We speak of Heaven who have not yet accomplished
even this, the holiness of things
precisely as they are, and never will

Say I had no choice, this weightless finger touched my tongue and told me to, it taught
me; when kinder and more subtle methods failed, it put a gun to my head, a zero
seared coldly in one temple, electrode glued chill to the other

Rain to which I wake
Cold into which I go
Little song, little song…

Do you remember the rude nudists?
Lazing easy in girth and tongue,
wet slops and smacks of flesh as they buttered every crevice.

The robin is so quarrelsome. He barks to no one in the trees;
he fluffs his body twice its size and rattles in the leaves.
He doesn’t know or won’t accept the nest is empty now,
the eggs a tatter on the ground.

Because this evening Miss Hoang Yen
sat down with me in the small
tiled room of her family house
I am unable to sleep.

Sweet tones conjure
no song but
this
old vintaged
one –

Spooky summer on the horizon I’m gazing at
from my window into the streets
That’s where it’s going to be where everyone is
walking around, looking around out in the open
suspecting each other’s heart to open fire
all over the streets