1.19.2022

I am now like before I ever was, the topology of a kiss.

I find myself without a guide. 
The guide of the time 
is broken up. 
But somehow I don’t believe this. 
 
It’s the clouds giving me a ride, 
and the air of crime 
that cannot stop, must stop 
in that infernal bliss. 
 
I find myself without grime 
carried within a brain 
to some rotten changing science 
within the limits of a blind world. 
 
I kneel, I’m covered with lime 
flying off an angel’s train 
a thought of defiance 
out of the limits of the world. 
 
Where am I? What did I say to rain, 
to snow, to growth, to chemicals? 
Did I offend, did I defend, 
a natural and moving spirit? 
 
But I know I mustn’t refrain 
from opening my heart’s ventricles 
to that complicated moving blend 
that knows when you fear it. 
 
Even my testicles 
had ignored that last cry inside, 
the unknown outburst 
and outpouring of breaking through. 
 
I looked down at my hands, nails, cuticles, 
for some sign of this ride, 
that life had been reversed. 
But not the slightest clue. 
___ 
 
No black princess, no white princess 
whose voice I’ve heard. 
No prince, no king, 
that voice I imagined, 
but the echo of my earth being, 
my mind turned, my brain turned 
my desires, wants, fears, 
all wrapped up by an ethereal spirit, 
and thrown away to the other shore. 
I move away from 
this spirit or ocean twilight 
to a dangerous rock. 
I long for rocks. 
A breeze cools my nude body, 
I long for a breeze. 
O sun that warmed me! 
O bull on the grassy plain! 
O sun that reactivated me 
from a long and unique womb! 
O sun sun that washed me 
in the September breeze! 
I am now like before I ever was, 
the topology of a kiss. 
 
Here, where distance seems flat, 
where Time seems hollow 
or not to be at all 
 
I make my final pledges 
and strain to push destiny 
away from this scene 
 
Make me time 
        make me space 
or take them both away 
 
and substitute an incarnation 
to hold these intimate tears 
from those I love 
___ 
 
O God let me pray for you 
O rock let me pray for you 
O broken branch 
O leaf 
O cumulus let me pray for you 
O sun hotter than fires 
of my eyes let me pray for you 
O night within the tree trunk 
    let me pray for you 
O birds of autumn 
O bark 
O sin let me pray for you 
O confession secret & psychic 
                     let me pray for you 
O last autumn insect, 
burrowing through the surface 
                                    forever 
let me pray for you 
O youth and old age, let me pray for you 
O minute and timeless passion 
                let me pray for you 
O sex mindless or mindful 
let me pray for you 
O flesh and blood 
torn and shed 
O flesh and blood 
conceived and formed 
let me pray for you 
O happiness, O sorrow let me pray 
Let me pray for you, O stars 
burning a sphere of life, 
let me pray for you, O loneliness 
like a fallen tree 
let me pray for you, O words 
never really conceptual 
let me pray for you, O trying 
and trying and trying, 
let me pray for you 
those to whom life comes easy 
those to whom life comes hard. 
O animals of the earth let me pray for you 
O life in other worlds, only felt, 
let me pray for you 
O reason let me pray for you 
O death 
who follows us like a small 
and innocuous cloud, 
in the bluest blue skies. 
___ 
 
I climb to top of rock… 
my shadow glues my passions, 
my lust my desire, immobile, locked, 
paralyzed with no relation 
 
to mountains or plains. 
The creases in rock enfold me 
in moving organic sins 
the past in front of me like a tree. 
 
In a land with no tree 
I curl around like a dog 
a man inactive and free 
like the eucharist on a log 
 
Out of sight is my mind 
out of mind is all sight 
only my ears are left to find 
beautiful odorless night 
 
No phantom comes, nor does it go 
from me like a deer 
passing in the dark low 
of earth by my ear 
 
And now I hear 
what I’ve gotten myself into: 
two voices separating, merging 
I see them with my ears 
and feel them with my tongue 
two sounds 
        close but far 
sweet but bitter 
alone but in crowds. 
But me, I’ve merged 
into the invisible tree 
into the sandy dark 
into a formula, a compound 
of some non-matter light 
some non-wavelength beam 
some beyond-spirit-mystery 
where each organ incarnates. 
 
And from here 
a blood flows in the ground 
a blood flows through the stars 
from one to another 
a blood flows through trees 
and animals and water 
my blood flows 
through the ground 
to the stars one to the other 
to the trees, to animals, to water 
it flows to color 
it flows to smell 
it flows to taste 
it flows to moving 
and molecules and atoms 
and anti-atoms and mystery 
 
and from here 
my brain is a rock 
my skull an archeology of passion, 
laughing and crying 
inside night’s luminous jokes. 
O night, bring me open 
and the resources that blind me 
that form the same forces on my ribs, 
recontrol this journey into the arch. 
 
And now I see the wall, 
the trees against my head 
the seepage of bodies thru the ground 
the pervious layer 
of what I’ve always seen 
equally strong within a dream. 
___ 
 
Where is my heart that disappears? 
Who would find it in the dirt 
still throbbing, still calling 
like a late bird left behind 
in a colossal migration. 
 
Now looking down at myself 
I see whatever is replaced 
but still remains the same, 
whatever is in motion 
in solitary nerve systems 
a feeling of eternal youth 
caused by desperation & ecstasy. 
 
But ecstasy has always been 
and looking away from it 
I realize it has been waiting 
for me to grab a little 
towards my own destruction. 
And while still calling 
still left behind 
I abandon myself from all that 
and enter the last mirage. 
 
Every structure, every form, 
like before I ever was 
incarnates thru every other storm, 
and all this is followed, 
followed everywhere. 
___ 
 
When a puff of wind deserts us 
and we are little children 
on the sweet plateau, where should 
I turn in these pyramids 
and implore revelations? 
        Sunny altar springing 
sanguine hopes. Invitations 
and birds flowing freely 
above the invisible bird. 
Hearts among the nations 
gone awry with supplications 
to the angels. But not 
even wings on gods 
to gravitate these waves amid the deserts 
I experience; these waves of altars 
against the dirt and stone. 
        Who was here before, who is here 
now, who to fly, who to soar 
through my eyesight, 
into a lens of dreams? A sunny 
spark burns my bicep 
straining to look out into 
the invisible world, 
or to step into revels 
of no evolution 
         through burning life 
 
My lips turn drowsy
the wine of dead leaves 
overtakes me in waves 
that carry me deeper 
into the hymns, O hymns of hibernation 
my breathing slowing, 
my heart, a dying seal, 
and the eyes can no longer open 
no matter what oblivion calls, 
no matter what wilderness 
nor monster walks on top of this. 
 
Never before has such heat 
left this body 
now sliding so many ergs 
below the temperature of my life 
Knees bind me so close to myself 
and my teeth have cut 
            my chest a little, 
while a seascape 
            of all my losses 
smells damp like a fallen net. 
In this unknown sea of earth 
in which the magma 
heats my few breaths 
I divide from this everlasting dream. 
 
[Joseph Ceravolo {1934-1988} 'Part II: Departure', from Collected Poems]

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