When it is loud, it wears a hammer
& carves proud from the lips.
one becomes two,
                        I struggling to wear you,
division, attrition, the grinding
the traveling but never the arriving
the Distance  without the destination
the Opposition & the desecration
How does one build an altar on sand?
How does one understand without knowing
the Word is & was and shall be,
body frames speech, housing the divine will
hence in its interior dimensions, a movement towards the way
so let us talk about saying:
My name is gravity
                        I give a voice to the four walls of home
& destination to the wanderer
while lips move in an exchange of details,
I am grammar to those dialogues
like sails to the hands of mariners
            & letters to the news
            I bring the foreign as close as paper
            beneath your fingers
I am
   howevers
                        and-s              but-s
               or-s
                            I am it
            & the verb after we
            & the meaning of “to be”
            with language I have prepared a banquet
            for the Bridegroom
            & in His name I was given the work of tomatoes
                        & rice & fish
            I was commissioned to build nets
            & that is why we behind every structure,
there is the weaving of language
I talk sun setting
            & the motion of moons,
            on the third day, I was married to Love
            He is my master
& together we make the music
                        of planets and orbits.
& I first taught the poet this rhyme:
When it is loud, it wears a hammer
& carves proud from the lips
thus one becomes two,
                        I struggling to wear you,
division, attrition, the grinding
the traveling but never the arriving
the distance  without the destination
the opposition & the desecration
How does one talk without the tongue?
But even more important, how does one speak
without simply becoming wind?
Gravity, when will you answer?
& this is what Gravity said to Mr. Ginsberg
who claimed to be dancing with the sun
“No Sir, what you did was not how it had begun
rather, it was the slang of serpents
In yelling, words become an edged thunder
             & screams resemble knifes
so understand that enemies work in the dark with swords
but a friend’s whisper is a lamp,
Love necessarily involves being close
& thus consumed
that is why the bread
the body
the wine & blood
but to howl is to have teeth,
                                    to bite
                                    without eating
                                    to take without receiving
& you, dear friend, with your beard full of butterflies
and the eloquent poem of yourself
certainly your voice has often conversed with wisdom
but your words are like exposing the skin to the frost burn of the cold eyes of humanity’s winter
body & naked & mine, stripped of dignity
& to gaze constantly
& thus to possess
& thus to control & thus to steal
solitude & to marry
motion & thus to embrace
death & thus to listen to commotion
                                                dressed in lavender
& singing mountains to streams
like singing dreams of water
to desert
electricity, yes,
but who is the source?
& where are the circuits
leading you?
When it is loud, it wears a hammer
& carves proud from the lips
thus one becomes two,
                        I struggling to wear you,
division, attrition, the grinding
the traveling but never the arriving
the distance  without the destination
the opposition & the desecration
when I first met your poem
I cried Muriel
it was sitting quietly in a silent room
there were a few sad customers
who were vainly attempting to purchase
a jar of water
with which they planned
                        to fill their time
in a sad ritual
that reminded me of a baptismal
gone terribly empty
& there you were
dressed in Red
with lipstick
& I did not understand then
but do now
that you led me back
to the aisle
& to the veil
I had been wearing
when the Bridegroom peeled back
the cloth
& kissed my ignorance with truth
You led me back to the Mother
in whose sanctuary
there was a Word
that became an ocean
In other words, Muriel,
you reminded me of how to swim.
When it is loud, it wears a hammer
& carves proud from the lips
thus one becomes two,
                        I struggling to wear you,
division, attrition, the grinding
the traveling but never the arriving
the distance  without the destination
the opposition & the desecration
But that is not to say that your poem,
Muriel, was pointing
                        at the Way
it is a little more complicated than that,
I think that you have always been
asking for someone else
to indicate direction,
it is weird, but when someone is certain
I begin to think that they don’t know
any mirrors
I know less these days then glass.
When it is loud, it wears a hammer
& carves proud from the lips
thus one becomes two,
                        I struggling to wear you,
division, attrition, the grinding
the traveling but never the arriving
the distance  without the destination
the opposition & the desecration
Muriel, I would tell you about how
unity is battle against your hand who loves to hold hammers
& your eyes, that purchase nails to put on crosses,
Muriel, I would tell you about how
I have stop giving knives to my thoughts
& they no longer are making sculptures of my lips,
Muriel, I would tell you that there is only One
& that the anxiety is only how we insist on maintaining our distance from that Oneness.
Muriel, I would tell you about how God
married your body
by divorcing your craving,
That is why you led me back,
because you were the first poet I could talk with.