Treasures For Heaven
I
Forgive me, Angels,
You had only wings, I poems
That entered me as a man
Enters the house
Of unwavering light
Thick as labyrinths
Coming apart at the bottom
Where all that could be I left for you.
II
Through the enduring memory
Of the present
I walk past the blue hells of
Delusion's
graffiti handcuffs
That no matter how sublime
Bring greatness to the empire
For naught.
III
Soon I come to the confluence
Of spring & forever, but
I've no one to share a happy moment
Save a vague voice calling
But I'm thinking of no one special
Round the entire
Ghoulish star field
As it begins again to shift.
IV
I give you emotional radio
Live from the galaxies
Of Mercy that linger
So near
Our understanding each other
Like a woman
Who always rises late
& love that comes without bounds.
V
In your voice is an immensity
Greater than near-death
Along a stretch of cactus-dotted
Power plants where
We met on the corner
Of love-at-first-sight
With its violin wrapped tight
In the cool silk of your arms.
VI
I heard things
Only star dust hears––
The tiny white eyes
Of garden shadows,
The stillness of clotheslines under February's moon,
The sadness
Of empty baskets
Having seen to much.
VII
Wolves circle the gold mosque, then
Disappear like old Chinatown
Record stores in Philadelphia
As I see eternity in myself
As a patchwork of mirrors
Presented at the War Crimes Convention
Where the jailer loved to watch you
Roll down your nylons.
VIII
How old is the light
At the core of yourself––
Does it go back to Yeou
Teaching men to break branches
In a freight car of the slain
Where the heat of your breath
Is more delicate than
A world filled with lies?
IX
I slipped into a theater
To get out of the
Thousand sheets of rain
But the movie didn't touch me
& just hearing the actors' words
Turned my cheek's pale
Because no one can tell me
Where you are.
X
There were boarded up windows,
& factories of corpses &
Ninety miles out of town
I can still hear the endless weeping
Of mourners at the gate where
No one has to ask why
The Angels stopped
Lighting themselves on fire.
XI
So much has changed
In so little time
& yet I still crave the sight of you
Dancing in the park
With the sun
Coming out again
From the stormy weather
Of the joy we shared.
XII
Your father died,
You got your period
& then someone began counterfeiting
The scripture
Of imaginary sounds
While me & Renata just talked quiet
In the dark, hardly
Listening to the Boxing Gandhis.
XIII
Excessive numbers of human beings
Draw the impenetrable luck
Of nonstop violence
& we are no different
Within the secret devouring hatreds
Cloaked by the golden
Lonely orange sieve
Of lust & slaughter.
IX
Somewhere over the rainbow
The genocide films disappeared.
Enormous forgiveness
Is available to anyone.
Over there senators
Meet in closed session.
Here we made love on a white couch––
Snowflakes melting as they touched your skin.
X
Who can say they are
As hated as the earth?
You circle the prairie
Just over the grass
Crying out
If there's anyone in the entire universe
Who cares if you
Live or die.
XI
As the boundaries that separate us
Continue to evolve,
Numberless shaman gather
At the Cave of Magic
Where the long chain of the future
Only a brief period ago
Wrapped around this gentle
& effortless love.
XII
What is it
That brings the first bells of frost––
Is it sunlight on the back of your neck
As you pass through the giant pines
Dead & Wanted somewhere else
Never complete
Only lost in a today no words can
Explain?
XIII
Don't be confused about closure––
Most people
Consider it as real
As pneumonia
Or red bats flying
Into the golden light of October
Chased by the loneliness of dying love's
Inexhaustive pleasure.
XIV
Suddenly riveted to the desire
To believe in yourself,
The ice grows thick
On the stairs of elation
Where the wounds
Of seclusion
Turn you away from those
Who meant so much.
XV
Shrouded conductor
Never says a word
As everyone turns into other beings
Before pulling into the yards of heaven
Where Martin Luther King
Greets one after another with a question
About what it was
They were trying to get away from?
XVI
Expediency––
I run my hand over your
Windy asylums
Of skulls
Blurred in the green forgetfulness
Of a once
Passionate identity
With the Least & the Lowest.
XVII
I have poured out
My heart
Until I am sick
From skywriting
On the cliffs at the end
Of the sorrow that comes with
Knowing there wasn't really anything
I didn't have that you didn't too.
XVIII
The angels ride down
On lightning fast motorcycles
& whisper into the ears
Of the film maker & his lovers
Of the terrible pain
That is the faith in authenticity
Of somebody who dies
Without having experienced it.
XIX
Storm upon storm
Fell on the possibilities between us
As the orange-haired tracker
Followed the Rio Grande
Where the furrowed light
Through the wild apple leaves
Hid the intimate
Painted buntings.
XX
I have two-thirds ESP
& the other third
Works the graveyard shift
On the all night show
Where the next caller won't say
Anything about
The day she
Went to the only place left to go.
XXI
I was standing
At the crossroads
Where her next world met mine
Feeling no need to answer
For the ways
Others would misconstrue
The cause of
A death at low tide.
XXII
No matter how often we meet
You never see me
Turn my face
Towards the happiness that lingers
Among the black trees
as we kiss
In the cool green-plum light
Of Mt. Diablo.
XXIII
Sometimes I sit by the phone
Idly waiting for a call
Without moving a muscle.
Other times,
I place 100 candles in a circle
& just lie on the floor
Watching chrysanthemum blossoms
On the ceiling.
XXIV
Every distress
Vanishes in the expanse
Of two-letter words cut into three
On the path of blank insights
Where you view my former life
Numbering the moments
Of incrustation
Laid upon my soul.
XXV
When you are sick
& your lover
Cannot see you as you are,
It's worse
If you leave
Knowing you awakened love
With death's high call,
When love alone best opens love's eyes.
XXVI
I wanted to be sure to reach you,
So I brought these cheap hats of Fate
Without the speed & power
Which is the armor of the world,
but still I am often dejected
By arcane desolations that well up
From the grave
That lives inside everything.
XXVII
Then, I tremble
Down backstreets,
Climbing up the girders of planets
Past the brothels
where painters paint
The million cycles
& still the terrible feeling returns––
I've accomplished nothing.
XXVIII
Listening to the surf,
Hair blowing across your face,
You saw only
Footprints into the sea
That followed one another like violets
Along mad rivers
Deciding again & again
To love.
XXIX
Your notebook was washed ashore,
But it was hardly
The last change
In the first realm of paradise
Where Love
Dreams of the way Beauty
in all her languages says
The work of the world is peace.
XXX
Nameless
We took off our clothes
As the human shields
Were killed in their sleep
Till I was swept away
On a raft of bones
That fed the ongoing flames of demolished
Villages.
XXXI
I grieve the chaos
Of the deceased in their smeared make-up
Of slit throats
Where in mid-sentence
I repent the monsters
Of unlicensed nihilism
Because I am from the massacre
& I am the massacre.
XXXII
The smell
Of burning tires
Comes through the window
Near the bodies
Roped in moonbeams
Of unity
Where they were separated
From time––often & without fail.
XXXIII
I've always been enchanted
By the persimmon tree
That requires
So many years to bear fruit
Even as you wipe away
The hysterical pleasures
Of self-conscious bitterness
From the eternal circle of your heart.
XXXIV
Humanitarian disaster
everywhere I turn
Reminds me of someone else
I'll never know.
There's a tin cup on my table––
You left it here, maybe you left it for me.
I take it out to catch the tears that harmlessly fall
Thinking they've damaged the earth.
XXXV
The station is so eerie––
Even the janitor leaning on his broom
Gives me the creeps as he hands me
The letter I thought I read
When I looked inside &
Asked myself once more how I got
These hundreds of thousands
Of years of feeling.
XXXVI
There's the
Colossal serenity between words
That rearranges decay
Inside the minds of murderers
It easily divines
As we smile in a language
Of hobos placing their secret mark
Upon the doors of the generous.
XXXVII
Factories of death
Do not just happen.
As nations
Stumbles over the brambled anchors
Of momentary concealment
Where we infinitely revere
The ever-valid grace
Holding our love the whole night long.
XXXVIII
You often talked with me
About the spaces
Between breaths as far richer than wealth &
So I looked there for you––
Hoping to see, touch & hear
All that is born
Like a poem
That once read is never found again.
XXXIX
At Crystal Pass
Where I wait for you
Flowers call out
To their gypsy lovers
That their tedious acceptance of praise
For one's state of mind
Is as ridiculous as
Having two feet.
XL
A low-lit copper aura
Falls around the body
Like a deeply personal celibacy vow
Competing against
The calculus of ovulation
As you search in vain
Knocking on every door but the one
In which you don't exist.
XLI
What's wrong with doubt,
It has its own music
Which rolls in from the sea
As sincere as the lack of an erection or
Coal fires burning
Underground through the lonely centuries
Of our conversations that are often filled with
Nothing but quotes from Neil Young.
XLII
The music of fear is intimate
& repeatable, as useful
As magnetic keycards
To the temple of vast
Groundless Vajra Shoahs
Spilling from the cracked cup
of the whole of death
Into which we evaporate.
XLIII
Why would I seek my refuge in
Sandstone rock & sky that moves with the
Melancholy history of snow
Casting its net
For the fallen light within the sea
If not for such a true love as you
Which to the angels
Seems like torment.
XLIV
Of Mind's regressions––
Peering out
& moaning with
Unspeakable dignity
From behind the bars
Of this accidental "me"––
I can draw them for you clearly
With these untroubled eyes.
XLV
Without reins or halter
You switch horses at full gallop
As riders have for centuries crossing
El Paso de la Muerte
Where the floorboards of heaven
Creak with the boot heels
Of my restless tears
Since you've been gone.
XLVI
In the headwaters
of Lethe
Whirl the mountain
Of rainbows
That cover the madness
Of generations in love
With the first taste of
Heartbreak.
XLVII
Rescued from
Endless wrapping-up
I exalt the transitory
With dreams of lasting significance
At peace
With leaving the best
Unwritten to offer up as
Treasures for heaven.
XLVIII
When you go
I wish you
Fearlessness
Of what's ahead, but
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night
& lie in bed, terrified & alone,
Just as I did as a little child
Contemplating in horror being dead forever.
XLIX
Sometimes you come back
In the light of dawn
& finality
Greets me with intimate details
Of the relentless suffering
That gives rise
To the place
Where the wisest can't enter.
L
Like water running uphill
You appeared to me
Wearing that red wool dress
I'd seen you in years before
As we strolled the highlands
Overlooking the sky
Beyond the sweetgrass of gain
& the roseways of loss.
LI
Inside
My ecology book
I wrote these
Mannish requiems to God
To help me face
My jadedness
With naked honesty &
A joy like no other.
LII
When I told you my theory
about Kerouac's
Use of the long dash
To parallel the breakdown
Of the American Family
in the mid-twentieth century––
You said,
"There is no one to save."
LIII
Even you
Leaning on sad phone booth at Fifth
Across from St. Patrick's Cathedral
Where someone pasted
A message that read
"Gorgeous Models
Drop their undies for you!!!"––
Even you & I are one
LIV
& Crazy Horse
Looking over everywhere
We turn––nothing but scorched earth
In all directions––
Lost hunting grounds, lost youth––
Still, the tiniest tributary
Outweighs
History's mainstream.
LV
In the land
Of dead souls
I desired the loveliness
Which has yet to come into the world
& the future which belongs
To those who believe
In the beauty
Of their dreams.
LVI
Angels, my Poem
Never sleeps––
It watches over the planet
The way a graveyard
Watches over music,
The way loss watches over war,
The way failure
Watches over the living.
LVII
I wander the heavens
So that I may learn in my own life time
What the heart is, what it feels
As the ten spaceships land
Near the arch at Big Sur
With those who never came back
& all those who did
But were never the same.
LVIII
Walk me out in the morning dew
My king-size girl.
Saw me in half––
I'll wiggle my toes
As geese do,
Sleeping in their dark-masked communes,
& looking back
At ice-covered ponds.
LIX
Extreme days––
Where to forget is inexcusable
& to remember
Often unbearable––
I wish you tranquillity
As you walk away
In your powder blue leggings, garters,
& see-through mini-skirt.
LX
Buffalo thundering
At the speed of darkness––
Your hooves are to my ears
The sweet woe of
Mariachi bands playing on Venus
Asthe ghost dance of my Poem seeps
Like plutonium slowly
Through the groundwater.
LXI
Every kindness
Is a little death
In the divine's image &
The smell of chocolate & mangos
& ashes covers everything
But who stops water from boiling
Without dousing
The fire beneath it?
LXII
I pity the feminine for its
Entangled wounds
& the masculine for its sadness of armies
Beyond comprehension.
Every chain but one
You have broken yourself
& that one, too,
You alone must break.
LXIII
With no power
To awaken others,
I think of you falling short
At the end.
How deep is the reservoir
Of balance, how free,
When the whole country
Is a military camp?
LXIV
What is it you want––
The clouds rain saxophones on
The flowers of doubt
That lead
Through tall nettles
To the medicine wheel
Of everything
Around them grown to words.
LXV
When I look within you
I see miracles without end
In the refuge camps
Of all that has happened,
Building the light
From its mortality
Until you accept the reality
Of the love you bring forth.
LXVI
What does your name mean––
"If love is good,
From whennes cometh my woo?"
Too soon everything
We have known
Is washed away
Leaving nothing of ourselves
Among the ten thousand peaks.
LXVII
Out of the gloom,
I hear you talking like
A mind reader
Sitting on a velvet moon
Where the obstinance of love
Has its own mountains
Which we climb in shoes made from
The leathery skin of rose-hips in winter.
LXVIII
I enter the vast palace of clouds
That so effortlessly
Rains upon
The pillows
Of specialized knowledge
Without knowing who
Came looking
At this empty-handed mind.
LXIX
The stones are weary
With their own
Gem
Sickness
As you film me
Drawing with your lipstick
On all the cheap paintings
In this supreme hotel.
LXX
Many bury
Kinsmen in an ugly cease-fire.
Others try to escape
From the life that they had––but the
Atrocities follow
Like compassion & openness
Freeing you from distraction,
Creating generosity.
LXXI
As the families arrive,
The gold-toothed undertaker
Turns off his
Hearing aids
That bleed
In the light of the blue-grey snow
As he covers her body
In full sight of the peacekeepers.
LXXII
Around the planet
Tales float of a soldier
Who almost clubbed
A young student
During a political
Firestorm
If not for the sound
Of one chanting Om.
LXXIII
Why do we hide
Our weaknesses
Like hangmen writing elegant postcards
With ink made of urine
In the emergency rooms of memory
As doctors weigh the fingers of
Deadmen sitting in chairs
With shiny yellow badges?
LXXIV
No concepts
To appease the disappearing fetus
Of the muses
In their aquamarine
Straight-jackets
& skeletal litanies
That hang in the balance
& cannot retreat forever.
LXXV
The pink cunt of your eyes
& the semen of my emotions
Cure me like a pregnant woman
Vomiting into her purse
When I return &
Every single thing is the whole
& I feel your love-rays on
This, the most brilliant of days.
LXXVI
I look for you through
Heatwaves of Eros
& roiling cities
With red ragged burden-carriers
Invulnerable
& then drooping
Over the spinning turntables
Of your green brassiere.
LXXVII
The Soul of evolution
Is the end of powerlessness
Everywhere
Rising through the words
Of those who lay down their lives
Till I came face to face with
Black-shawled Demeter––
The Celestial who couldn't be driven out.
LXXVIII
In the turquoise sky
Of shimmering hexagrams,
I burst out of the Cosmos
To live within the center of all things
At the throne
Of green twilight
Dancing across wet fields of mint
Till peace grips the world.
LXXIX
Throughout your life
Who is the thief? Who's been robbed?
Mysterious to others,
A mystery to yourself,
Pleasure & spirit
Take hold of you
With a scarecrow's devotion
Till your elaborate plans are all too late.
LXXX
On the night
When such a vertigo
Came to my heart
I felt nearly suffocated––
Rest assure this
Breathing corpse
At that moment
Thought of nothing but you.
LXXXI
A poet's life
Includes anti-gravity techniques
For living without
Strain or compulsion.
Why continue
So influenced by others––
The more you followed
The more lost you became.
LXXXII
Don't be mislead
As I was––
Again & again
Beliefs are destroyed
Till one day like me you ask yourself
& how many unhappy hours
Has Jim Cohn caused you
In loneliness.
LXXXIII
In the millennial cafe
Full of bums & saints,
A great shadow
Hovers like a meteor of third eyes
For the great wandering troubadours
Packing their alphabets
Into old rickety suitcases
As they depart the scene.
LXXXIV
I see myself gasping
In vanity's flame
To find myself
Among the most sorrowful dead––
Buried with their bullet holes & names
On crumpled pieces of paper
Stuffed inside
Clear plastic bottles.
LXXXV
Of one million families
Ruined by the heavy toll
Only a hundred endured.
If I was President
I'd paint the White House black––
Then I would write on its wall––
The fruits of their crackdowns
Will also prove illusory.
LXXXVI
Talk about a system
Of government––
Who pursues the happiness?
Who contains this suffering?
Then I met Love, who's
Appearance spoke such grief
She called me by name
& gave my heart new delight.
LXXXVII
In the depth of night
I saw the ages
Of hidden things
That had first appeared to me
Beneath the veils of
Her dress––cool as a spring breeze
Blowing across the greatness
Of my own limitations.
LXXXVIII
Loyalty & pride––
There's a mansion
With many rooms for sale
& the smell of
All the loves
That did not last
As you leapt up screaming
At the faded clowns.
LXXXIX
To the ghosts of my mind
No more real than
The child
Who dreams of being beaten
While sleeping
In its lovers' arms––
When will you demonstrate
True understanding?
XC
Ghost––Whoever asks, "When
Did you know everything is love?"
It was the night
Among the whores in their T-shirts
& brown cowboy boots
Listening to the skipping needle
& wondering
What lonely death I am to die.
XCI
Life is sad
& haunted by beings
That once parted
From nowhere to nowhere
Ask to whom
Can I open
My heart
& begin to live?
XCII
Here is what I left out––
Home––neither
Unconscious
Nor written,
But with all the energy
Of the public soul
At the private wall
Of the world.
XCIII
In the fiery storm
At the center of the heart
She fought to reach him
& there he knew
the imprisonment
Love might impose &
With it a freedom
Nothing to do with prisons.
XCIV
What is soon washed away
Yet dwells amidst the
Forbidden waves?
I felt what my body would not be again
Touch me for the last time
& heard cries
Mingled with the tiny shells
& petals of roses rolling into the sea.
XCV
I must confess
To living in a less spacious age
Than yours, but
The snow falls equally
Covering the forgotten
& great whose fame
The world won't let
Willingly die.
XCVI
I admire your life
As if it were the
Split-trunk pine of Takekuma,
Cut by the governor,
A new one planted, cut,
Replanted in the same spot
& still it grows in the beautiful shape
Of the original.
XCVII
I enter with ease
Into the spirit of the times
Where the midnight sun
Does not decease or disturb
The irrelevant completeness
Of the frightened wanderer
At the hour of death
When he soars into flight.
XCVIII
No regrets, though I wish
I'd been able to write the laughter of women.
The wild river of laughter––
My whole life,
Immersed in this laughter.
The laughter of women––
Who can hope to reply
To such exquisite songs.
XCIX
Those who commit
The most ungodly acts
Still do so with the assurance of the feeling
That nothing will be done.
This is why we have chosen to appear
Through the madrone blossoms
Willing to give our lives
So that others might live.
C
Face to face,
The mind in its holy vacuum,
I have passed many seasons
My endless phrases
Addressed to no one––
Like the light dust
Falling upon your shoulders
As you ride past Jupiter hot springs.
11-17 January 1999
Revised 27 June 1999
[Published in Quien Sabe Mountain: Poems 1998-2004. © 2004 by Jim Cohn]
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