What vision lights up wildernesses tonight?
The sentry scratches his head and guesses tonight.

Too many diplomas! Their frames cast gloomy shadows.

in Gila Bend, Arizona, all’s gone still
with his death, the entire satellite base
draped in black garlands, even the old

Nothing Is Enough. Even
the Sky Is Unclear.

Can right words make the difference and, if so, what
shall we say? The day gives way to electric night,
the pastoral dies beside the human grove,

XXXIV

We are falling through the abyss      Voices, of terror,
come to me I try to answer but sense

"The days are getting long now,"
he said.
"Short," I replied,

last words in Brooklyn

I

Admire my patience
in the grave in Sunset Park.

Arcades brick dust a rose lamp burns in the upstairs window
everything I will say I have said already         still again the
arcades the dust the light to be built by the bottle the box

Because this is Florida, we can be what we choose to be,
say, Dixie-fried Cubano rednecks. It's that kind of place.
When the heavy-metal band plays "Rocky Top, Tennessee"

I. THE CRAVING
                The Odyssey, Book Twelve

I needed a warning from the goddess
and a group of men to lash me to the mast
hand and foot, so that I could listen

The suffering that wrings through our mouths
we mix along the fissures asleep,
drunk like young fathers.