Oranges & Blue Ishmael

oranges & blue Ishmael


bowl of oranges
the table
gone

how her eyes
strawberries
finger &
thumb

its nectar
rivers a curve
of the cradled moon

or pools in his wanting
the silvery surface
a lost fire in his
blue lagoon

fresh water greening in its glassy depths
suspended in tender amber currents
thickened like a clear jelly
of cradling arms;

called to the curve of her cheek

* * *

or when blinded falling
the red disease
what death
will beg
this
O
x

the dress unworn
the mad chase
of light from
her mouth
burnt or
broken
ghosts

do you let go
or does it
relent
a gravity
distracted
by the music
of another sorrow

love loneliness longing
the sorrow of the shadows
that widen in the depths until
the river is the sea the sea heaven
& there is no hole in the needle no curve
to turn again no tendrils to unreach the edges
of what holds to radiance to the skin
of her touch;

& what she wears away to the shining of absence

* * *

or waiting to weep
the blood like
knives or
if razors
were light
would darkness
hold less terror in four
chambers six or a honeycomb
abandoned the smoke of masks
or a corner of the Oaxacan blanket
unweaving mountains or backwards
the dead still walk into the room where
the fire cannot burn swelling the red wrists
turned up the spikes like rose stems
cut from bones;

what she would not reveal of the past undone

* * *

exhaustion
out of
h’aus
a g’ost
agoniste
g’one g’one
ist no(t) one n/y/et

do we need to spell it out
a ghost no one home
gone a not
ag’o’ny
a total
XX
X

no eyes no mouth
neither here nor
there nor in
the weave
no needle
no hole
blank

what do you say
when the light cannot break
& every port wants you to leave
thru the door & the next & the next
a new set is c’oming h’ome
& the frontier fronts a
g’ood b’ye (no yen)

knock it off, Ish
a hat a body
one eye
sees no body
a poor host of a cry
as if we hide in shorn sorrow
& love can never take us far enough;

the etymology of too many doors:
Odysseus in the ruins


Richard Lance Williams

Posted over on More Poetry