Outline.

Just a bite.

Smoke

God, it is good to wake
     in the middle of the night
          and smoke a cigarette
with You,
     while outside, the buildings sleep
          in geometric clumps,
the factories rest – replenishing
     themselves, not so unlike
          the rosebushes or
eucalyptus groves,
     gathering power
          for one more thrust tomorrow.
For now, 
     the streetlights blossom
          above the boulevard,
a lone truck on the darkened bridge
     transports its spark across the gap,
          the way your fingertip
ignited Michaelangelo to think,
     long ago,
          that You were there.
One does so much
     building up, so much feverish
          acquiring,
but really, it is all aimed
     at a condition of exhausted
          simplicity, isn't it?
We don't love things.


So this hour of the night
     is precious,
          when the curtains swell like lungs
and the world is full of bodies
     falling from the precipice
          of sleep.
For seven hours,
     maybe eight, they don't
          remember how to suffer
or how to run from it.
     They are like the stars,
          or potted plants, or salty oceanic waves.
And do You like this brand of cigarette?
     And are You comfortable?
          It is so quiet now,
The streetlights shine.
     And I have noticed
          how the strands of smoke,
even in no hint of wind,
     still decorate the air
          in cursive braided loops and swirls.
No, it is not a signature.
     But it is beautiful,
          and it is inexplicable,
and it is good.
                                 
                               - Tony Hoagland

The Hum.

A sequestered frenzy
Makes it hard to feel
The hum of silence.


Thank you
For reminding me
To let it in.

Mire.

The Song of the Drunkard

It was not in me. It moved in and out.
When I dared to stop it, the wine won out.
(What it was, I no longer remember.)
The wine then offered this and offered that, 
till I became dependent upon him,
I, fool!


Now I am part of his game, as he throws me
around in utter contempt, and surely he will
lose me this day to that scavenger: death.
When death wins me, soiled card that I am,
he will use me only to scratch his sordid scabs
and toss me away into the mire.


                              - Rainer Maria Rilke

A Figure Walks

Schiele study.