Petronius, and: The City is Wax Combs, and: The Kiss, and: Brightwork / Ave

Petronius

I.

And it is found in every place and at any time and in every circumstance, when the search lies heavy on the searcher

– Petronius

Had I been startled?
The rucksack held a cream-colored square of silk
   no solution. Bastard cold!
I screamed.

The day of discovery:
I thought of Russian steppes
the river overflowing.

The wind ripped the piece of paper from my hand
   like flame.

Had the adventure overtaken me?
A great talent ruined?

No gunpowder    heart racing from dashing up two flights to
   the scaffold    heart tighter, tighter:
Lost balance    stumbled over my own foot.

I pulled out a brass compass from WWI with mother-of-pearl
   face.
   compass, linked with truth    also symbol of duality
      & its transcendence: one hand remained fixed in center:
         the other makes a complete circle.

Revolving round me you stared.
      Revolving around you I lowered
      my eyes.
It had been a long & difficult journey:    Abelard & Eloise
   Aucussin & Nicolette.

II.

My own came home    two busses missed & gone to the wrong
   place to renew her driver's license;
Not only the wicket    but also the old rose    brick turn-of-
   century building had moved:
Capitol Iron to Wharf Street.

The cavil over possible rat-teeth marks in the bread wrapper
   has died down
Like flames
at night
over London.

I visit a laboratory in Switzerland    in my first dream:
   glass blue light from the Alps flooding it.
I visit a casualty ward the second dream    my head spins an
   unidentified man from England.

I almost make sense    but that slight dislocation    takes all
   five senses and throws them aslant.

I have unloaded my belongings    in the third dream:
Alone for the second fantasia.    One can live with secrets
   wrapped around like skins of an onion:
How far can I peel? How far is too far?
Would I lose my core in a heap of cast-off husks?

III.

Plato describes original human beings as round:    the poet
   with armful of leaves is holding a circle.
But I know better than give a cigarette away.
      I turn up my collar    walk the other way
         smoking    the little red fellow for companion.

The City is Wax Combs

Glowing    one lung    two lungs:
with our hiving

Taking the imprint of our living.    The North is lonely.
Silk & Bees:    buzzing industry.

The greater blue heron, Oriental crumpled feathers, stands on
   one leg smoky gray:
Balancing the weight of world & evening.

The beggar rolls on a board with casters: he has no legs.
   Castration caused infection
& his legs had to be amputated.    See!

Finally the night will bear the letter with sealing wax which
   takes the missive to you
from me.

The Kiss

Hooded eyes said, "Kiss."    But the mouth was dumb.
Winter star barley spilled from a burn.
Your shoulder had been cut open, dressed.
             Dawn
was closed as a bordertown when a war is on.

Amid shimmering root-garden
who could believe
loss would plumb even greater depths?

An anchor in water
to weigh down.
The lowest hours came: sheep grazing on salt-pastures in
   evening: the starved hours – & you fed them.

Brightwork/ Ave

I give you this:    Brightwork:
the birds' breasts embroidered with
dew like dye.

The tapestry finch & the real, teal one
too – singing
during the gravedigger's shift.

Pearled rain
on the rim of the night watchman's
hat.

Give fields
frosted
like drawings for an illustrated botany from the last century:
   tracing paper windows protecting them.

I give the War Plants    where guns were manufactured &
   ammunition.
Give frozen
these plants from the air, like dead flowers on the ground.

Ave
Maria Purissima.
I sang all the way to Flatbush – & back into Manhattan.

Wheeling in circles
out front
frosted breath, breaking an orange open with bare hands.

Yule was round the bend:
Phantom-jets thundered above cloudline.

I have proffered you this:    Words.
Travel...