Chthonian Darkness

The idea that somewhere in the still—
There in the darkness
Is a germ of life
Floating like a plankton
In the imperceptible night.

This invisible seed was born
At the right time, entered the water &
Tide-guided by some vague notion of sky, made it
To the one place where it could be brushed against
By a sleepy swimmer’s toe
& switched On,
A pincushion of light
That turns the void into a bioluminescent bay.

Shanty

There is something in this world
that is so big, we can’t get
to the bottom of it.
No one goes there,
except maybe as a fragment,
long dead.

& yet, there are so many forms
of life down there, beyond even worms.
There are spineless monsters
with snowy, hoary heads
and masses of waving tentacles,
pallid like the coiled leavings
in the gut bin at the grocer’s.

Maybe they’re just little souls—
the floating sacs of saline
and transubstantiated life.
Maybe they were grown
from human flesh
and are just as much a reflection
of us as they are horrible.

The creatures down there could well be a figment.
So could the soul.

& I think I could go on believing that
if only the floating death masks that leer
in the deep like repressed memories
didn’t suck at me
every time I smell life on the air,
pungent and dark.

Untitled

Apprehensive, Henry asks me about what art is
& I tell him not to worry too much,
because I remember when he was art.

We had sat up the whole summer
night—Indian style,
though it happened on a park bench—
and gotten stiff-kneed while busy
sending words up to the stars.

Without knowing it,
I had been facing West until I turned around
to see the dawn come.
& I only found this out because
for one moment

straight-backed on the bench
in Brooklyn night
Henry’s face got all lit up
& his glasses shined
with the new pink light,

with our words given back,
all pouring from the sky.