2 Hands

The Eighth Hand is Shorn


“Moon”
is nothing
but news gone wrong
The television
Silent
The road
Undone

Eats you
Eats me
Eats everyone

All this sad everything
they offer up
Is a lie
Of brother’s bite
Of liberal maids that die
Or roses’ thorns
That cut the hand
and blind the eye

All thoughtless
Gigglings
Nothings
Not gifts for you
Or mine
These well-coiffed ladies on the news
These big-jawed men that laugh
In time

But here there is no room for lies
When the maiden rises up
and the diamond splits your mind

made
one

from
two
for
two
made
one
of
you

*

The owl that guides
and the dough white ones
The four kings that come to call
Are pitch night
and liars’ might
And the directions from which come
one and all

You citizens
Great golden marms
Sit and stand and scold

Olden days fade away
Left only are
We bold
Bright
Blue
Newborns grinning
Wise

Indigo child
fights
Wendigo-psychotic sun
fights
with calm song
and wild eyes

makes
Custer’s dying
Into history
Each and every day
we each and everyone

No victors
In Mankato
Swinging swinging haze
No markets
Up above

Just blood
And forgetfulness
And
Subtle
Silent
rage

terror
horror
blood
and

*

I am not
I
I am thy
Impression
And thyself
Unbound
Now
In the listening
Now
In the moment
Now
In the rhyme

I am that I was
All of it and more
A murderer
A saint
A whore

And more and more
But not dirt no
Nor just flesh and bone

Ascending upon
A ladder of bright-hot
Hands
Caressing

Upon these stairs
Of light

from one till one and none
and on and on I go
pressing my right hand
to the wounded one, my left

in work
I feel the bones
won’t sweat
I feel the bones

It is now I see again the stone and tower
exiler and shadow bare

The place where my father’s hand
was torn
which is nothing
but forgetting
and loss embittering

The past dies every day
therein

Enshrined immaculate
on the horizon there
Just on the horizon there

And it is now
I come to know

What must be done
What must and mote

At my feet,
the fruits of this work

And at my side
The skull
And a buffalo’s tired bones

I take to my fleshy drum
My drum I take and hold

As sweat drips down
and eyes grow tired

I strike and seed
and sew

Read the Lyric from the Beginning