for an ordinary immigrant

light a green candle for me
for illness,
prayer is the best part

light a candle for me
in your imagination
the flickering wall

is the light bent
is it ordinary?
your tears fall on panes

no one blazes a white candle anymore
white is for death
be sensible

light a candle for me
prayer is the best part
whatever comes

the light is right;
it plays across the fields

backwards, forwards
whatever comes
like a sheet; a coat into the night

now there is no order, no evidence
what is to be said,is said

your play, my play
it all comes right


my grandfather
throwing lawn darts
getting a perfect bullseye without leaving his lawn chair
and I a cat
hanging on to his wristwatch
looking at it,
not able to take it off


where is it
it comes out of nothing
it comes out of air

the tag ends of a century
loose jazz, germany
rock and roll

and what does it come to?
a pack of mumble games

and it was/was not worth it in the end


"star destroyer"

children laughing and playing
a team of dolphins

and there are moments like that
when one is laughing and crying with the freedom
and one has hit a basic node point of life
quincunx square
one has just been fired or gotten away with it

and there was an apparition after the mood;
the light changed darker
and the green velvet and chaise lounge fell
and Wilbert Frances Hanlon was no more
and his family is no more royalty
the Earl of Sussex and the twinned estate Sunningdale forgotten

and there is an open shed;
open to the sky now
and the satin blue couches rotting
Betty Lou so sad;
they came from the war,
or the governer general's house
holding the wheat pool board all these years,
now gone.

At first it was nothing, but it grew in consciousness and memory expansion and the mind. It trembled and awoke and shook itself. It went out to the park and said nothing. It was a dog on a leash. It fed the birds crumbs for awhile. And since I am you and you are me are we together?


an eternity candle marking the hours
a waterclock slowly running down ...
what is that?

one glowing star up at dawn
the triumph of capitalism
like a ripe fruit

and the air bloomed
it was hot gold

what did I say? what did I feel?
it was so long ago I hardly know

an orchestra
a orchestra ...

and fire came sparking out of the universe
typically complex
***

the nixon eisenhauer event

I saw it
a white troubled vision
against the face of the moon

and I threw it away
I threw it away time and again

for what it would draw
for what it would do

no expanation
troublers trouble me
trouble knots
trouble troubles me

trouble troubles me
fantasy flailing ...
trouble troubles me.

on the face of the shadow of the moon
napthol


housing

all the books are locked
landlocked, land dry ...

and what is the better life
where is it here?

better to be land dry
a hobo out on a loan ....

is it better anywhere

and I have my property and my house,
I have my axe
and all my misfortunes!

the house with the trees
the fir pines with the birds singing
the wrens
with their dainty delicate nests
their high fluting

the house finished at last

the goldfish pond
the wishing well
the old school bell ...

the lady at her sewing machine

the first, the Singer at her treadle ...


an inherited obituary

and my mother shadowing over me, her spirit, her breath, watching over and through me, my mother who liked a cigarette and a peacoat and the Beatles and Marx and John Lennon. And anyway long over the night, and cold on the old farm porch peelking potatoes into newspapers, that with yet another curled cigarette of homegrown or homegrown tobacco and serious discussion dialectic, all that, in amongst the manured boots ....

and that, and anyway against me te very same spirit animating itself against the very same sides of the argument.

and what is grandfather and what is the farm?

and crying to see the farm go and the land go and the stolid solid fact of inherted fact of atheism against all the papaism and the reality of his death

and that for both of us, for her and for me ...

broken, broken ...

and how do I realise only she is the ghost moving on both sides of me and moving in and against me still?


the forgiveness of all things

a monarch butterfly king
sat on my right shoulder
kindly raised his head
kindly looked away
kindly went to his milkweed again