Poetry
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tonight wake
tonight wakewhen late winter returnshome your inmatein your nightgownwith your candle kneelbeside your bed and shiverafter you go to bedafter you go to sleepwhen the horizon’s become a pursethat today’s early summer’sreturned her sun towhen the warm breathof today’s spring’s beenexpelled from your chamber into thelate winter’s dawn at duskthe cold air seeps into your… Continue reading
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from the via
from the viafrancigena out of romethe dust of the roadlayered the sweat in my shirt that driedthirty one days of august deepone of the first days in septemberwith the waist shallowwater of the torrente fersinai scrubbed my face Continue reading
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ask if his mother lives
ask if his mother livesstory is she diedher corpse laid out on a bench carvedinto the rock ofa grave at the foot of the mount of olivesanother story is her body was takenfrom there upreunited with what had fled from dyingin jerusalem the church of the assumptionit’s said to be her tombstone Continue reading
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ask every man for his name
ask every man for his namethe one who proveshis age by a historic injuryclosed in the palm of his handor by an ancient wound healedthrough the heel of his footwho proves his age by an oldscar speared blindly into the softflesh over his hip bylonginus whose bones long agobecame the moist dust in a fertile… Continue reading
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the day mary
the day mary is the mother of jesus became the day mary was the sky must have been a nest of vipersbetween the one snake- strike of lightning down and the next there must have been thundera small whirlwind of dust on mount zion must have coiled itself round and round into a funnel of… Continue reading
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the long tides of our shadows have receded
the long tides of our shadows have recededthis morning early as we walkedaway from the beginning of the sunrisethese shadows washed far they flowed deepinto collegienstrasse toward the marketthey flooded away before usfour times the length of our height then threedarkened the cobblestones like wednesday’s rain didlike the shadows of water darken the pebbles in… Continue reading
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look at the vagabond
look at the vagabondsee that his ears are croppedask was it yesterday his feetwere locked in the stocksask was it last week he couldn’tpull his head nor his hands from the pillorysay tell me strangerwas it a month ago the good people of wittenburg threw offal at you smell that he’s putridask if under the… Continue reading
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the stroll of the gentlewoman becomes a
the stroll of the gentlewoman becomes a march past the man who sags outside the door against the wallhe with the eyes full of storm on the horizon that measure the soil on the clothes and the wear the number of teeth in the mouths of those who pass the men who enter and the… Continue reading
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for these
for theseand for all those who haveno plowand no anvil over which to benda plow into beingno seedand no burgage1 over whichto spread seedno meadowand no swine to shepherdinto the meadowfor all those who waitand in their wait makethe square drunk and quarrelsomelewd and a frightwait for the roads to thawand for the thawed roads… Continue reading
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those west faced
those west facedwalls of masonry and brickworkthat all wednesday were damp darkened by rain washthrough all the hours of sunrisetoday those housefronts and marketstalls were shadow tintedbut now that sunless hue recedesdown those walls like a tidenow those walls are sunlight shadedlike mortar like mud at midday go to that dark monastery where i liveand… Continue reading
About Me
I have a day.
Jake's Flea Market 