The Sonnets

I

His piercing pince-nez. Some dim frieze
Hands point to a dim frieze, in the dark night.
In the book of his music the corners have straightened:
Which owe their presence to our sleeping hands.
The ox-blood from the hands which play
For fire for warmth for hands for growth
Is there room in the room that you room in?
Upon his structured tomb:
Still they mean something. For the dance
And the architecture.
Weave among incidents
May be portentous to him
We are the sleeping fragments of his sky,
Wind giving presence to fragments.

II

Dear Margie, hello. It is 5:15 a.m.
dear Berrigan. He died
Back to books. I read
It’s 8:30 p.m. in New York and I’ve been running around all day
old come-all-ye’s streel into the streets. Yes, it is now,
How Much Longer Shall I Be Able To Inhabit The Divine
and the day is bright gray turning green
feminine marvelous and tough
watching the sun come up over the Navy Yard
to write scotch-tape body in a notebook
had 17 and 1/2 milligrams
Dear Margie, hello. It is 5:15 a.m.
fucked til 7 now she’s late to work and I’m
so why are my hands shaking I should know better

III

Stronger than alcohol, more great than song,
deep in whose reeds great elephants decay;
I, an island, sail, and my shores toss
on a fragrant evening, fraught with sadness
bristling hate.
It’s true, I weep too much. Dawns break
slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea,
what other men sometimes have thought they’ve seen.
And since then I’ve been bathing in the poem
lifting her shadowy flowers up for me,
and hurled by hurricanes to a birdless place
the waving flags, nor pass by prison ships
O let me burst, and I be lost at sea!
and fall on my knees then, womanly.

IV

Lord, it is time. Summer was very great.
All sweetly spoke to her of me
about your feet, so delicate, and yet double E!!
And high upon the Brooklyn Bridge alone,
to breathe an old woman slop oatmeal,
loveliness that longs for butterfly! There is no pad
as you lope across the trails and bosky dells
I often think sweet and sour pork”
shoe repair, and scary. In cities,
I strain to gather my absurdities
He buckled on his gun, the one
Poised like Nijinsky
at every hand, my critic
and when I stand and clank it gives me shoes

V

Squawking a gala occasion, forgetting, and
“Hawkaaaaaaaaaa!” Once I went scouting
As stars are, like nightmares, a crucifix.
Why can’t I read French? I don’t know why can’t you?
Rather the matter of growth
My babies parade waving their innocent flags
Huddled on the structured steps
Flinging currents into pouring streams
The “jeunes filles” so rare.
He wanted to know the names
He liked boys, never had a mother
Meanwhile, terrific misnomers went concocted, ayearning,
ayearning
The Pure No Nonsense
And all day: Perceval! Perceval!

VI

The bulbs burn phosphorescent, white
Your hair moves slightly,
Tenseness, but strength, outward
And the green rug nestled against the furnace
Dust had covered all the tacks, the hammer
. . . optimism for the jump . . .
The taste of such delicate thoughts
Never bring the dawn.
The bulbs burn, phosphorescent, white,
Melting the billowing snow with wine:
Could the mind turn jade? everything
Turning in this light, to stones,
Ash, bark like cork, a fading dust,
To cover the tracks of “The Hammer.”