Lewis Warsh
MILTON STREET
1
Before you were born
poets subscribed to light
& later I saw the same
light come up over the street
where lovers cross
over to where the light
stops & starts
the light of conviction
in a stranger's eyes
an unfamiliar voice
on the other end of the line
It sounds like someone died, Bernadette says
2
Not a person, but a depression:
is there a difference? My friends
are my raiments & claim insistence
for my health, which (according
to Plato, not her or him) some toxic
substance endears me to write
So I'll sing not of what love means
but getting older only seems like
love if two people meet on the
other side
As if someone died, & in my desire
disappeared, swallowed up (alive)
for the sake of conviction--it's
always more convenient to die & return
to life, to accept the limits of
resistance (undefined)--& delete
erase her name, as if 'from my life'--
a spark of life went out
before its time
3
I thought I was burned out but I kept
on dreaming. Something revived inside me
that had already died. In my chest still
breathing passed out of my life, like the day
we heard Ted died & fucked all
night. It was the only way we could feel
alive, & keep on breathing, a wedge
between living & dying & eventually we died--
passing to the other side so we could
be with him.
4
I had a plan, more like an overview,
& see what happened. I'd love everybody
at the same time & if they didn't
like it--I'd see who was strong enough,
who was still left standing--
Ping, pounding her chest, says: you have to think
of yourself, also--
As if to remind me what I knew was
true--the baby on the bed, the song
about 'hope' that turned into
sorrow
I had a plan to plagiarize (as if
there was no tomorrow) what others had
said about love's insistence, but I
knew I had the field to myself--the
disparity between what others felt
& their resistance to thinking
what was left in the mind could make
it true
LOVE (WITH SEEING EYES)
1
according to
one approach,
by way
of the underpass
the exit ramp
around
the excavated
site diminishes.
a newsreel
in a film, what's
real for a minute,
gone.
did you say
of everyone I
recognize you
from a distance.
which are alien.
2
We were cutting the cloth
into equal pieces when her earring fell
into the street below.
3
A god (Eros) falls in
love with a maiden
who personifies the soul
(Psyche)
I like the sky (blue) over
the ocean
I'm not happy
Vast quantities of
strength--hidden--to draw on
when necessary
walls of cells covered
with paintings of
people suffering
I date everything from that
moment as if I had died
& returned to life
This is the place where
snakes come to die
when they grow old
all forms of necessity
dominate the will's
sovergnity
I learned how to kiss in the grass
behind the house
a long walk home--along the shoreline
in the dark
sinking, sinking deeper,
sinking in
4
Some of the more conservative types
feel that the current gun law should be
repealed while others favor selling guns
on the street. It's cheaper that way, for
starters, & no one knows your name.
5
We could spend our holidays
cutting pictures of models
from magazines
pretending we looked good
in shorts
when our legs were flabby
Some mornings
we'd wake up late
& count who was a man
or a woman by what they said
or did,
not as if they looked like
an imprint, but barely human
6
Radiant, as leaves move
enraptured by arrogance.
As if one of us had manipulated
what the other had said
without sick pay or compensation.
As if one, & then the other,
had repeated the same words--backwards.
7
How pensive is the simplicty
of her eyes. All her movements
were "full of expression" &
"of charming simplicity." There
were "modest graces" as well,
like an angel by Rhapael.
Not to mention voluptuousness--
"languourous gestures" etc.
8
Reconstruct the soul's breath & watch
the words fly out of the top of your
head. If you reconstruct the word you'll
find out who you are. Take the syllable
as heartbeat (systole/diastole) & press
your ear to the pavement. There's a siren
in the distance & it's coming your way.