WHAT’S NEW
ARE THEY ONLY WORDS
(Black Rock Desert poem for Diane di Prima)
Clive intends to honor Diane di Prima by knocking on her door and reading this poem to her.
Are they only words? Skittering and jig-
sawing in patterns like pretty
shells and pebbles in a child’s fingers?
“The sidewalk is
crumbling into diamonds.”
On the playa
nylon tents rustle in the breeze, pale dust
rises in alkali whirlwinds
and those words kick up a cyclone.
Take inventory. Take inventory.
I’m so alone. The playa’s so alone,
the half moon: so alone. Dust: so alone.
We fell through the crumbling sidewalk
into limitlessness.
Diamond chips glisten
in constellations, Taurus overruns tiny sparklets
of our innate wisdom the Seven Sisters.
Ten-dollar bills drip from the Bull’s horns.
Exact words tunnel through to what’s real,
spread micro-thin
over everything and hold
that skin of the world in place.
Take inventory. Take inventory.
Reach down and pull up what our bones
already know.
Persephone came for six months
and now her visits repeat year-round.
She rises through my body with seeds
and thumb-rubbed gems in her fingers,
dissolves into Sisyphus
who returns as Persephone
who dissolves again. Precious seeds morph
into the boulder
Sisyphus pushes again and again.
“The sidewalk is
crumbling into diamonds
and in the sky a mouth is opening
to take you finally in.”
Are those only words and you dance
coolly on, lips turned
up in porcelain wit?
Words in the wind to you and to us a portal
we fell through into sacred space.
Take inventory. Take inventory.
I’m so lost. The playa’s so lost,
the half moon: so lost. Dust: so lost.
The dry lake’s straw-colored silt
extends
to flat horizons 360 degrees around.
Sight’s unhindered through empty air.
Everything is sacred space.
Overhead in the sidewalk gapes
the mouth that took us in.
Our ultimate muse uses your voice
for a few perfect words.
