The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills Read Free

nuts. they’re all nuts,
    the other guy said. anyhow,
    I got my 10 doves.
     
 
    me too, his buddy said, let’s
    go home: we can have them
    in the pan
    by 2:30.
     

I taste the ashes of your death
     
     
    the blossoms shake
    sudden water
    down my sleeve,
    sudden water
    cool and clean
    as snow—
    as the stem-sharp
    swords
    go in
    against your breast
    and the sweet wild
    rocks
    leap over
    and
    lock us in.
     

for Jane: with all the love I had, which was not enough:—
     
     
    I pick up the skirt,
    I pick up the sparkling beads
    in black,
    this thing that moved once
    around flesh,
    and I call God a liar,
    I say anything that moved
    like that
    or knew
    my name
    could never die
    in the common verity of dying,
    and I pick
    up her lovely
    dress,
    all her loveliness gone,
    and I speak
    to all the gods,
    Jewish gods, Christ-gods,
    chips of blinking things,
    idols, pills, bread,
    fathoms, risks,
    knowledgeable surrender,
    rats in the gravy of 2 gone quite mad
    without a chance,
    hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,
    I lean upon this,
    I lean on all of this
    and I know:
    her dress upon my arm:
    but
    they will not
    give her back to me.
     

Uruguay or hell
     
     
    it should have been Mexico
    she always liked Mexico
    and Arizona and New Mexico
    and tacos,
    but not the flies
    and so there I was
    standing there—
    durable
    visible
    clothed
    waiting.
     
 
    the priest was angry:
    he had been arguing with the boy
    for several days
    over his mother’s right to have a
    Catholic burial
    and they finally settled
    that it could not be in
    church
    but he would say the
    thing at the grave.
    the priest cared about
    technicalities
    the son did not care
    except about the
    bill.
     
 
    I was the
    lover
    and I cared but what I cared for
    was dead.
     
 
    there were just 3 of
    us: son,
    landlady,
    lover. it was
    hot. the priest waved his words
    in the air and
    then he was
    done. I walked to the
    priest and thanked him for the
    words.
    and we walked
    off
    we got into the car
    we drove away.
     
 
    it should have been Mexico
    or Uruguay or hell.
    the son let me out at my
    place and said he’d write me about a
    stone but I knew he was lying—
    that if there was to be a stone
    the lover would
    put it there.
     
 
    I went upstairs and turned on the
    radio and pulled down the
    shades.
     

notice
     
     
    the swans drown in bilge water,
    take down the signs,
    test the poisons,
    barricade the cow
    from the bull,
    the peony from the sun,
    take the lavender kisses from my night,
    put the symphonies out on the streets
    like beggars,
    get the nails ready,
    flog the backs of the saints,
    stun frogs and mice for the cat,
    burn the enthralling paintings,
    piss on the dawn,
    my love
    is dead.
     

for Jane
     
     
    225 days under grass
    and you know more than I.
     
 
    they have long taken your blood,
    you are a dry stick in a basket.
     
 
    is this how it works?
     
 
    in this room
    the hours of love
    still make shadows.
     
 
    when you left
    you took almost
    everything.
     
 
    I kneel in the nights
    before tigers
    that will not let me be.
     
 
    what you were
    will not happen again.
     
 
    the tigers have found me
    and I do not care.
     

conversation on a telephone
     
     
    I could tell by the crouch of the cat,
    the way it was flattened,
    that it was insane with prey;
    and when my car came upon it,
    it rose in the twilight
    and made off
    with bird in mouth,
    a very large bird, gray,
    the wings down like broken love,
    the fangs in,
    life still there
    but not much,
    not very much.
     
 
    the broken love-bird
    the cat walks in my mind
    and I cannot make him out:
    the phone rings,
    I answer a voice,
    but I see him again and again,
    and the loose wings
    the loose gray wings,
    and this thing held
    in a head that knows no mercy;
    it is the world, it is ours;
    I put the phone down
    and the cat-sides of the room
    come in upon me
    and I would scream,
    but they have places for people
    who scream;
    and the cat walks
    the cat walks forever
    in my