This morning in Berkeley

Trees and sky

Pumpkins at the Berkeley Bowl - November 16, 2010

1/2 moon over the back yard

Thai Birds

Back porch

Raoul

11/12/10 In the Kitchen

11/11/10 From a BART train leaving West Oakland, heading Downtown

What Is Passing and What Remains

after String Quartet in B flat major, D 132 by Franz Schbert


For Daniel Arthur Read 
March 8, 1950 - May 25,2010




Allegro ma non troppo


The cloudless sky,

warmth on skin,

and in the heart

is the sky over Schipol;

all Dutch,

all the possible shades of gray,

iridescent over a swath of new green.

In the late days there was little sense to be made.

In the late days there was waiting 
and a kind of prayer

that you would

find peace.

In the late days,
just before you stopped talking,

I played Schubert's 8th Quartet for you. 

In the voice of the cello, I could hear the sound of your mind leaving.

In the interplay of the violin and cello, I could hear that you knew

that your life was coming to a close and you would be passing into

whatever new form you would have.
In the interplay, I could hear the tugs of 
not just mine, but so many
hearts shattering in pieces,
again and again. 

(be without pain.

have clarity.

be in a place of peace

and newness without any further suffering.)

When it was over I asked you if you liked it

and you said, "It was too soft."

You met our train at Santa Maria Novella

and before we went to your apartment on via Bolognese

you stopped at a bakery and bought a piece
a schiaciatta con uva.
We ate some in the little car.


The sweet, musky flavor of grapes and the yeasty bread,
the crunching of the seeds
was the sun today.


You are gone, but it remains:

Over the outskirts of Amsterdam in rain

that does not cease.


In the interplay of the instruments
is a pull to the dark.
a way of lulling us with beauty
to remind us that it all
ends.


There is no beauty without end.
There is no love without death.


Just as the viola goes plaintive and the 
violin reassures,
and the cello makes its way through life,
we hope for unscathed but, settle for scarred.


The violins weave around each other sharing some new discovery
in the mosaics in Ravenna at San Vitale,
or over an espresso in a bar
on some side street near Santa Croce.


Watching you breath with so much heaviness
took me  to an afternoon when we 
were supposed to get tickets to Venice.
Instead, we drank 9 espressos
and shared 9 different sweets
and only remembered the tickets at the last minute. 


That was the day two Andreas, John, Theresa, you and I
walked through the rain in our clear green plastic ponchos
and trudged over the aqua alta on catwalks through the
Piazza San Marco.



The gray green light in Venice was the sister
of Amsterdam,
was the sister of
the day I thought of you
outside the Conciergerie;


you and the shimmering colors of glass
and gold stars on the ceiling in St. Chappelle,


you and the quavering light though alabaster
and gold stars on the ceiling in the Galla Placida.


You were the first love.






Allegro sostenuto


I can only hold on by a thread,
a very thin thread,

So lost

without you
on this earth.

waves of an infinite gray engulf.
waves of coruscation pound
and quake the shore.

and then there will be some small relief: 


a picture of a tiny robin,
or the juicy flavor of a nectarine,
or the little girl at the Farmer's Market
begging her mother for lello cherries,
not red, lello.


How the days reflect that child's longing.
for her the color makes it complete
and for me these days, I look for,
but find, there is no more complete
and that you are gone forever.



Menueto allegro


Pretend that it didn't happen.
pretend that night isn't darker than dark could be made to
pretend that the darkness leads away from the rent in the very fabric
of this curtain of illusion.


echoes of echoes
of sadness.
echoes of echoes of tears falling
to fill the pool.
echoes of echoes to remind that
you will never be here again.


pizzicato winding 
wraps the heart as insulation
that does not hold.


pizzicato returns to present or portend on these long Sundays
that bring reminders of
what is missing.


and that what is missing is you.



Presto




i can attempt to find light
and it eludes by a moment
by a shred of a scintilla of a second
and I am back to that moment,
that irreconcilable and irrevocable breath
that was the last.


I attempt to find some hope but drift through days 
as if this maquillage was the face of today
and not some arrangement of colors that 
doesn't conceal
and doesn't convince.


My heart is a hole.

Schubert Quintet on April 3, 2010

Infinitudes of love.
There can't be more than one infinity,
at least mathematically.
Heart in head,
there is more than one.

let the infintudes of love wash over you,
over us,
let this love run as water from a fall,
cascading over our finite bodies.

let this love and it's possibilities
wash over us.

let this love rinse the pain from
our finite bodies.

let this love reassure .

let this love guide us into our own infinity.


In an infinity of numbers
there is the possibility that
in another place where we are seated together
washed in this love.
that whatever pain is in you
has not happened and never will.

let the love wash you.


Your love has guided me,
saved me from the darkness that
has followed me,
a shadow of the darkness unlit within.

Your love in its infintude
has lit the darkness and for this

I am humbled and grateful.

Kindness and Comfort

Kindness cannot be offered.
Comfort may not be sought.

March 27, 2010

1.
Parting is not sweet.
Parting is sorrow.

2.
light falls on the pool
littered with pepper leaves
and pine pollen.

Lulu, proprietary and seductive
perches and kneads the plaid blanket.

3.
Suppression of feeling
is pointless and volcanic.

Reach for the sunglasses
as Dickinson renounces the public frog.

4.
"I had five on Dubai Debt in the fourth."

Bela Bartok: String Quartet 2

Moderato

You never know where it will lead
and yet, again
you follow around a bend,
along a wall.

you never know who you might see
or not,
or which animal will cross your path,
or which plant will blossom and wither
without bearing fruit.

there is a point where
it becomes clear
that it isn't going to be the way you
want it to be
and
it never is that arrangement of eggplant, tango and seafoam green

in the florist's window.

there is a whiff of taint.
there is a tremendous pressure.
there is a kind of disquiet , mink and copper plate etchings.
did you remember?
Did you ever remember?

What is difficult just might be.

walking on a sidewalk of keys,
stepping gingerly as to not disturb,
it may turn out to be something completely and utterly different.

skateboard wheels on concrete.
shut up bitch.
the 21.

variegated flax,
recessive flux,
one never knows.

one never really has to question it.
the light reflected from the crystals of the chandelier
is still light passing through and carrying us through time.




Allegro molto capriccioso

you've got me going.
there it is.
there it is.
there is a pounding beat that
runs from the high tone into the
nether region of civilized discourse.

the thing is,
the thing is,

they followed us up the street.
they shouted our names
and defamed our intentions.
we have been called out by the bitches.

the way we ran, it didn't make sense.
it became performance art
it became an excursion
into the possibility that
time is some sorry-assed excuse for a game.
they never told you about that.

they never called and straightened out the rent.
I can and will tell you
that the light shifted from whiter to gray green,
from gray green to something of a violet.

something of a rose,
something of
a cat tearing into the carcass of a sparrow,
tossing and clutching
this gift
this offering to you.
.
we will.
we certainly will.
we
will.
we
will

post our quarterly profits.
we will declare our assets.
we will proclaim our brand superiority.

we will claim our brand's supremacy
in that critical demographic.

we will.
we will slither and slink
through the garden
chasing a ball with a stick.
where will it lead us?
he will never know.


Lento

it just isn't completely right.
it never is.
i could have told you
but you wouldn't listen.

you never really did.

we regret to inform you
that your credit report will post this loss of standing.

it isn't even sunset and the light
has faded and dissipated into this pre-night.

Nobody knows the whole story.
Why wouldn't we?

Is it fair to expect resolution?

Not so sure about that,
Someone might beg to differ.
I have the right.

You have a right to agree to disagree.
nothing is easy.
i fear and i must commend you.

i wouldn't bring it up,
don't do tell.
there is nothing you can tell me that will make me feel differently.

i tried to tell you.
I finally realized
we couldn't know,

nor could you have anticipated,
nor would you have appreciated,
nor should you have been held responsible.

when I leave the ground behind
I become unsure.
creature of habit,

take
this

away,
into a place where
it all stops for twenty minutes a day.

leave it
behind
leave it behind and
let it pass
a heron landing in an oak.

PIT #4

Andate sostenuto - Moderato con anima

A grand address on the effects of repression of feelings
announcing,
proclaiming
that there is doubt floating through the alley.
Spectral doubt swirling,
ebbing, and rising without ever
going under the surface.

I see dancing and wonder why I have not been asked to dance.
It puts me in a spin and then
I rack,
I rail,
I get a grip.

He can work through this.
He can confront head-on,
headstrong, if quietly and dignified.
One must, at all times, be dignified.
You know I never should have been so rash.

He has moments of quieter contemplation.
He has the possession of his emotions for a moment.
Where does it come from?

It returns in an blast, at once glorious
and filled in the golden glimmer of these
horns,
horns,
horns.

Realize that black is the new black
Vine creeps up the wall.
Leaves flutter in the evening breeze.
The grass is damp and slippery on his bare feet.
Realize that black is the new black.

Don't ever let him kiss you.
It will bring black and white keys
together, rushing in some montage
of horses and trains
colliding on the steppes.
His carriage veers in another direction.
You'll never know.

Is this a seduction?
I want to dance with him spinning
and spinning in grander arcs,
spinning and spinning in wider ranges.
Horns,
horns,
horns and passion
laugh at your protestations.

Spin me again.
Take me into the circle
where doubt may be vanquished
and our ardor revealed as a message in a bottle .
As a message bottled
bursting forth I am.


Andantino in modo di canzona

Dream melody repeating.
Dream variations, you know the way.
Falling to the bed
I begin to undress him.
I caress his neck.
I kiss the hollow of his shoulder.
Mouths come together and
all becomes details of delight.
There is return.
There are variations.
There is the light that streams under the door that glows on your face.

Which and whose hand is this ?
Where is this line between his and mine?

This baptism of congress,
this peculiar fascination,
this scent,
odd and warm.
Please, don't stop.

Whenever mouths touch,
there are garlands of spit
that crown the night.

It is all in a kind of passing.


Scherzo (Pizzicato ostinato)

Engaged and penetrated,
the barriers dissolve and become a jig
around the village.

I so long to hold his ass in my hands,
to touch the furthest reach of taint
and pull back to the underneath.

Heartbeats in this dance,
Heartbeats in these quick
flashes of light,
these silken kisses,
being inside of his lips.

You may have to call the police.


Finale

You are not getting it out of me.
You
are not.
The pussy jumped in the well
and fell through the other side
into China.
He popped a bottle of champagne
and poured it sip by sip into my mouth.
Snowballs chance,
chance of snowballs.

These recurrent sequences and terrifying close encounters
bring us to a precipice
and show us the consequences of repression.

But just a moment,
I might show him instead of telling
there is nothing reasonable about feelings.
None of this is your responsibility.
I proclaim myself
guardian of my own chastity.

i let my guard down for one minute.

Rosamunde (after FS)

1. Allegro ma non troppo

Questions in the wake from a passing boat.
The surface, once calm, is broken
and each ripple announces another variation
of a ripple that is a question.

The cottonwood casts the initial shadow into the water.
Reflected and absorbed
as shadows breaking through cascades of light
and bits of cotton
announce shadows of answers.
Sparkling waves of heat rise into the atmosphere.

Dotted dark and light,
annotated and inconsequential,
forming and reforming the
silhouettes of the leaves flouncing
against a sky going pink.
The boat pulls into the dock.

The question is
what is it that swims
with red ear turtles and sturgeon?

As it is below it is
not always the same above.

The idea of desire
(not a fish coming to the surface and
breaking into the air,
catching a midge)
is not always in the heart.

The heart is the reflection of a red ear turtle
passing through the shadow of cottonwood leaves
and the interplay of
light and shade on cotton dust
floating down the river.
A sunflower drifts by in the reflection of a cloudless sky.

Sometimes it can take an afternoon to see reason.
And, can only bring more.

Another day in a different light,
(Is the question light or dark?)
silence is the space between notes
(of a score)()
and the space between breaths
(held, silent and inhaled)
becomes a kind of deep fried,
(comfort)
a kind of silken,
(cream puff dick)
a once and a while spin,
(I do not know where to go with this.
I do not know where this is going.
I do not know.)
a once in a moon some time,
(the moon comes up behind the levee
and wakes up above the trees)
once in a lifetime when
I place my feet at the edge of the boat
and dive into the river
coldly and knowing.


2. Andante

That you do is understood.
Dancing into the space between
the possibility
and the day
that the rays of light
fell onto the wall
through the Venetian blinds.
Lines from a song
yet to be written.

Listen
to others
more
than tell to others.
Listen to the light
and shadow on the sandbar
at the confluence of the Feather and Sacramento rivers
on a Sunday afternoon in July.
The sun burned a wife beater
on my shoulders.

The one thing
that i need is,
the one thing I hear is
the slice of zucchini on a grill.
All morning
the hummingbirds
vied for territory and
red sugar water.

Do I want red sugar water?

A red ear turtle
on the reflection
of the memory of touch
on an old iron bed
is the bed
reflected in the mirror
above the rust stained sink
in a hotel room near Termini.

The light and dark reflections of
one afternoon in Rome.
You are standing at the window
looking out into all this bright sparkle.


3. Minuetto, Allegretto

Do I want to dance?
I do
want to dance between
the lips and the rest.

I want to play the violin?
Instead, I play maracas in the church choir
at the Altadena church
of Ecstatic Revelation
in the Holy Spirit of Understanding the Body,
(the heavenly and holy body
in which my soul resides).
But, do I want to dance?
I do
and lower myself
to my knees.

Dancing is a prayer
in praise
of this story

trudging knee deep up river
into current.
Pushing enough to propel forward
and knocked back a little sometimes,
we are wading
and moving towards a log.

It was very slow going.
We persisted and delivered ourselves one step further.
One never knows.
The flow is stronger
until we release our feet,

floating away into the current
I feel hope when
I forget how it is all put together
and trust love
from ghosts and the grieving,
from births and rejoicings.
I feel hope when
I can touch my feet to the earth.


4 Allegro moderato

I never thought it would be
the interior of Ste. Chapelle,
cool stone and glitter glass stories.

I never thought it would be
the first Vatrushka
or merguez,
or store bought butter in France.

That balcony overlooked the rooftops of the Marais.
Those interior walls were covered with grass cloth
and foil backed wallpaper.
The double glass door in the bedroom
opened out over the courtyard four floors below.
Covered with ivy,
The sky was perpetually gray
off the rue St. Paul.

I never thought it would be
walking down the rue de l'Odeon
between Sylvia and Adrienne,
when I knew you would die before me.
I knew I would be bereft
and that I would walk into
the Memorial to the Deportation
and each light would
flicker, one by one
into thousands.
I knew I would take your ashes
and released them into the Seine.

But, did I know
that one day I would
see that you are always here.

It comes and goes.
The river rises and bends.
The leaves rustle in a breeze.
The heron flies across the sky and lands in that oak.

You are and are.

The River

Refreshing, not icy,
plunging into the water,
not shocking.

I am floating on my back.
Above, a turkey vulture flies
from one shore to the other.

Puffs of cottonwood,
a light snow, bob on the
wake of a ski boat long past.

Buoyant, my arms outstretched,
eyes closed, I see him floating
into my welcoming arms.

Two partially submerged logs form a V above the water.
Two red eared turtles lounge in the afternoon sun.
The dog approaches and the turtles dive into the water.

I jump off the side of the boat
seeking him in the clear water
and come up to find a sunflower floating down the river.

The yellow petals take me back to the porch
where moments after sex we sat together
quietly looking at a bouquet of hydrangea and sunflowers.

The flow of the water,
the change in temperature
from cool to cooler surrounds and passes.

The contrasting temperatures
of the water and the air
bring touch

and images of his mouth on mine,
his hand brushing the inside of my thigh,
his shoulder resting on my chest, in memories

Floating up and through
the water as currents that envelope
and embrace memories of other afternoons.

As memories are liquid,
and touch seemingly solid,
and taste evaporative,

I am floating with time.
I am floating with the hot sun above
and cool water below.

I am floating in time
from when we touched
to when again we will

touch.

In My Mouth

Schubert Quartet No. 6

In furious packing
the switch of two wife beaters, black

In haste, yours joined
me on my journey back.
Mine, for you, was left behind.

I wouldn’t have noticed
if you hadn’t said, but you did
and I did.

Friday morning I put
your black shirt on
and for the day
it brought me the memory
of your skin on mine.

It offered memories of you next to me
and helped alleviate some of
that ceaseless longing
to be again joined to you.

This dance and the memory
of the dance
and the feelings of the memory of the dance
is a particular province
of the insular,
yet benevolent and hopeful …

This dance and the memory
of not one, but two bedrooms in Rhode Island
in the dark of night
under green boughs of maple
and above blue bowers of hydrangea
and in your arms,
and in my mouth,
and in the touch of a finger
to that happiness
that you not once or twice
or thrice or more allowed me…

(In the pleasure of bodies
next to each other
(that I had denied or forgotten.)

You are a gift and a joy and a treasure
and you inhabit a string quartet numbered 6
and sometimes,
of late and oftentimes
guide my hands
and gives voice
to what is within
but has no means
of uttering,
this delight that you brought
and continue to bring…

It brings the touch of my ear on your chest.
It brings your lips to my shoulder.

This simple black piece of cloth
brings the feeling of my hand
at the back of your knee
or my cheek brushing yours.

It brings a feeling of comfort
that led to the wonder
of you and I entwined and enjoined.

This cotton, black
laundered.
This cloth,
certain on skin,
carries me through the day
with memories of
you standing next to the bed,
taking this shirt off
and putting it in the basket
before you climbed into bed
to kiss me.

And, that feeling of comfort
that led to the wonder
of you or I
or you and I entwined and enjoined

and we will again
and again.

Franz Schubert, I am your Bitch

(Schubert: String Quintet In C, D 956)

Do not believe
the old saw.
It is lifting,
not falling.

The lifting took me up,
and up,
and up,
as if on a crane
over a city
over a landscape,
littered with
monuments to the past,
some over hallowed ground and
some over vast territories of rubble and debris.

I thought I could see you across the chasm.
It appeared, at least momentarily, that
you were on a crane of your own.
(I could not be certain because
you are a far more prudent man than I.
I am a man who has always sought flight.)

Lifted by desire, my spirits lifted,
my soul sometimes seemed outside my body.
(And this I mean in a very good way:
I could, at least momentarily,
be away from this it,
and stuff, and just be

with the thought of another person
for whom I might bring comfort and a little joy,
and not be tied to this egotistical fragility
and unending aloneness.)

There were things that I thought I couldn’t say with words.
Being aloft allowed me a kind of voice
I’d never known before.
The thought of you being aloft in another city,
in your life, in your body, the one, your own
unique and wonderful vessel, lifted and going
about your business and the facts of daily
dealings with your children’s cars, programs for youthful offenders,
meeting friends, fixing meals and laundry,
this was somehow a kind of comfort to me,
was somehow a hope, that somehow these cranes
could be maneuvered to come closer,
to bring the possibility that somehow distance and desires aside,
that at least momentarily could allow
for us to meet in our bodies and hearts,
and somehow,
in some miracle of stars and signs
and just plain working the details
it came to pass:

The crane dropped me off in Boston.
You met me there and took me into the countryside,
green and overcast,
mist and humidity to spare.
I could smell the green,
the maple tree in the front yard
and the electric blue hydrangea across the street.

I smell the
first time I held you in the bed upstairs.
I know the scent of holding back because
we did not know where Steve and Joann were,
or when they would return,
and we held each other,
but held back until evening.
We held back until after they had gone to bed,
and Ben had gone to bed,
and even then we held back until the morning.

And even though I told you that
when we were in New York that you led me though a door
and that I could never go back to being the way
I was before,
I can tell you that
being with you
when our bodies actually did
collide and meet that night and morning,
for the second time,
you opened a door and led me through
and I cannot go back.

And so it has been each time
I have touched my body to yours or yours to mine,
each time I have taken you as flesh in me.
Let me tell you that
your flesh in me has opened doors
that led to doors that led
to the very center, that was
and yet no longer is a physical center,
but to the very
heart and soul of me.

Being with you is a prayer
that makes time still.
Being with you is a hymn to the pleasure that can be brought into the
Life of another and the pleasure
the other might and must return.
What it is that you brought me is a
most bittersweet joy,
for in the giving it goes away
and makes me long for
you even and ever more.

So this is the quandary:
I don’t want cranes
I don’t want green landscapes
I just want you.

and your touch and your voice
and the slimmest possibility
of being able to give you
a door opening
to joy
in the way you opened those doors for me.

I truly don’t want the confusion and tears
that has been this day since dawn.
I do not want the ache that it is that
tonight you will not be next to me nor
in the morning wake up in my arms.
I do not want this amputation
that is you so far away.
I cried for the arm and leg of you that are away
from the possibility
of touch.

I know you find me intense
and often obtuse,
but I can and will tell you
that there was a moment I was with you
when I looked at your face on that pillow
and the smile on your face
made me know that we are forever connected.
I knew that in that moment
my touch ceased,
your touch ceased,
and we became one touch.

The axis of the world shifted
to that joining.
The lichen covered branches
and the old stone walls began
at first to turn
ever so slowly,
and the crow from down the road called
and the hydrangea, blue and electric
caught a breeze
and the soft wet breath of you
reached my ear.
The ocean receded
and the morning refrained
and the little township spinned
and spinned like a top.

The universe bowed down in acknowledgment
that the moment was eternal
and must for eternity be acknowledged:
You and I were joined in bliss,
whole and transcendent.
(This is New England after all.)

Do you know
that I love the smell of you?
Do you know I love the
salt and sweet taste of you in the
few moments before you wake up?
Do you know that I love the sight of you
sleeping, and especially waking and being through the day,

That I love sound of you walking down those creaking stairs
and especially I love the touch of you each and every time you offer me
the gift of you brushing my arm
or gracing my lip with the luxurious and saline touch of your
tongue on, or in my mouth or more.

Where does all of this take us?
That I do not know.
But, this I do:
that each tear becomes a diamond
and each diamond is a bit of a veil
And each veil may be moved to reveal

the tears that can reveal joy,

and I pray there is no end.