Three Poems

from Wave of Blood

ABSOLUTE ZERO

To have seen
What I saw
Only yesterday
You would beg for God
As my heart did
Though it knew better
Kneeling and folded in on itself
Circumcised eye
Mouth hymning a tonsure
I saw a crimson hole
In the delicate skull of a baby
Going grey in the arms of her rescuer
Who prayed over her to himself
I would see God
Not this world we made
In its image
I would God saw what I saw
Not through me
But on my behalf
Not through me
But as my advocate
Lucre & bullion
The orbs of Milton
& Galilee
The lenses of Spinoza & Buchner
The sunsets of Borges
The suns of Stevie Wonder
And al-Ma-aari, Santa Lucia’s grave escape
Beauty was in the eye of the beholder
What I saw I did not know how to see
God almighty if there is a God
You must see it for me

//

BERLIN

Strange septic smells

Leaves in the corners

Evidences of a debauch

The same sun shines here

But they prefer it filtered

Thru black light

& a black dust of ground

bones smoked against the glass

//

VANITY

Something at the gall-

Bladder point.  The “sea

Of blood” inside and one

Hand above the knee–

Something slipping to the edge

Of me– always held me

Or so I felt, to one 

Side, just shy of the line

Where beauty began.

“Beauty” was an inheritance

From our mothers, I want

To say.  It was the form into

Which they sought to trans-

Substantiate their pain.  As

We see it the form it takes

Echoes how they saw a form

That could bring them relief

From the volcanic emotion

Explosive love and un-

Reciprocateable hospitality

Their givingness brought

Into a world that never ceased

To overlook them, mispronounce

Their name, raise its voice

As though talking to an idiot child

Call their desires frivolous

Having killed their families

While dreading the bottomlessness

Of their gifts.  I may have a serious

Contribution to make here.  But

It is hard to see.   Or beauty stays

Something you can’t see (except in love).

Nobody taught me to hate

My own existence was a sin.

A spidery old woman gazes

Out from within a young body 

To accuse the century.

Her terrible boyfriends and powerful

Girlfriends ricochet between father

And mother made by a body wending

Its way though the air, spinning

A home out of gossamer there.

It was a burning place.  I remember

My cheeks hurting, distended

By a shoal of horns and boils,

Pancaked over in makeup I’d

Often sleep in, how I 

Would never let a lover

Stroke my cheek or take

My face in their two hands

The history of love is hard

To write because it is made

Of the same intestinal pulses

That all bad things in this 

World emanate from– the sparks

Of desire and mutual recognition

The giving to another the power

To render you meaningless

It’s a consent the guts give if

Your parents don’t teach you 

Otherwise.  Probably their

Guts flinched the same way.

Or you were born from happier

People than I was.  I am older

Now and lovelier than I was then

Also tireder and the pictures

I see of me are still bad though I care less.

I do still care, but less.

My remaining vanity and what

Vanity has to do with self-regard

Anymore have been exhausted

By the horrors of the world.

Imagine caring what you look like

At a time like this.  But I look around

And that’s all I see.  I might as well quote

Solomon himself.  The people who can see

You for who you really are always could

Even before your plastic surgery.

They knew your true beauty.

In this time we have the right to adjust

Our bodies to make ourselves resemble

What we want to see.  We also still moralize

And condemn– factors of interior

Mystery.  I remember people making fun

Of Michael Jackson when he died

And I was crying.  I remember thinking

If only he could have seen his own beauty

If only he had known how beautiful he already

Was before we stopped his heart.  Whose heart 

Could stand our cruelty?  The human

Heart, I remember thinking.

The human heart, I thought.

The heart can only take so much.

When people selfie

They seldom look as good

Or as bad as they do in real life.

I’ve noticed I tend to be more attracted

To people who cannot fully see

Their own beauty and are thus protected

From interfering with it.

But nowadays you have to know 

What you look like and to fail to exert

Some kind of control there, it’s essentially

Crazy.  OK another thing I remember

From when I was little: 

Thinking you could basically be a writer

Without a body, or you could be really ugly

Or deformed and still you could do this.

As it turns out writing is insanely physical

And writers are as vain as everybody else

Only more complicated– our vanity runs deeper–

We are also morally and spiritually vain, politically

And socially.  The cruel regime of Beauty

Made of several competing ideologies melted down

Into a single ore, rules all.  Had nature made

Me complete I doubt I’d ever have begun to write.

I would have lived as music and trusted

The reality of my body.  Years ago reading

Kafka’s diaries I was consoled to find he too

Had hated his body, just like a woman

From the Twentieth Century…

Artwork: Untitled (As We Were Aimless We Had To Take Some Kind Of Aim), Nicholas Marschner, 2023. Oil on canvas in artist's frame. Photography by Tom Carter. Posted with permission from Gallery Alice Amati London.

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