The Beforelife Read online

God, if I speak my love to you in fear of hell, incinerate me

  in it;

  if I speak my love to you in hope of heaven, close it in my face.

  But if I speak to you simply because you exist, cease

  withholding from me your

  neverending beauty.

  Rabi’a al-Adawiyya was an early Sufi poet. She died in 801.

  FIRST ENCOUNTER/THE CITY

  Formerly

  in the first forests it was strange

  if you happened

  to run into somebody

  you did not know; now

  it is so strange meeting

  someone you do.

  THE NEIGHBOR

  from Rilke

  Strange violin, is that you?

  In how many distant cities now

  has your lonely night spoken to mine?

  Do hundreds play you—or only one?

  Are all the great cities occupied

  by somebody who, but for you,

  would have long disappeared in the river?

  And why is this constantly happening,

  why am I always the neighbor of those

  who out of their own dread compel you to sing

  and say: this life is heavier than

  the heaviness of all things combined.

  THE WEDDING

  As in heaven

  all are smiling

  at you, even

  those

  who know you.

  ENTRY & PRAYER

  for Gail Whitney

  When you get tired of reading

  all the beautiful words

  by lousy human beings, and come to

  the end of your patience with the voluminous

  indeed inexhaustible

  mediocrities of goodness,

  what to do? I suggest—

  I don’t know.

  Let him think.

  And if there are no words

  to this place give him back

  the illiterate sleep: no need

  the haldol needle night-night;

  let him go quietly, not

  in horror,

  not in glory.

  THE POEM SAID

  The poem said never love anything

  Not even you?

  I asked

  and it answered

  especially me

  If you must, love

  not living

  with hope

  or not living

  taste this

  and remember

  not yet being—

  Especially me

  I am just you

  If you must, like

  and coldly admire my cold stars

  shit for brains

  love what I stand for

  not me

  the leopard the beautiful

  death

  who puts on his spotted robe when he goes

  to his chosen,

  the

  what was the not now the what will be

  Like suddenly using a dead friend’s expression

  Make yourself useful

  while there is time

  while there is still light and time

  NEW PAGE

  Snowfall a perpetual soft

  January snowfall

  covers your tracks, and what follows

  the period

  left

  by the needle

  DOING A LINE OF OLGA BROUMAS

  It is my job to be ill.

  —Bernadette Soubirous

  It’s not the wolves it’s the sheep

  Yes

  And it’s not the children

  Bless your night

  If I knew

  now

  what then

  I knew

  Night in one eye

  struck by sleep,

  the nineteenth Apparition …

  Bless your light

  COMMUNION

  This morning I saw them again

  I was just going to tie off

  the garbage bag

  and there they were

  I’d heard of them!

  the upper .5%

  wealthiest maggots

  You do not have because

  you do not ask

  you do not ask

  because you do not have

  Last night I lay in my mother’s back yard, a

  forest

  listening to its bird—

  Patient shall hereby refrain

  from further experimentation

  with the windshield wipers

  and various rock & roll stations

  This morning I watered the flower, extremely

  impressive in a monster

  Here’s one for you, Why does F drink

  (Gives him something to do

  after he shoots up)

  Time to begin

  slimming down

  for the eye of the needle

  Time to see the world without

  the special glasses

  oh light,

  I had forgotten

  Rats prefer it to food

  AFTER APOLLINAIRE

  for Eric Lorberer

  It’s four o’clock in the afternoon,

  and it is finished;

  I sit back and light my cigarette

  on a ray of dusk.

  I don’t want to write anymore.

  All I want to do is smoke.

  I FOR ONE

  I for one never asked

  for my youth back; when I was young

  I was always afraid.

  Like somebody in a war

  with no allegiance

  I was terrified

  of everyone.

  But now

  now I am amazed

  and grateful every day.

  I don’t know how that happened.

  I am so glad

  there is no fear,

  and finally I can

  ask no second life.

  DESCRIPTION OF HER EYES

  Two teaspoonfuls,

  and my mind goes

  everyone can kiss my ass now—

  then it’s changed,

  I change my mind.

  Eyes so sad, and infinitely kind.

  TIBETANS RAPED BY CHINESE ROBOTS

  Bill Knott traveling

  stripped

  self-stripped of all earthly possessions

  save a childhood lamp

  which he carries

  I’m told by a sad girl who slept

  with him, or would have

  from one desolation to another

  in rooms across

  Manhattan

  winter,

  1979?

  FROM A DISCARDED IMAGE

  The world’s wordless beauty’s

  intact and can never be other than

  intact no matter what

  harm we perpetually do

  and have done

  and will I can assure everyone

  do,

  forever,

  as they say

  World’s wordless beauty, and the word’s

  worldless liberty

  The champagne shopping binge

  is over

  The check is about to arrive

  and nobody knows how much it will be

  I know I don’t give a shit not now

  The world’s

  wordless

  beauty intact, indeed

  it can never be other

  than

  radiantly intact

  like the stars, like the stars

  when the stars have no names once again.

  SELF-PORTRAIT AT 40

  He’s not in the hospital now

  the hospital’s in him,

  it’s everywhere

  like the sky

  all his poor

  friends lining up

  for their little white paper

  shotglasses

  filled with pills

  yearlong instants of fear
>
  and clinical paranoia

  at the water fountain

  in second grade

  already deceitful obsequious the book reduced to writing

  At times he’s inspired

  intense desire

  to heal him in women

  and then

  a bit later

  to kill him

  A strangerness

  that will always be with him

  sometimes

  cruel

  and often funny

  scared to death

  every so often

  for days on end,

  however

  Engaged

  between one

  December

  and another

  and another

  perpetual gift

  He will be buried with

  a little gold

  cross hanging from his neck

  pulling him down

  and lifting him up—

  truly

  there is no down

  or up where he is going, bright

  gold gleaming in the earth

  the sun

  still shining in it

  at the moment…

  Just say

  he wished to do something

  that would make his friends glad

  and his enemies sick, and

  there was apparently nothing

  he could do about it, and nobody

  can tell you why

  SCROLLING MARQUEE

  Broken-necked sunflower

  in my dusk wind glowing

  Like reading the Iliad

  to a blind child …

  No, Friday’s out, Franz

  how about never

  is never good for you

  is sleep to me burning is sleep to me burning

  Harmless, unless

  he takes a liking to you

  I never do get caught, it’s very odd

  BATHTUB IMPROV

  Book composed of poems no one will ever read

  or write, if I can help it:

  each verse composed of words

  I will never cleverly jot,

  or transcribe from memory, never

  recite in my blood—

  e.g., the jagged sonnet which begins

  For sure the motherfucker’s sober now—

  book with hunter

  green cover, the beautiful color

  of oak leaves in summer,

  with no smirking photograph;

  color of life, color of death

  with no prizes, no trivial biography, no academic

  honors earnable by any moron who can read

  or write his name. No name

  or gloating progeny

  of shame, no irrelevant

  lies and not one

  date.

  RESURRECTION: ELEGY

  In San Francisco John Logan said, light

  is the shadow of God

  and

  have you ever tried

  Green Chartreuse

  What do you mean

  you’ve never heard

  Mahler’s 2nd Symphony

  Sent me long before that

  friendly evening meeting

  under the Bridge

  one gray northern Ohio winter day

  the great Glenn Gould and Roxolana Roslak Das Marienleben

  right before

  my translation came out

  who could barely open his eyes,

  and politely

  drank himself to death

  yet met me the summer

  after you died

  his dead friend’s

  son

  he treated me

  one glorious last champagne and tequila-fueled

  supper and led me then

  no doubt by heart

  in the streets

  to the vast golden house of this music

  SIMULTANEOUS SENTENCES

  Only diamonds can cut diamonds, though

  to do any such thing

  they have no wish

  The ghosts don’t believe in us

  GOODBYE

  But I have overcome you

  in myself,

  I won’t behave

  like you, so you

  can’t hurt me now;

  so you are not

  going

  to hurt me again

  and I, I can’t

  happen

  to you.

  SLANDER

  I can just hear them

  on the telephone and keening

  all their kissy little knives

  or voraciously taking turns

  nursing a lie

  still in its early white whisperhood

  and I could do something

  bad back to them

  someday I guess—

  but why

  Exclusion doesn’t hurt

  that much, in fact

  I’ve visited the stars on foot

  Come disdain of the dreamhand for grammar

  and fame, this Boston’s

  gothic chilly April

  night (new leaves the color

  of her eyes) beloved

  booknight real

  real world, oh

  prasini arachnid

  s’agapo

  Light green eyes dusk distant

  tolling now fading

  to heartscar

  which says

  I was loved, always

  loved

  And then they wounded me

  so usefully

  AESTHETIC

  The instant before

  the slash bleeds—

  for example

  her hair getting long like the night in late fall.

  Kayaking alone on Lake Kakapoopee.

  Crown of barbed wire, no one is born sad.

  WHEN YOU SEE FAME COMING RUN

  I owe you so much—

  I owe you my life.

  I would have killed myself

  five different times, had it

  not been for the thought of

  your intense secret pleasure

  while you wept at my grave.

  I would go hiddenly

  write in rage: when she smiles

  she looks just like a knife blade—

  know what I mean.

  In my mind, I was already dead; now

  I am alive again

  and it is you

  who’re deceased, despite appearances

  and I like this

  so much better.

  To tell you the truth.

  THE SPEAKER

  Who worked his fingers to the ghost,

  and for what

  Words will be over, then: soon

  he’ll be silenced,

  and said.

  CHURCH

  Lantern cabin,

  Arkansas

  organ

  beating

  bass

  Wind, dark

  and wind

  bird

  tiny dark

  startled

  eye.