Jerome Rothenberg Poems

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A Missal Like A Bone

 Link by link
I can disown
no link.(R. Duncan)
I search the passage
someone sends
& find a missal
like a bone.
My hands are white with sweat.
I lay my burden down
the ground below me
shrinking.
The more my fingers ply
these keys the more
words daunt me.
I am what a haunt
averts, what you who once
spoke from my dream
no longer tell.
The book is paradise.
An odor is a clue
to what was...Read more of this...

Feckless With Disgust

 All erasure of pain
is like the contrary of
dust that weighs
dark in my lungs
when I am 
feckless with disgust.
I stroke & poke
my loins before 
they tighten.
My feet stomp
fields of color
reminding me of
something I once knew.
Dying frees
the spirit
from the mind.
We plod along
regardless of
the pain.
Soon we grow
big & fat.
We stop
forgetting, far off
from whatever 
binds us
mindlessly
to empty space.
Beginning here
we reignite
desire.
We will surrender 
what...Read more of this...

I Am Not A Native Of This Place

 I am not a native of this palce.(Yosimasu G.)
nor yet a stranger.
With the rst of you
I hunt for shade
my boots half off
to let the air through.
My head is on my shoulders
& is real.
I plant cucumbers
twice a year
& count the bounty.
Often I read
the papers
standing.
I am clean & pure.
I carry buckets
from the pond
more than my arms can bear.
Under a full moon
fish...Read more of this...

I Exceed My Limits

 I have tried an altenstil
& dropped it.
My skin is blazing, 
blazing too
the way I see your faces 
in the glass.
With the circle of the sun
behind me
I exceed my limits.
My garments are
from the beginning
& my dwelling place
is in my self(J. Dee)
It makes me want
to fly the stars
below the paradise of poets
lost in space.
I am the father of a lie
unspoken.
I can...Read more of this...

I Vent My Wrath On Animals

 I came alive
when things went
crazy.
I pulled the plug on
the reports of 
sturm & drang
When someone
signaled I 
left open
what I 
could not close.
I broke a 
covenant that
was more fierce
than murder.
I vent my wrath
on animals
pretending they will turn
divine.
I open up
rare certainties
that test free will.
I take from animals
a place in which
the taste of death
pours from their mouths
& drowns them.
I support a 
lesser...Read more of this...

I Will Not Eat My Poem

 I kill for pleasure
not for gain.
A man much more
than you my hands
find knives
& flash them.
I am guilty
in my works
while in their eyes
I seek redemption.
I find myself
forgotten
angry at the thought
of bread. I will not
eat my poem(A. Artaud)
much less be raped
by it. I have a home
but sit with others
shirtless, waiting
for the moon to rise.
I am a warrior
grown old.
The number on my...Read more of this...