#124

Le Leindemain, turn left. You are shorn I shan't be welcome. Cleffed chin. Astrologer's dome a'glit. Hey mister: here is the prattle of your pose. Your heart is not there beyond. Understunt? It's immer die alte Leiner. The organ grinder in shaved silhouette. Operatunity. White dress-shirt, white t-shirt, the bulge of adam's appotrude. Lishen. In the west, the trunkets coil. Hear the brute as thound a Mandarin thong. For if the golden atthle be taken... But less be complitely honest; that is linear, astute.

You are father Hethper's son if he had one, you are Canaan's father-to-be. Keen-eyed brith-ter, singing airily, looking warily, every way. Square describes you in the bar on Friday; "a real ham," he says and grins. And that's the content of your laptop. As the Greeks say, pate'ras. The apple not far from the tree. Sleeping Vista, California. Where the redcombed dragon slumbers, in enfolding purple roads. Mount up! Your lines are drawn, Mr. Leiner. And we hope your stay is pleasant.

#123

You myth it, loose of her, what's there. I carry us in the clouds and leave no shadow. There's the forest groaning smaller, see. There's the house in disrepear. And the fruiter seller, 40th. Wear Squire there says, a guest him, Je te donne a pear. They're as the road Steve's father walked. So see down pair, you'll seed the path. Vois-two a Demon Est Deus Inversus? Delight, delight! And she sidheog on Fairymount, do. A kittle-kattle lex-in-pents, and a pooka full of sosoarsee. See see, the verdant shawl? the night cap, red cap, white owl's feather? Peer over, squint, recoyre. At the tomb he teems across, this wholly chap erd non. A sans a chapter till Stevie gi's 'im a fiver. And see what's deadliest luck, my seen? The sea, the sea, where the leg of a seared sunblinds turns, disappearing into the green. The Brueghel blows, the flute is flown. But here anan the scape is yours, you see.

#122

The wedding room, the shore. The four laid out in Ocean's grove, the windy pier beside. Spectacled Edward befoot in the water, till Thalatta rescinds what sees. The blind who breed the blind to where the glass is grounded. And one step, two step: shatter, marriage. Mazel tov! Hurray! And the sun, and the waves, and the man and the woman raised on tlilting thrones.

Stephen's mother. She says to him when who's to say? Let's have you meet the cantor. 85? 100? Sara spins on heels, Godless amongst the children. The circular floor, the solarium. The hem of Stephen's pants undoes, no contour to the draping fabric. The hours, not his, but leurs. Laurence, Rachel. The steps that family climbs. And otherwives, there's waves that wash and rake the earth.

Beneath his collar, tie, three medals: a cross, the Virgin, Christopher. For who will carry Stephen past what ales him in these days? Erica of Edward prone, and what is said of him is likewise. A stream or stretch of brine. The brothers, motherless, and each now with another. Watch them dancing on the dancing floor. My God, there is a God of kin, and then there is a God of ken. But can there be a God of depths divine?

#121

Yestermorn the rose's day. The great wets ain't presiding. The whitherword of waundering wims. See sign and cross and store. Delantsy's cheers: the lot of them. Revolver tame, rejoice. Sail from the inside, seize through glass: the older readers reddening. Tom-ta-tom-ta-tom pursuit in pages a paster's pace. "White," we say him, "white." We'll passencore the adage.

Johnny's word to flesh is nuance. Wer it proud: an e to my ean. A gap that appures to hold. And Erica says to her E'd-word: mete. And he athe what he ears is meat. Utter-butter, calorie. Corpus. The manger's tragectorie of rest or rants passed. A-spic-a-span-a-spett a lost white dresses. Trim it, days and nights. Savoir. Cre-care so not to swell. Or fast to become unfettered.

Ho, tell 'im what's to come. Hi' it, non, in werdsome phrases. Assay, essene, in keen greene words: Do not d-nay whithout 'im.

#120

The eyes still have what the hands have held. The stranger that comes in the dark to the village. In a language, lost. On a line that leads. The last two weeks of spring. And then? In the old book given me by Les, I read "what God hath cleansed, call not thou uncleane." The thirteenth. Clear sky, and moon. Spotlit, Jeehyun, In the open box of a Walnut Street bus stop. Philadelphia in June. I must pass. Those who feast, they couple glances, loll their legs under outdoor tables. Of them, for you, my word.

#119

Never coming, never going. Never rising to meet what welcomes. Bien and tot. This tender love and cairn. Oh, the many good returns in speech and vision. The reading that one does, admire. If this were Stephen, propped on elbows, J above him, shorn and shorner, what rough rivers of words would flow? Eyes on le pris? Or back to front, one's lips to lips. Steady laps unseated. Stephen? Stephen? The calm ends, Stephen, a gain.

Respice post te! Homnem te esse memento! For which he stands if he can in evening. Anoints thee, yes, in rain. But this gift of mine to exceed, and this gift of J's to grow... Square says, without jesting, nyet. But Stephen faces the mirror bare. In the dark to light. In the heart to bed. Please, I'm grateful even to what sleeps without me.

#118

Comments again. La reset. Hey mister: here is the pattern of your prose. In the park, nimble, circular. Or Seventeenth and Lombard, where the trees dress in jewelry. Your tenor. You are loved. The doors of the Astral Plane in summer.

So when I think of goodness, light, it's you upon a jet, head shorn and a book at rest upon your thighs. Inscribed. Or it's Stephen meets you on the steet, a boy. At St. Paul's, admidst the weathered stones. A sign: "Welcome to all." A colloquy. A register. Your pockets full of nyckels ring. And I, the evening scribe, adore.

And tense? And address? The books I bought at Big Jar: a biography of Joyce's father, a biography of Yeates, and She Alone of All Her Sex. It evens, this scriptorium. The commonplace at night. The artist's fingers over keys in transit. Honey from the flowers' design. Rain. And your packing for the flight. Square says at the fountain (Day 6): "There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all." But my question, Stephen's too. In the light of the lamp, in the light of the sun, in the light of the moon, Do you read?

#117

Memorium. End, and such, and then begin. Affection's landmarks drawn in light. See them, see? The weight of heaven's span. Of course. Full stop. Full stop. Full stop. The weak. Sara leaves the City, locks the door. Sean is bowed, abrupt, at last. John to British tower, steepless, flaccid. And Valerie's joys of everyday life subsiding. Stephen is finished, is Lycidas, is Coral. He is Icarus, says Sean of what sinks.

Memento. On the morning of day 7, the opening image of Andy's hand, reaching for Stephen, crumpled, disheveled. A Rittenhouse bench (and its plaque?). Two coffees, and one detoured: a gift. "You look like you need it more than Benjy." Day 4, Little Pete's - Stephen and Sqaure and Cory. "Why not just wait, like my parents did? There's bound to be more sin to wash off after childhood." Stephen's brow descends. Cory is solemn, silent. And Day 3, replacing David, Blake. At Chapterhouse, his photographs. The show's title a line from Keats. Adrian supplied. "Had I a man's fair form . . ." And Sarah's simple watercolors intermingled there. The windows frame upon arrival: Blake laughs, head tilts, his hair a sea of golden waves in sun.

Morire. It rains. It falls. The year begins for me in June. I read Augustine and do not like him. I suffer hunger, suffer thirst, and desire. Resolved. Resolute. And at night. Erica begrudges another dark evening at home. But will I no more seek the festival lamps and clamor? Dance and laughter. It is no light thing to toss all that aside - and it would be embarassing to have to return to it.