FOUR ZERO FOUR

...if to traverse

is to envelop,

I am held

and sung to sleep.

    - Rae Armantrout, "Covers"

i have a theory about Japanese prosody, or rather a feeling about what i know of it. i see the lines written out on a picture, & the pattern is plain: like the dots on a

domino face, in fact. or like a drumbeat

composed of one sequence of staccato beats, & then four more. . .

to me the 5-7-5-7-7 of tanka is the shape

of a stone lantern, & has that perfection.

i have written many poems in the 9-5-9-5-9 mode, & consider that one more suitable to the English language. yet this other prevails. . .

but i also do not disagree with those who find the essence of tanka in a combining of nature & human, or the volta (like a sonnet) that unites them.

this is the inside of the lantern.

 

    electricity,

a day like any other,

    but i am breathing

a terrific crackle, &

light bulbs shine with the plug pulled

 

    i do not fancy

some picture of myself as

    the noble lover.

it leaves me no high feeling

to beg & to be refused.

 

    flora mentis, talk

about matters that matter:

    over Darjeeling.

ev'ry afternoon we could

meet like this - & not get bored.

    two-dollar new rug

i've sat on for weeks & now

    notice colors of:

scarlet next to rich purple,

stripes that make my eyes water.

 

    plenilune, blinds drawn.

cards to be put in order

    tonight - what's the use

Phoebe called & i left it

for the machine to answer

 

    i've written the same

kamikaze haiku of

    bye, twelve hundred times....

half-veiled crescent, you alone

aren't part of this mockery.

    is that Jupiter

or Venus? - dualities

    warring in our eyes

how, once, beneath all the stars

i walked without any light.

 

    tenuous contact,

"Call me or I'll call you?" yes.

    i want more reasons

sometimes; but at other times

i don't want reasons at all.

 

    bitterness passes

into a marrow-ache, thence

    into black silence -

where it joins the other bricks

of your unmeant caresses.

 

    frozen plumes of steam

edged in gold, bars across

    the just risen sun

line of passengers waiting

patiently to board the Greyhound

 

    from the bus window

i glut my eyes on the grays

    & browns of the road

construction. like so much else,

i can't say why it moves me.

 

    ripples catching up

with the wheels of the standing

    car ahead of me -

ev'ryone uses their lights

in the middle of the day.

 

    desperado days

exposed to the strafing wind

    & jeers of the stars,

i am skinless or all skin

a lost foreigner in time.

 

    why torment me now,

smell of a wet gray street in

    downtown Vancouver?

is that how the dead learn to

love - haunted by the living?

 

    tea chromatograph

spreading on the napkin: not

    a pattern till done,

but mixture swirling, changing,

i must remember that. yes.

 

    it seems i'm never

done crying - what is it now?

    the way you stood close

without touching, as we read,

& glanced back to catch my eye,

& i stared at the damn page.

 

    i am carrying

a brimming mug of hot tea

    across the street to

eat my lunch in this mild sun.

it is a journey of years.

 

    i saw Tahoma

once before i left, rising

    over the skyline

like a rosy dream, never

visible till forsaken.

 

    return of the need

for amulets. squirrel scolding

    a bluejay. sitar

crinkles drift through the screen door

from me & my Darjeeling.

 

   

    nothing but green fruit

in the supermarket's bins -

    and where else is there?

rotten before it gets ripe

like us, force-grown, child-adults.

 

    ding, ding: the buttons

of my old herringbone coat

    going by bookshelves.

as if in answer, the clock

emits one definite grunt.

 

    so much yet to say

between us, but i am tired

    of this wry discourse

that plants ultimate heartache

though it pleases at the time.

 

    my coldest, best sleep.

bundled up, i make breakfast

    while the rabbit runs

gaily from room to room, &

back to orbit my ankles.

 

    in silences i

move: yours, the silence of God,

    a fish in the sea

i drift without knowing else;

in the silence of the stars

 

    this is the one road

the one traveler has to

    swallow the pilm of

i am only its witness

among the cacti & stones

 

    to wait, askingly,

is not to unfasten your

    Matterhorn seatbelt

but to breathe the smell of rain

in the morning & know it.

 

    hearing the wind surge

outside this thin-walled tower

    is worse than being

in it - there, i close my mind:

here, where it's so still, i can't.

 

    yet still i have joy

when for a single moment

    our gazes combine

without flinching, & share that

terrible knowledge we've forged.

 

    puddles of urine

on the patio outside

    the Library. he

has to cross hungry gazes:

they can't guess he used to be. . .

who's asked for spare change daily.

 

    a quarter of five.

rustlings, readyings. i sit

    without pretending

to work, & nurse my fatigue

like a thin glass chrysalis.

 

    only from an air

vantage can you witness the

    annulus entire

near-total obscurity

of our lives, even to us

even to those who love us

 

    dry leaves scrape across

smooth concrete in brilliant light

    as a few birds sing

this morning; i lean against

a pillar, out of the wind.

 

    Jyestha, nanosec wink

or link to bodily want,

    you shimmer between

me & the mountain when it's

there; me & myself when not.

 

    rapt astrophagy

of clouds, then drapes, then shuttered

    eyes - yet he feels more

that soft, nocturnal pressure

the Seven shed as they pass.

 

    a flash to my right -

and i see in the mirror

    jutting halfway where

i had just been daydreaming

a moment before - a car.

 

    ghost for a morning.

no breakfast, coffee, only

    barium crystals

interminable the wait,

five minutes the procedure

 

    enough stillness, you

start to remember the dream

    you had this morning.

how much more must it take, for

the dream of the night before!

 

    sun gilds the concrete

as i step outside, hearing

    next door a child scream.

a cylinder of ashes

grins at me from the sidewalk.

 

    my skin inside out,

without sleep i dream - but not

    what i lack, only

of the terrible distance

that stands between star & star.

 

    on the doorpost, bands

of a slant-sifted sunrise

    - this laser price tag -

i know it is time to leave

by the color of the light.

 

    break the banded light

of overhanging trees as

    this bus, so unlike

my forest dawn-walk, evokes

its haze and its perfect poise.

 

    oh when you held me

after seven long hours

    of moving, thousands

of butterfly-promises

swirled round. . . & died on my lips.

 

    seeming so poignant,

the brightness of everything -

    and clear, like chrome-glints.

is it i begin to love,

or not having slept last night?

 

    stone walls caked with dust,

then the neon-bright rest'rants

    far below the street -

where preachers harangue, & the

brown bottle in a bag rules.

 

    sorrow-wedded joy,

mysterious dawnlight, search

    in my attic of

mem'ries. i ought to know this,

yet the road is new to me.

 

    a circle of stones

in the shape of a heart - on   

    the river bottom

they say it'll take up to

four years - to put out the fires

 

    newly sunlit, these

setback mornings, to show me

    short grass white with dew.

now i can see why my shoes

always get soaked at the toes.

 

    silt of memories

makes sluggish these days' flowing

    & opaque, their stream.

yet i may build with, at last,

fine-grained stone from slow-laid mud.

 

    i hate to see those

cluttered rooms of my peers, whose

    disorder proclaims

the unwitnessed spectacle

of a mind trapped by its tastes.

 

    fierce storm before dawn

invaded my dreams & then

    woke me. i checked leaks

while the windows flickered. none.

i lay back down for an hour.

 

    in this arena

the relief-sign; awaited

    blink of the stoplight. . .

the only forbidden word,

& only in my hearing.

 

    i tilt the fan back

so it doesn't blow on me;

    the rabbit likes to

crouch behind it & stretch out.

sometimes i can see her feet.

 

    nothing is so still

as the stillness just before

    departure - motes wait,

like poems not to be finished

in a thousand year old jar.

 

    ran to the bus stop,

then leaned against it & let

    my cheek touch metal.

soundless: "Soror Mystica..."

--it was thirty-nine degrees.

 

    quiver-tone, out of

what machine do you tonight

    emanate? music

not for humans, i like you

best, you try to sell nothing

 

    a scraping, as of

purposeful activity

    beyond this thick wall. . .

i keep working: i don't help,

nor do i go to get help.

 

    control illusion

lapses under fluorescents;

    one can just vanish

i could have kept swimming out

into the Sea of Cortez

 

    through the Ring of Fire,

go: it is an ocean wide,

    it is a sky deep. . .

one can slip on the sidewalk

in leather shoes & die, too.

 

    cat on the sidewalk

at sunrise, sitting calmly

    while cars hurtle past.

i remember carrying

my backpack down streets like this.

 

    each of these sticks i

bought for her, i'll burn: one by

    one, nightly, for the

nights since she has neglected

to return my last phone call.

 

    for months the chessboard's

unchanged: a single pawn moved

    to Queen Bishop Three

a faint squeal of brakes, across

the street the other bus comes.

 

    crossing the river

by that ancient viaduct

    i never look at,

nor the low river itself,

i listen to songs of love.

 

    no-radio dusk.

just a fan's whitenoise pulsing,

    cars i don't even

count anymore, & the scrape

when i scratch my ear, thinking.

 

    i roll the tuner

through snarled layers of voices

    seeking foreign news

while the rabbit in & out

of my red-bathrobe lap, jumps

 

    dreamlessness: only

trail across this Sahara

    is self-delusion. . .

live on stones along the way,

disinterred alabaster.

 

    frosted-glass windshield.

i did not recognize it

    my green childhood home.

fifteen years on, ev'rything

looks like it's three-quarter scale.

 

    masked, again we meet

in the room without a door.

    you are always mine

there, we talk & understand

each other completely there,

we're together   there; not here.

 

    before the moon rose,

sleepers & dreams mingled in

    a middle region.

then souls fled to their bodies,

& stark white ate up the rest.

 

    jet trail lit before

sunrise: chalk. driving, i pass

    the Crystal Palace

without being able to

look, yet closer than ever.

 

    bitter, yesterday,

my work had me so cursing,

    but now it's almost

sweet since i fully absorbed

the meaning of your last words.

 

    doctors bury their

errors - while poets hope to

    immortalize theirs

readers growing still fewer,

the flood of books more lavish

 

    watching the light fade

from the blue - radio hour -

    stoplight through the blinds

buzzards riding the thermals

high over the interstate

 

    watching wind shadows

weave on cafeteria

    tabletop of gray,

faint strands rising and swaying. . .

how sad i am this morning.

 

    her words fall into

my reveries of gazing

    & become jewels.

i let them slide from my hands,

knowing there will soon be more.

 

    and yet i think of

days i might have chosen one

    or the other, but

would never tip the balance

so rapt was i in weighing

 

    this day of ashes

ev'rything i see has passed

    through the same dull kiln

that melted my wrought-gold heart -

& gleams with a nail-hard glaze.

 

    if only books were

like the Creosote bush--no

    nat'ral enemies

i was ever enamored

of the starkest forgettings

 

    gingerly i tread

the bathroom beyond where

    slow epoxy sets:

a slab of fine black marble,

the found branch i painted gold.

 

    saw a narrow door

in an aluminum wall,

    down in the tunnels.

so thin! as if a diff'rent

design of ant shared these cells. . .

 

    what use to me now,

that i have conversed with crows?

    will i destroy this

knowledge without having once

found a proper use for it?

eheu, cicatricum et sceleris pudet

fratrumque. quid nos dura refugimus

   aetas? quid intactum nefasti

      liquimus?

   

(Alas, the shame of crimes, & our brothers lost; such wounds! What has this crude generation turned  away from? What dark bubbles have we

      failed to embrace?)

                  - Horace, I. xxxv.

i have been writing tanka for more than twenty years, though until recently only at sporadic intervals; hence the disproportion between the previous work, which covers so long a span, & the present, which presents a self-contained unity within a relatively brief time period. i should probably note that during the time that i wrote "404", i had seen almost no tanka in English at all. (i was inspired mainly by the translations of Kenneth Rexroth.) but this did not keep me from developing my own feel for the medium. . .

i think of the junctures at syllables 5/6, 12/13, 17/18, & 24/25 as "bright cusps " or just "cusps"; & any grammatical pauses between them as "dark cusps" or

"nodes". these can be "soft" as the end of the first line ("alpha" cusp) in #2; or "hard", as the end of the first line in #1... this notion of structure also applies, of course, to unstrict tanka; for example an

enjambment one syllable short of the end of the line feels much the same in either variant.

when i decided to write exclusively in this form, i thought it would prove sufficient for any subject matter whatsoever; i hope i have not disproved this surmise in the work that follows.

    tremulous raindrops

each holding a world, fifteen

    minutes will see gone

lightningflash over the Gulf;

Popocatepetl wakes.

    my face against the

back of your neck, i can sleep;

    your love lets me sleep.

all the white nights of my years

are cured by this magic sleep.

 

    trouble thinking weighed

through many bitter fathoms,

    crew of bony grins;

my flag not black with honor,

my hands not clean with washing.

    lost, a poet's voice

in a sea of bright gravel

    trickles the daylight

missing among the fathoms

from the stone to the stone sky

 

    my toys & my games,

& the streets full of rubble;

    this perfect weather,

& the nightmare of the news

& what it isn't saying.

 

    suborned firewarden

pearly shroud but who need roads

    this blasted landscape

unable to imagine

the hours-ago garden

 

    a bare, trash-strewn field

with its crop of old placards.

    third day Ramadan.

i pierce translucent shadows,

myself by shadows transpierced.

 

    she moves through the cold

& the dark, between planets:

    on nameless errands

though we from here have seen her

only to dream of her gifts

 

    poems in the shower

arise as clear as wires

    & then i lose them

streets i miss for years, returned

to on an idle errand

 

    he from Tupelo

came, not to destroy the house

    but to make it rock.

a quarter-century on,

somehow it still is rocking. . .

no word more from Tupelo.

 

    this will be the rain

that the hurricane promised,

    destroying elsewhere

homes, while here we only think

of a modest drought ended.

 

    so sinuously

the motorized wheelchair threads

    this glut of tables

while i am thinking my own

labyrinth is all wrong turns

 

    winter be over

as a color goes lighter

    & after not long

come to feel like whispering

& wine wandered moonshadow

 

    windshield's sliding blur,

rustle of a steady rain;

    i remember how

kids would leave cigarettes perched

half-smoked on the edge of bricks.

 

    what is there to say

to the ones coming after?

    we were self-absorbed

like others, but in us this

modest fault became lethal.

 

    no one remembers

in this thievish, blasted land.

    a horn honks, someone

curses, you throw on your brakes

& exhaust spews over all.

 

    a long car-shadow

gliding into, across &

    past the long shadows

of trees, while Djuna's perfume

suffuses the warm cabin.

 

    a row of ghostly

palms along the Coast Highway,

    maybe a seagull

then whole swarms of them turning

like dirt specks in a stirred glass

 

    a mud-spattered truck

pulls up beside me. i think,

    inside i'm like that:

i carry a bit of all

the roads i've ever been on.

 

    no Raelian

clone child, sea & sky the same

    cold metal; shall we

dwell in rooms of fluorescents,

turning away from the words?

 

    these days whenever

i touch myself it's with your

    delicacy &

dwelling; & when my hands come

back to your skin, they are home.

 

    your fragrance lingers

in the just starting to

    become too warm morn

of hazard & desuetude,

Chinese neon & old songs

 

    dream of the Last Flash

& turn, not to be blinded -

    into wakefulness.

relief? ev'rything is still

suspended; not yet destroyed.

 

    the satellite dish

by the south ravine dully

    gleams, today idle.

i walk around till the gray

more than the chill, has soaked me.

 

    sky still mostly dark

this gas station bright enough

    to read by, some crows

scatter when i go in to

be the only customer.

 

    now this is always

smoke on the near horizon,

    whether in my verse

i describe those curling forms

or leave them to conjecture

 

    raven sluggishly

flies in the clear light of dawn.

    what use had you for

stars, falling or otherwise,

cold in the cold unending?

 

    cinnamon endure

wreck of the nightmare angels

    subfusc plenilune

or elegies that endear

dying to the creosotes

 

    so much beyond words,

the love that i have for you.

    list'ning to the storm

last night, as we lay curled up

together, we felt no fear. . .

it only drew us closer.

 

    the shrill buzz of the

edger, my pens clattering

    on aluminum. . .

sweet cool breeze, smoke throbbing from an abandoned cigarette

 

    not yet all dispersed,

the nidor of this burning

   & weeping echoes:

where slag has been hauled away

shall the fruit of the forge bloom?

 

    riddle this saffron

that withholds its angelance,

    yet still on Djuna

glints cinnamon in her hair

& crimson her full frank lips.

 

    the smell of lacquer

drifts above bare winter fields; bright

    my morning commute,

bright the orange cones, bright the

deejay jabber on all bands.

 

    niece Christmas pageant

huge downtown church, park hassle

    --if we could only

see, as i am seeing these,

the children who fill Iraq

 

    moon footsteps still crisp,

gray threads the dawn mirror shows:

    no gray on the moon

faded flags in cold sunlight

stirring to a soundless wind

 

    i dreamed that this place

had always been in the same

    hands, only they changed

their guise with that of the times;

their first faces forgotten. . .

 

    cold, gray, the traffic

on Sunday morning puzzling.

    i pass two dead squirrels

whose stashes now for nothing

will stay hidden winterlong.

 

    quietly watching

the slow ascent into light

    that's solitary

here in the Colorless Room

to ponder my nothingness

 

    trees' lacy shadows

punctuate the concrete bright

    with wrong November

now you're only one trick deep

one trick deep & i'm drowning

 

    to swarm entirely

unaware, pills on the path

    glint eBay debris

& it is as celebrants

that we shall be overwhelmed

 

    piercing lilac dusk,

swift flying birds at the red

    which holds us captive:

like a dream they disappear,

& the light still has not changed.

 

    journey of blackest

ice you render possible -

    even when i don't

believe, & argue against

in the caverns of my heart

 

    stupendous, fragile:

the feeling when you wake with

    her head on your chest

& suspect for the first time

you might be able to save.

 

    my hands are learning

tenderness, from the way you

    remain under them;

& i begin to forget

the treachery of the dead.

 

    did he ever sit

like this, in a place like this

    asking such questions?

where there is fog, one can think

only of the end of thought.

 

   into flickering

shadow, into flickering

    cold & hard to keep

from filling our eyes with dreams

of the way it used to be

 

    the perfectly dark

planet uses a thousand-

    winded rain for song

you are not this whispering

yet it tells all my chill dreams

 

    crazed by distances

crazed by wakefulness he prays

    to a bare light bulb

what past catastrophe wells

like bitter tears from the walls

what eldritch torture regime

 

    there are two consents:

one, in accompanying

    (solemn or in jest)

to bed; the other, coaxed by

a small spring, the bud opens.

 

    bemused by silence,

not the absence of feeling,

    Djuna, if i knew

a better song than this one

i'd gently wake you, singing.

 

    white roses in fog.

the terror of the given,

    a rock to sit on.

and bougainvillea glowing

in the crepuscular green.

 

    the cicala void

stalks these nights in white satin

    swiftly, a gray noon

clasped in their brittle flutter

i ride in, all windows wide.

 

    is it the badness

of the air, kills words in flight?

    red & blue flicker

through my forming poem pierces;

this music about no one.

 

    the dog's reproachful

eyes follow me who did not

    slowly or swiftly

steal away her owners, or

her sense of hearing, either

 

    no one brakes for me.

my ease is an illusion

    among the whirlings,

for they heed not, & i have

only to stumble to die.

 

    of skin against skin

one cannot properly speak,

    any more than the

feeling of seeing from a

mountaintop the Milky Way.

 

    today i will make

tea, as slowly as if i

    didn't have to work;

i will listen to records;

i will not check my email.

 

    i love this hour.

autumn dawn, the wait almost

    immaterial. . .

a pellucid blue traversed

only by train-spooked grackles.

 

    boulders & cactus

farther down the slope, i walk

    to the dripping gate

looking back, even the house

has softened shape a little.

 

    Dark Imperium

its people don't know don't care

    to know what it does

in their name in my dense shades

i go out driving at night

 

    and the sweet of the

burning time - is the knowing

    of sheer righteousness

a boy clutches his toy gun

destined to be found melted

 

    swimming pool cover

turquoise, full of leaves: tadpoles

    flee from your shadow. . .

eight thousand suns have returned,

but not once more that darkness.

 

    fugitive colors,

that caught my eye for a time,

    sunset on your skin.

but i have all the albums

without - a record player

 

    Phoebe Lamia

question always to remain

    a sweven tells me

silent words glint the silken

caught in all the traps of earth

 

    pale cerulean skies

now empty of promises -

    the stop & go cars

do not know me, these old songs

of desire do not know me.

 

    cradled to warm both

hands, a warm green mug. silence.

    silent emptiness,

& noiselessly the blood finds

its myriad pathways home.

 

    sky & sea the same

bring sand to the sand mother

    potholes to the moon

if all things were turned to smoke

the nostrils could still discern.

 

    that glittering place

remembered in midnight wind

    & the stars that die

again in my head rain sound

longer than words & less vain

 

    twenty years later,

the East Side pad where i played

    chess with my fellow

anarchist musketeers - now's

a Banana Republic.

 

    mahogany cup,

some few faint stains on the white.

    habits of feeling

& knowing too much craft, clash

with a sound of hissing rain.

 

    birds chattering &

looping, madly, while somewhere

    a car alarm peals.

i listen, trying to tell

the true spring from El Nino.

 

    don't think we are here

aided by the gods, making

    whatever we like:

WE ARE BESIEGED, it is much

just to have finished one thing.

 

    gold on the gold leaves,

to beautify my sorrow.

    i who have never

walked mine-ridden lands or known

the sharper edge of the blade

 

    the Age demanded

real-life Ozzy on TV;

    the Age demanded

book-a-year bards whose hardbacks

get remaindered six months new

 

    it starts brightening

even before the thunder

    has all crumbled away -

unveiled, a trickle that was

there all along & unheard.

 

    ghosts in the ghosts, mort-

mainline a crepuscular

    foreglow or know-how

we teach each other Lethe

on her hundred year old bed.

 

    a chatter of choughs.

and the sun no direction.

    the wall tells stories

of shadows now fluttering

upon their delight no more.

    these oceans to cross,

i will never cross again.

    songs of teenage angst,

epic, the smallest empire;

the wide world burning beyond.

 

    the stillborn worlds whirl

unwitnessed, the day without

    shadows pullulates

with drivers out on the roads,

& my bemused honor stirs.

 

    circumnebulous

equinox: all the past ones

    hover in this coolth

suddenly; all the people

i used to be, am not now.

 

    moon leave me with time

for wandering these shadows

    there are whispers from

i am strange as they & fall

the thousand year long going