So here we are again
here I am at least
hardly slept all night all day
since I saw you last
the architecture of music
throughout the small hours
all translated into vibrancy
of mind—the kind
that's in the water we give
to passion flowers
it makes them curl and scroll
up tottering on long thin stems
toward the window handle
if the first don't make it
the second one will
and yes we made it through
like we used to
with but a short early evening
nap on the bed
I wake not knowing
whether I'm in England
or Austria, London
or Vienna—or even in the
Cotswolds—as everywhere
it is always raining
at the back of your mind
it's called silence
a steady fire
and your mouth is a chimney
the world dries out
to twigs and withered grass
and it only takes a match
dropped in spite
to burn down the lakeside reeds
or a hillside of trees
we ramble through charred embers
of branches in search of Homer
and all I really wanted to say
was the plastic ready-made
of dandelions stuck out
as tongues
from the mouths of three skulls
casts turning shadows on my page
as it does on Nathan's (its
creator) and Michael McClure's
whom I gave it to in Seattle
Neil Young's thorny dawn guitar
on Dead Man soundtrack
William Blake
and Nobody
new cushions
with tassles
Korawan tattooers in southern India
using Cretan labyrinths
on their clients' arms
when they've inked the locals
they move on
pattern book in their bag
full of ancient long-lost designs
and the tools of their trade
I reach a border now
we are crossing the lake
crossing to Hungary
in a shadow world
far beyond everyday mind
the temple looms up
shining on an Athenian hill
in the Greek sun
the strutted chords
are horses' hooves trotting
downriver
to the cold damp encampment
they call death

Vienna