You walk into my room.
You sit there at my desk,
Begin your letter to
The one who’s coming next.
KITCHEN TABLE
The same useless thoughts arise
but no one claims them –
Loneliness seizes the frame
and shakes away hope
but no one is hopeless
no one is lonely –
The intricate preparations
for the next moment
direct you
to read this now –
Surrendered to the One
who placed me here
I sit at the very table
where these songs began
some forty years ago –
busy as a bee
in the solitude
– Hydra, 1999
GRAVITY
I never tried to see your face,
Nor did I want to know
The details of some lower place
Where I would have to go.
But love is strong as gravity,
And everyone must fall.
At first it’s from the apple tree,
And then the western wall.
At first it’s from the apple tree,
And then the western wall.
And then from you and then from me
And then from one and all
THE SUN
I’ve been to the sun
It’s nothing special
A place of violence
Much like our own
The sun said
I am an open book
Be patient
I love the way
The sun speaks
It is so calm and honest
Except when seized
By its own misfortunes
You will find
That everything happens
The same way
Here and there
The solar winds
Are something else
No one masters them
No one really
Navigates them
You survive them
Or you are never
Heard from again
Go LITTLE BOOK
Go little book
And hide
And be ashamed
Of your irrelevance
A fluke
Has made you prominent
You were meant
To be discovered
Later
When there are no more
Floods and earthquakes
And holy wars
Go little book
And stop disgracing me
There are serious men
And women in my life
And you have given them
The upper hand
Hide behind
A window
O my dear lighthearted
And transparent
Book
Or crush yourself
Beneath a defeat
But hide
Hide quickly now
And let me hear from you
In our secret code
Which resembles
A bad cough
That dark rattle
Which ignores
The challenges of love
The crystals of perfection
O speak to me
From places
You will find
Go little book
Invite me there
HOSPITALITY
drinking cognac
with the old man –
his exquisite hospitality
in the shack by the river –
that is, no hospitality
just emptying the bottle into my glass
and filling my plate
and falling asleep
when it was time to go
THE CENTRE
When I am at the centre
of my unrequited love
I cannot hold it as an object
It has no sharp edges
to torture anyone
I breathe the fragrance
of the longing
and the longing
has no proprietor
“O my love” embraces
the great wide sky
as the night picks through
the constellations
lifting necklace
after dripping necklace
for the delight
of Leonard’s true beloved
“0 my love” cries out
from every pore of snow
and the forest answers
from a great height:
“O my love”
And one heart appears
and one heart dissolves
and they clasp in the place
where I am held up
in the storm
And I walk to you
on the waves of desire
walk across the distance
with something new to tell you
about your beauty
your good legs
and your relentless absence
YOUR RELENTLESS APPETITE FOR NEW PERSPECTIVES
When You wanted
to see her
in a different light
You placed her
in my arms
When You wanted
to vanish
in a sigh of relief
You drew down her lips
to mine
O Nameless Subject
of all activity
You have given me a song
for my ghostly life
How deep is Your longing
for Yourself
how sublimely overlooked
We kneel in gratitude
as the movements in love
disperse our sweet intentions
across the fictions
of Companionship –
two of the creatures
which You named Me
BETTER TO BE LOST
It is better when I’m lost
and the towns flow by
like television
and you want to be an artist
and draw the waitress’s lips
It is better when I wake up
alone in the cold sauna
and get to know the wood again
the red wood, the cedar
the old oaken bucket
the old rugged cross
O my children it is better
to be lost when you are
this poisoned father
at the woman’s banquet of love
and I did not take you
to hunt the bear
or spear the fish
I did not spirit you away
from the intrigue
to the forest green
where I slept with
a person named Sahara
beside The Devil’s River
and I knew how to put up
a tent in the wind
It is better to be lost
to fall asleep according
to the terrors of CNN
dead drunk on red wine
digging for the sunlight
in the German documentary
that never turns into English
It is better to be the blood
inside my own hand
with its own sweet life
its innocent joyous burden
of service
O thank you dear sweet
loyal blood of my hand
I promise never to raise you
again in anger
INSIDE OUR LOVE
I want to love you now
I want to love you then
I want to love you never
And then begin again
All the tassels of my belt
Go flying in the sky
When you bend down to laugh at me
From your place on high
I want to be the fool
The one
you send away
After you have used him up
Every second day
I want to be the rose
You beckon with a yawn
Limping on a thorny crutch
Across the burning lawn
See what you have done to me
As if you give a shit
I used to live behind a line
But now I’m over it
I won’t come back to say goodbye
I’ll never leave your side
Until I am the other man
And you are someone’s bride
Sit down on my memory
When you are in pain
When you are in pleasure
Sit down on it again
Thank you for your courtesy
And for your drunken kiss
I’m drunker than you’ll ever be
I hate to tell you this
And every night’s cemented tight
Until you strike and rise
Against me like a tidal flood
To crack the wall of lies
And push me down forever
To places where I find
The fossils of my brotherhood
The smooth ones and the spined
And then a holy moment comes
With crisp sobriety:
I see that we are meant for chains
Though every atom’s free
I see that we are meant for chains
Tho’ every atom’s free
And even beauty meets an edge
As one can plainly see
Then summer has your golden hair
And autumn has your ghost
And we are at a juicy feast
Where no one is the host
Then we begin to form again
It takes a little while
I circle round your privacy
For many a lonesome mile
HALF THE WORLD
Every night she’d come to me
I’d cook for her, I’d pour her tea
She was in her thirties then
had made some money, lived with men
We’d lay us down to give and get
beneath the white mosquito net
And since no counting had begun
we lived a thousand years in one
The candles burned, the moon went down
the polished hill, the milky town
transparent, weightless, luminous,
uncovering the two of us
on that fundamental ground,
where love’s unwilled, unleashed, unbound
and half the perfect world is found
CHEATER
I cheat when I make love
She thinks it’s great
She shows me stuff
that you’d only show
to a cheater
THE FLOOD
The flood it is gathering
Soon it will move
Across every valley
Against every roof
The body will drown
And the soul will break loose
I write all this down
But I don’t have the proof
– Sinai, 1973
Index of Titles / drawings, first lines
a private gaze 96
Alexandra Leaving 60
All My News 42
Alone at Last 173
angry at 11 pm 134
Another Christopher 132
Another Poet 186
Anything Which Refers 176
Argument 130
back in montreal 172
Backyard 150
Basket 51
Beach at Kamini, The 80
Because of a Few Songs 208
Best, The 141
Better 11
Better to Be Lost 220
Body of Loneliness 40
Boogie Street 64
Book of Longing, The 1
but turn me on my side… 224
Butter Dish 129
By the Rivers Dark 53
Centre, The 218
Cheater 228
Cigarette Issue, The 71
Clockwork 142
Cold, The 84
Collapse of Zen, The 19
Correct Attitude, The 157
Cross, The 123
Darkness Enters, The 182
Dear Diary 83
dear roshi… 23
Delay 101
Disturbed This Morning 39
Drunk Is Gender-Free, The 143
During the Day 81
Dusko’s Taverna 1967 75
Early Morning at Mt. Baldy 21
Early Questions 45
Even Now 185
Even Some of My Own 166
Faith, The 198
Faithless Wife, The 147
falling in love with you 118
First of All 122
Flood, The 229
Flow, The 194
Food Tastes Good 48
for all my art… 155
Fun 49
furthermore, you do not have… 203
Go Little Book 216
Goal, The 153
Good Germans 94
Gravity 212
Great Divide, The 191
Great Event, The 108
Half the World 226
Her Friend 188
Here It Is 199
His Master’s Voice 3
Historic Claremont Village 38
Hospitality 217
How Could I Have Doubted 106
I Am Now Able 193
i believe that you are standing… 52
i copied time 223
i guess it’s better to start a war 189
I Miss My Mother 72
i never found the girl 35
I Wrote for Love 89
If I Could Help You 95
if you are young… 59
If You Knew 88
Inside Our Love 221
Irving and Me at the Hospital 205
It Seemed the Better Way 190
Jana Thinks of John 177
jikan who pretended to be a poet… 184
just to have been one of them… 36
Kitchen Table 211
Laughter in the Pantheon 82
Layton’s Question 87
Leaving Mt. Baldy 22
Letters, The 209
Life of Errands, A 66
Limited Degree, A 65
Looking Away 165
Looking Through My Dreams 179
Lorca Lives 90
Love Itself 54
Lovesick Monk, The 13
Luckiest Man in the World, The 24
Magic Cure, A 85
Medicine 17
Mercy Returns Me 91
Mission 68
Mist of Pornography, The 98
monk’s head, artist’s proof 27
Montreal Afternoon 102
Moon, The 46
Moving Into a Period 34
Much Later 131
My Baby Wasn’t There 74
My Consort 37
my guitar… 195
My Life in Robes 2
My Mother Asleep 137
My Mother Is Not Dead 139
My Redeemer 121
My Time 178
Need the Speed 105
Never Mind 144
Never Once 162
Nightingale 146
Not a Jew 158
Note to the Chinese Reader, A 196
Now In My Room 181
oh and one more thing 167
Old Automat on 23rd St., The 77
On the Path 120
One of My Letters 5
one of those days… 116
only one thing made him happy… 210
Opened My Eyes 156
Other Writers 15
Pardon Me 187
paris again… 78
Paris Sky, The 109
Party Was Over Then Too, The 25
pretending to dig in 227
Promise, A 202
Puerto Ri
can Song, A 63
Puppets 160
Reading to the Prime Minister 104
Religious Statues 69
Remote, The 97
Report to R.S.B. 204
Robert Appears Again 138
Roshi 16
Roshi at 89 4
Seisen Is Dancing 33
Separated 133
Shirley 140
sit still… 206
So Do You 180
Something from the Early Seventies 125
soon there will be no one… 214
Sorrows of the Elderly 171
S.O.S. 1995 7
Split 58
Stanzas for H.M. 113
still looking at the girls… 207
Story Thus Far, The 110
stunned and still not suffering 174
Suggestions 183
Sun, The 213
Sweet Time 47
Sweetest Little Song, The 111
Takanawa Prince Hotel Bar 31
taxes children lost pussy… 175
the face can be composed… 41
the inner sweetness of the man… 117
the lamp in room 3 225
the promise of a youthful shirt 100
the road is too long 215
the truth of the line… 86
There for You 201
There Is a Moment 145
these portraits are far behind my… 62
Thing 112
Third Invention, The 136
this book will begin to speak… 119
This Is It 28
this is the best way to do it 164
This Isn’t China 30
this mood has nothing to do with you 161
Thousand Kisses Deep 56
Thousands 73
Tired 124
Titles 159
To a Young Nun 14
Too Old 79
Tradition, The 92
Travelling Light #31 149
True Self 18
Unbecoming 76
vibrant, but dead 152
Voice Dictating in a Plane Over Europe 107
we are not convinced… 50
we will all be airbrushed 128
we will not be staying… 197
What Baffled Me 169
What Did It 70
When I Drink 9
When I Went Out 151
Who Do You Really Remember 163
Why I Love France 115
Book of Longing Page 10