What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

different; you dislike everything that I like.
    no, I said, I just don’t like the way you
    like them.
    I’m leaving, she said.
    I could have lied to you, I said, like most
    do.
    you mean men lie to me?
    yes, to get at what you think is holy.
    you mean, it’s not holy?
    I don’t know, but I won’t lie
    to make it work.
    be damned with you then, she said.
    good night, I said.
    she really slammed that door.
    I got up and turned on the radio.
    there was some pianist playing that same work by
    Grieg. nothing changed. nothing
    ever changed.
    nothing.

wind the clock
    it’s just a slow day moving into a slow night.
    it doesn’t matter what you do
    everything just stays the same.
    the cats sleep it off, the dogs don’t
    bark,
    it’s just a slow day moving into a slow night.
    there’s nothing even dying,
    it’s just more waiting through a slow day moving
    into a slow night.
    you don’t even hear the water running,
    the walls just stand there
    and the doors don’t open.
    it’s just a slow day moving into a slow night.
    the rain has stopped,
    you can’t hear a siren anywhere,
    your wristwatch has a dead battery,
    the cigarette lighter is out of fluid,
    it’s just a slow day moving into a slow night,
    it’s just more waiting through a slow day moving
    into a slow night
    like tomorrow’s never going to come
    and when it does
    it’ll be the same damn thing.

what?
    sleepy now
    at 4 a.m.
    I hear the siren
    of a white
    ambulance,
    then a dog
    barks
    once
    in this tough-boy
    Christmas
    morning.

she comes from somewhere
    probably from the bellybutton or from the shoe under the
    bed, or maybe from the mouth of the shark or from
    the car crash on the avenue that leaves blood and memories
    scattered on the grass.
    she comes from love gone wrong under an
    asphalt moon.
    she comes from screams stuffed with cotton.
    she comes from hands without arms
    and arms without bodies
    and bodies without hearts.
    she comes out of cannons and shotguns and old victrolas.
    she comes from parasites with blue eyes and soft voices.
    she comes out from under the organ like a roach.
    she keeps coming.
    she’s inside of sardine cans and letters.
    she’s under your fingernails pressing blue and flat.
    she’s the signpost on the barricade
    smeared in brown.
    she’s the toy soldiers inside your head
    poking their lead bayonets.
    she’s the first kiss and the last kiss and
    the dog’s guts spilling like a river.
    she comes from somewhere and she never stops
    coming.
    me, and that
    old woman:
    sorrow.

lifedance
    the area dividing the brain and the soul
    is affected in many ways by
    experience—
    some lose all mind and become soul:
    insane.
    some lose all soul and become mind:
    intellectual.
    some lose both and become:
    accepted.

the bells
    soon after Kennedy was shot
    I heard this ringing of bells
    an electrically charged ringing of bells
    and I thought, it can’t be the church
    on the corner
    too many people there
    hated Kennedy.
    I liked him
    and walked to the window
    thinking, well, maybe everybody is tired of
    cowardly gunmen,
    maybe the Russian Orthodox Church
    up the street
    is saying this
    with their bells?
    but the sound got nearer and nearer
    and approached very slowly,
    and I thought, what is it?
    it was coming right up to my window
    and then I saw it:
    a small square vehicle
    powered by a tiny motor
    coming 2 m.p.h.
    up the street:
    KNIVES SHARPENED
    was scrawled in red crayon
    on the plywood sides
    and inside sat an old man
    looking straight ahead.
    the ladies did not come out with their knives
    the ladies were liberated and sharpened their own
    knives.
    the plywood box
    crept down the lonely street
    and with much seeming agony
    managed to turn right at Normandie Blvd.
    and vanish.
    my own knives were dull
    and I was not liberated
    and there certainly would be more
    cowardly gunmen.
    much later I thought
    I could still hear the
    bells.

full moon
    red