two of us may be nothing
alike I am nothing like
the messenger who carries
me I’m composed of sound while
she is a lamb she can do
so much but she can never
be the message as you can
never be the messages
but receive and transmit them
you may confuse yourself with
what you have picked up there’s
a fourth person in this poem
the street smelled of garlic and
snails why did you stop changing
a girl you once knew stepped out
of the shower in the dark
hotel room placed her hand on
the knob of the lamp and coursed
with electricity she
was fine but her thoughts had stopped
for a moment that constant
stream of life in thought units
there is something in the hand
something else in the language
I mean it’s two different things
but there is sense in the chance
meeting of words at the bar
in Amherst three friends discussed
what they called their core fears did
Linus by dying invent
music or didn’t he can
sadness itself invent some
thing to comfort and help us
who invented the sadness
the Greeks missed the little boy
who they swore was with the dogs
just that morning alive pink
if you stop by Walgreens I
need something said his mother
his father was out being
Apollo these are stories
that matter these stories tell
us what we already know
in familiar rhythms I
don’t remember what Dido
was lamenting I don’t know
where paradise went are there
others like you out there on
the plains one who knows morning
by heart I’ve got to tell you
how I love you always I
think of it on gray mornings
with death in my mouth one pole
of survival being your
confusion the other will
be ritual the bag said
flowers for all occasions
Richard sang on the big stage
the night Gabriel lost her
baby the angels blew two
trumpets the other angels
screamed their chants into the caves
whose echoes held together
and collapsed into songs more
and more songs dirges ballads
requiem two-step aubade
the kind from the radio
till someday you find one song
one real song and in the song
will be a grail a real grail