan, I am not like an actor who ends
Up resembling

The characters he’s played, I am not even
A cinematographer wrenching
Beauty from an otherwise

Dumb panorama, I am that dumb
Panorama, the trees, windows
The very avenues themselves and you

Are the camera, both of us
Caught in the dizzying interchange
Of “culture” as

It zooms like an electron
Between our shells, bouncing
Jaggedly, so that

One might run
One’s mouth forever, lips
Flapping like a moth

Full of blood and never pin
It down, if that
Was, indeed, our

Intention in the first
Place, which I think plainly
Mine is not, intention

Being equally dubious in my book, wishing
For things in a vague sort
Of way so as not to be misconstrued

By a capricious god, tearing
Out my hair over the arbitrariness
Of it all, the fact

That you could get everything you ever
Wanted and discover it
To be wrong, or find that you

Aren’t that you anymore, which of
Course you never are, or were, the idea
Of fixing a self somewhat

Like being buried alive, thoughts
Suspended in the stale
Breath of a nail-fashioned space, there’s naught

To do except find something
Difficult and submit
Yourself to it, it’s willful

Suffering you need, preemptive
Blood drawn
From one’s own bulging

Veins, we are constantly on
Trial, our bodies break, our needs
Consume us, I can’t believe

How strange it is to be anything at all.

HOROSCOPIC BRUSHSTROKES IN THE MARGIN OF DEATH

Ever noticed how a flame disappears
In sunlight, even whilst
Notorious lightning breeds

On the horizon, you
Have an eye
For such things: the reactivation

Of long-malingered volcanos, human
Or otherwise, how a wounded
Sloth creeps lamely from unwieldy trunk

To bending branch, the plaintive varieties
Of unseen matter
Coalescing against our lamentable

Screen of den culture, you are a person
Who puts things in
Order in order that the edgeless

Fog might disband, if only
For an afternoon, and this is why we’ve come
To you, repeatedly swearing

That we’re not animals, that
The fact is we would not dream of having them
Sullied by the petty transactions of faith

And discord, we want you
To think about us
Like an eye that has been turned

Hopelessly inward
So all it sees is a miasma
Of tissue, tiny parts

Convulsing involuntarily, absurdly
Divorced from their original functions, one
Cannot love that way, just as

One cannot enter the fold with his nails
Thrashing the air he cannot
Breathe, you know this, your very

Gestures have instructed
Us thusly, the way they dissemble the easy
Grotesque we’ve become and point

Toward a prospect of grace, only last
Night you made apologizing
Pretty again, perhaps this afternoon

The dogs will lie supplicant
At our feet and think us masters
When for so

Long it’s been the obverse, tomorrow untold
Colonnades of light might
Descend from the weightless vault

Of heaven, because, you see, that’s a possibility
As all things suddenly
Are, one has only to speak

Your name and a massive flock of dirigibles
Arranges itself into graph
Paper patterns against the amoebic

Sky, I
Would only ask that you take off
Your jacket and sit here

In the chair beside my bed, I must
Shortly leave this only-just-this-very-instant
Brightening world, and I would

Have your hand
Laid heavy atop the beads
Of my loosening brow.