The Waker's Corridor: Poems

We the Dark Characters

We the Dark Characters 39 upsTaTe (7:127) The mental institution was funny. The way the mad are funny. From the cement recreation area. She could not see beyond the figures. Left by felled trees. Now the far trees reminded a patient of Tangiers. While on walks. She formed a basket from her shirt. Held the end away from her belly. Placed pinecones in The light. Cotton hammock. The orderly disposed of her shells when they started. To spill out from under her bed. The hallways were colored an off-white That lacked a tan or gray tinge. One patient couldn’t stand. The sight of yellow. His mother painted his child that color. When he was stationed in Korea. When there was laughter. It was a funny laughter. As if it begged to hear a joke. (Knock knock.) When a visitor meets his father in a beige room he should not Recognize. Him this thin and sleepless. Children are funny. One parent removes (himself). And a boy forgets his voice. And pictures only a tin Napoleon Statue. A photograph of a striped and collared shirt. Eyes whose green has worn dim. Are set deeply. Can always grow more tired. I say the building sinks. 40 auf naxos April (Sorrow) holds above her head a tipped amphora, draining water first against her ash-blonde hair, and then into a basin made of the same stone as she. When April calls the statue “April,” Ling, administering a Flower-Acid Peel, says, “Shut,” and softly pins her client’s lips together, “Tight.” The peel, extracted from Hibiscus flowers, works into the skin. To lighten hyperpigmentation, Ling applies a second film to April’s shroud, and turns the background music slightly loud: The Velvet Underground’s “Stephanie Says” in candy coated static. A Japanese chanteuse unfolds the tune in a high pitch. She has to go. A child too off-white to lie beneath the sun in Belarus plays Tetris by a row of green umbrellas. His father thumbs Ecrits by Jacques Lacan, and tunes the radio to Chaka Khan. I feel for you. Sweet lord, you play me false. The showers work like strings leading my limbs into the ocean. Only once, when you had me undo my bonnet, then my blouse, and called me Miranda, I wet myself. You said you were a swan. 41 coMMedia deLL , arTe (15:52) In fractions I, blessed and left of the stairwell, am forging. Tim regained his sight only partially . . . the longer part hid. One back, I leapt into the channel, where now he was measured in His speech. What passed for life? A clown noised in his palace. Friend, you have the wrong tie. Off the steps to the Romanesque Chancery, I handed weather sticks— to the thinnest boarders. Place a lid upon the light. A dime shaken off my eyes. A counterPane of running figures spread over Jane and me. While we slept Time moved my abbess to tears . . . that I left is what I don’t see. What he might divine—reaching with a stick for daybreak—dogs Lost on the end of Bride. Their only duration, when long alarms Crowd over their plots. You’ve something sweet on your mouth. 42 God what is yours: the train gathering on the isle. Wide ushers Convening, guarded about the bindings, the silent carnifex. The blue forgets me. Mary, your prophesy— is rhymed . . . Edgar? 43 coMMedia deLL , arTe (14:1 14) A tiger tears at a machine. A small train engine. Which I left on stage. After cleansing her cage. We don’t live here, Governor. So fine me. My transparent house, a willow tree. Filled with oil from Hades. Friends. In your paltry pots. Do you have enough? To still be my friends? Under the tarpaulin. Under the dolphin sign. Gather round me. Forgiving Columbine. Brief beings in a caravan. Sown to the white ground. Listen to her. She with the letter opener at her throat. “First there was the Fainter (the Artist) the cosmetically ruled and slim female “Celebrity.” She beckons the men. Shaking her beads. “She makes a happy jingle off her dress. She’s the beauty we’ll be catching when she “Falls dramatically. Five years of attentive guests. Slept at the doors...