The buildings have invaded fields,
the sun glances off archribbed mirrors.
Chunks of slab with fake porticos.
for row upon row of random cars;
that slide from one horizon to the next,
None of this has given us our freedom,
though our freedom reclaimed these fields.
goods surge like rivers of traffic,
the poor huddle in their pealing apartments;
the opposition: slender types in black,
with their MAs in creative writing,
chattering lists of platitudes
Rivers boil away, woodlands wither,
everyone makes their living from
Sometimes I go out to look at the moon,
radiant white, or chili pepper red,
lost in the clutter of lights.
Does it remember the things we have given up?
The moon just smiles and says nothing.
The goddess sits in the axhandle park:
she would give more grain, but corn won't grow
The trees can lift their arms skyward,
but their hands and hair sprout flames.
when the old shade goes loafing (though evening
can't come any closer). Could he manage disembodiment
before now, the fire of the flower would still
But you, knowing the richer reds
and deeper blues appear briefly at dusk
then withdraw into their own flame...
He goes out at evening, shirt long, baggy as a coat,
his white beard flows from the sack-like face,
he has made himself bewildered: Where are the poets
chanting to the multitude? The headlong, vulgar, robust
freedoms of the crowd? Is there only you?
Bleating out this quick-flaring image? You chant
the gawk-shuffle, art-patter, and wonder how the plant
ever let you in. The inferno of the city blazes
around us, we detail its hidden lights.
The Rio Grande flows like a hat band
under the international bridge.
When I went over, there was a small blue cross
wrapped in red and white wreaths
stuck in the sand below, fifty yards from
the railing, completely overlooked.
I stood and wondered who it could have been for.
Across the river adobe blazes white in the sun.
Dope smugglers buy drink for their unemployed
friends, liquor flows like a scalding sacrament,
who step from white afternoons offering themselves
for a handful of pesos...their brothers sell
The rubble molds, shinning in the sun, the fabric
of poverty laughing in the world's face.
The roar of the freeway fades.
a light among the rows of identical houses.
patches of blue-gray light, framed by
At this time of night I can't help thinking
how silly Rilke would look, standing on
The ornate cityscapes, the ones he loved,
knew centuries of war and upheaval, for him
they created the deepest solitude.
Buddha of the book stalls (his features proclaimed),
an Orphan of art, brooding on park benches.
A dancer, though always serenely still.
Here bridges are built for speed,
the streets have no sidewalks, the creek
Here the man who would truly go into himself
And when it's really late, only the sky
taking people off to buy bits of the cities
and the minds are tossing slogans
"the answer is not in the archives."
The soul hovers beyond the trees,
beyond the clouds, beyond the stars.
I'm an empty shell that buys things,
Does it flutter beyond the broken columns
and green glades, whispering their beauty
The soul is a ball of light that flutters
It's a mouth that feeds upon itself.
Yet the soul is also the glades
it's the part of me that knows