Buddha & hard days turning
& press the monster
to the cutting
stone
the green skin
frog teeth
toad
the boy
stands
alone
* * * *
Christ
was first
a magic child
on the riverbanks of Egypt
playing in the reeds where Moses
stuttered formulas proving the many in the one
one long river stretching invisible from the unknown mouth
to his mouth the delta the fingers radiant fan of earth
o bounty o sacrifice o rich death how it grows
* * * *
he sits in the pew roughly suited
brown shoes polished
clip on tie
preacher says: what
would you ask of
Lord Jesus boy
shakes his head
nothing not
a thing
* * * *
the bloody
bones of
ghosts
come on
pick it
up
the ugly
shameful
let them be
* * * *
what is saved
but once
in gold
the lepers
sweet
rags
what use
her honey
in a blue jar
* * * *
the dust
shines even
in winter light
some things like stars
how emptiness pulls them
& we want so many lives like this
& holes & sorrows & grief that weeps
hours & there is no counting one & one &
each time her eyes cut away how eternity dies
© 2008 Richard Lance Williams June 7 the mouth of her eyes: rain & what makes rivers long
how to bury the child properly!
it is not his time anymore
(ever in the glade
the blade rust
like dark
manna
fall)
boy
crying
my god my
god: let go of
the stone get up
rise banish the bier
of white abandonment
the story in a box:
harrowed hell
to heaven
a dove
frogs leap
& the sky is
want enough
to garden a heart
© 2008 Richard Lance Williams June 8 old man stops sacrificing his heart to the child
he trembles
in red futures
o promise of rising
& then a curving earth
honey is better
than gold
no heaven
saved
or turning
do not
return again
but kiss me as
Judas drops silver coins
already in the naked tree singing
© 2008 Richard Lance Williams June 8 the black boat: no harbor, sweet unending horizon
a breaking of
a heart as if
this begins
the world
o brave
suffer
a veil
torn
how a madman
cannot remember
a name but so clearly
the crime of abandonment
forsaken the teeth
marks still on
the back of
its neck
why nurse
a wound
to hurry
away
how many directions
mad friends carried
dogs & lovers to
the long bar
stations knot
in tangled
cleaving
sought
undress
a wound
with fingers
still trembling
a stranger to death
ride it out in pulsing waves
how the beast howls for new moons
sews with echoes what scars cannot conceal
© 2008 Richard Lance Williams June 9 broken hearts undressed
what rounds a hard day
as if the slow knife
pops suddenly
an innocent
skin
a hushed wincing
shame of what
falls shadow
& burning
truths
a genuine
turn of
grief
cut
in
a boat
untethered
does it matter
to the far shore
the press of a foot
when the dead are buried
& their ghosts sleep in stars
the light still bends at the stone
& sorrow grinds the price of blooms
how she carries the question we cannot bear
© 2008 Richard Lance Williams June 10 who betrays the hand of dark red days: clothed in roots & fire
what the dead don
a sameness of
settlement
the bottom
line: ha ha ha
the American line
wends & twists & shakes
revivalist convulsion
carnival hawker
Hucksterism
no Finn
again
mimic eccentric
a corn syrup
snake oil
prophet to fake it
until you take
the bait
o happy cakes
the king is
baked
on a lawn
rusting
red
a child says
you look
young
same suit
it never
was
© 2008 Richard Lance Williams June 10 showmanship: Kabuki Armageddon: D. Byrne
the trees are thick
but that is the distance
or closing i could slip between
the trunks with my arms spread wide
& turning or if i were to fall from a small plane
& my concentration was just right i could cut through
the branches as if i were a sword halving long thin sugar crystals
loop myself around a limb with a series of lashings from my belt & land
perfectly balanced on the thick belly of the ground as if simply
leaping from my bed in the brilliant morning
* * * *
how i tell her that there is the thing
that does not want to be
integrated or saved
that in the set
of all sets
there is
that subset
the one that refuses
to get it that steps back because
there is a child who wanted not to be found
* * * *
imagine the Buddha on his death bed how hard
it is not to be able to please everyone
how even enlightened he gazed
upon those gathered beside
his litter with their sorrow
& their doubts & those who got it
& those who did not & whose who had
it & lost it & desperately wanted it back but
the Buddha only smiles with his eyes closed softly
& with a single gesture he asks for a sip of cool water
© 2008 Richard Lance Williams June 15 & if we could please all the world
