There's a Light That Enters Houses With No Other House in Sight

I was having trouble sleeping
I don't know how long I'd been lying there
And listening to the blizzard
When I had the most vivid impression
That it was a blizzard in Minneapolis in 1959
And I found this disturbing
I knew it would now have to turn on its lamp
Get out of bed
And try to write about me

And of course, no matter what it wrote
I would just sound like something it had made up
But in the end, it decided to stay put
Turn over
And keep me to itself
I think that was the right thing to do

After all, I was only a blizzard in Minneapolis in 1959
How are you supposed to describe something like me?
When you think about it, why should you try?
Why should you even care?

"Be it ever so scarred and unstable
The table you write at belongs right in front of a mirror"
So spoke the battered master
To my knowledge
The single author that magnificent and winged lunatic Rambo
Ever deigned to admit admiration for
Think of it

At this time, the poet was fortunate
To have the use of a table and mirror
Not to mention a room where he could concentrate
As he occasionally managed to do
In spite of the distractions involved in dealing with some of the
Semi-literate individuals who then, as now
Were known to enter the literary profession
As if for the sole purpose of hounding and tormenting
Anyone with the poor judgement
To show some actual talent for writing

I have a preference for blank walls myself
Though I certainly never would have said so in his presence
In his presence, I very much doubt I would have been capable
Of articulating opinions or thoughts on any subject whatsoever
Windows are out, however
No windows
I have enough trouble with what I can see through the wall

Only a minute ago, I was watching him pass by
And to judge by the look on his face
I am afraid he was going through
One of his brief stretches of addresslessness
Caught between the gentle hospitalities
Of one poetry-loving landlord and the next
The austere amenities
Of one un-flushing toilet of an apartment and another

He was limping slightly
As though he had on two left shoes
Finally stopping to rest on a vacant park bench
It wasn't raining that hard
Vomiting tactfully, first, in some bushes nearby
Probably nothing, a touch of opioid withdrawal
There'd been no indication of alcoholic seizure
And as it was relatively unlikely
That food had been ingested in a while
He made no mess to speak of

A mere ounce or so of some sort of green liquid
Which blended in well with that damp and verdant scene
As he did not appear to be carrying a notebook
Thankfully, there would be no need to make use of his aching knees
Which had so often served quite nicely as a desk
That allowed him to hunch his thin shoulders
And slowly bend forward to shield his page
From the various forms of precipitation
So prevalent in his part of the world

Evidently, he'd misplaced his pen, as sometimes happens
So his left hand would not be required to take the place of stationary
He was spared, as well, the possibility
Of injuring himself, as he had once, unfortunately
During a mild and near-unprecedented instance of self-mutilation
Well, there had been no more than a few shallow puncture wounds
Resulting from the understandable frustration that might accompany
Being reduced to recording on his own flesh
With the few lines of genuine poetry ever written

He remained on his bench
For an immaculately, and conspicuous, and legal length of time
His somewhat deranged hat
All the roof he'd be enjoying for a while yet
His only mirror
A shocking but swiftly curtailed couple seconds of eye-contact
With an elderly woman
Who happened to turn to him in passing
Her crumpled, thrown-away face

Putting up his collar
He slowly got to his feet
Staggering in a manner that was practically unnoticeable
And doing a marvelous impression
Of somebody not crushed by dread
As he moved on
Soon lost from sight in the rain
Which was not really falling that much harder

When I am done puking
I get up from the floor, wash my face
And, slowly resuming an erect stance
Automatically look in the mirror
Well, in the first place
It isn't a mirror anymore
But a window

And on the other side of this window
About ready to poke its head in
Its gaze electric blue, the color of desert sky shining
Through the eye sockets of a skull

Now, we're apparently going to get
A sort of Mickey Mouse with bloody teeth
So things do not appear to be headed
In an especially auspicious direction

And it is with some discouragement
That I exit the bathroom and walk down the hall
Toward the living room
Where, after a journey of several years
I switch on the TV with the idea
Of checking out the action on CNN
It's not long before I discover that it is possible
To weep from sheer astonishment and rage
I never knew that

The stained glass glow, light of the end of September
Falls through the window
Creating the impression of a staircase
A steep and absurdly inviting one
All at once, I am vividly aware
Of what this room is going to look like
When I am no longer alive
(When I am no longer alive)
(When I am no longer alive)

Seagull in the corn
Postage stamp-sized corn field in the woods
In the middle of the state
And how you ever got here
Whether of Heaven, July in Massachusetts
The blue sky one endless goodbye
Give me a minute
Maggots swarming, preview of the future
Give me a moment

You can haw on a blade until there is no blade
Or dwell with magnifying glass so long on a word
That finally, it darkens its knot
And fire in widening circles consumes the world
For a moment, only
Stay with me, mystery
Before you change completely into something other
Slow cloud, entrance, spell
Not yet remembered

Nay, stay
Tell me what you mean
"A dead bird is not a dead bird"
I was once told by someone
Who knows?

If I stare into it long enough
The point comes when I don't know what it's called
The condition in which lacerations are liable to occur
Like a slip of the tongue
Where a single drop of blood might billow
In a glass of water
Blooming in velvet detonation
And imparting to it the colorless, tasteless, and sourceless fear
In which I awake

Strange
I suffered from none of these symptoms
Until I was so intensively treated for them
Now, I am always freezing
And have evidently been shattered
Into five or six chattering replications of myself
All knee-deep in utter exhaustion
On very thin canes made of glass

I remember the night
We were torn, like a page, from our sleep
"I, your telephone
Command you to report to the ER without delay"
The last thing you see is the first

This time, it seems I woke up with
Pneumonia, anemia, tuberculosis
Further tests will be required
Crucifixion by toothache
A shadow by night
And so forth

Clearly, I will never be the same
Yet you are with me
To your entire satisfaction
Has anyone described the look of love?
Mine, neither
But I have seen it
I'm seeing it right now
I am traveling up the beams of your eyes
I am slowly being lowered into a place of light

From my cell, I was staring at a cloud
A dog decaying in the woods, et cetera
As I took up the long-awaited sequel to my confessions

By this time, my hand was so far away
That it looked like a small, hairless spider
Whose progress I could hardly help but follow
In the corner of one eye
As it went on filling page after page in a notebook
With words too small for anyone to read
I looked up
And noticed my bars had turned to gold

And before I forgot
I'd like to be the first to congratulate everyone
Who has not committed suicide up until now
Camouflaged and candleless congregation
The world will never know your names
Never know its debt to you or what you suffered
Is what uncomplaining anguish you sacrificed
The one thing I'll hold most dear

Most have in common
The sense of being completely different from anybody else
It's just banished at some point
Having obtained its sexually mature and winged state
You had a great vision about it, but told no one
We have misnamed death, "life"
And life, "death"

You saw another world
And it was precisely the same as this one
This time, you told everyone
Until someone asked you very nicely to quiet down
And the weather
Everything you have heard on that subject
Is a serious understatement

The scarlet horrors were preparing to file in
From my ignominious obsequies
Already, they swarmed freely over my body
And there was no weather
I can't tell you how perfect that was

As it happens
I had been gazing up at the dusk stars
As I can be found doing more or less day or night
For I like to think they are growing younger as I die
Come by some time
And tell me what you think

Under torture
Some atrocious form of tickling, for example
I guess I'd describe myself as a fairly good egg in hot water
Family motto roughly translates
"April wizards bring May blizzards"
You tend to be apprehended eventually

After a futile but all the more spirited attempt
At first-degree self-impersonation
However, this is not the time for brevity
We happen to be speaking with a serious medical goodnight kiss

Traditionally, we are then detained at a local mental facility
Known for its celebrated alumni
Though in recent decades
Secret and permanent socialist elements in the government have seen to it
That the lowest scum of humanity now appear to have open access
To those once-hallowed halls smeared with our shit and vomit

What I'm getting at is this
After a relatively brief stay, we are invariably released
With some deranged doctor's or other's blessing
A mixture of release and disgust on the part of the staff
And the secret eye signal
That will get you into any moviehouse in Milwaukee
Free for the next year

Some of us like to get together once a day
Rain or shine
And gather furtively at the picnic ground
Under those tall, wavering, candle-flame pines
Where neither moths nor rust can reach, nor faintest scream
And exchange ribald tales verging on Satanic perversion
Each drawing his iridescent injection from the same oceanic martini
Where he dry about two tears' worth of Vermouth
In an unremembered dream

The small, silver, crucified man hangs between her breasts
Like an arrow directing attention
Away from the face and its nimbus of unasked-for beauty
All that stands between her and apparition
While pointing the way to the ever-inexplicable vie
All that's left of her animal
Damp, like the tip of a painter's brush
Just dipped in darkest blue

She has put the thing on like a necklace
And gone to admire it in the full-length mirror
In muted light, the color of gold a shadow
At this late afternoon hour
There's a light that enters houses
With no other house in sight
How describe it?
But then, there are more important things to think about than light

It lies in the dresser, blackly glowing
The one object that's completely self-explanatory here
Just look at you
Child with the sun-colored eyes
Waiting in line with love's immemorable patience
And their grievances at scarecrow light stand still
How slowly, how badly they mend

Just one more being tested
They needed to double-take the Coke bottle, glass
Straining in the poor light to make out
The oversized letters of their own obituaries
While they're waiting to be born
Soon, soon, between one instant and the next
You will be well
There is a sound that comes from houses
With no other house in sight

Wisteria, rain
Where is your child, mother?
This must be the last bee on Earth
So, you find no more grandeur or mystery here?
Perhaps you neglected to bring any

Heckling sparrows
Vast electron cloud of gnats on windless water
Night, blue volume in a language no one reads
Are we tired yet?
Are you finished debating the blind
Who insist that light doesn't exist in their peripheral view?
Nobody's alone
God is alone
If you liked being born, you'll love dying