Profession of Faith

And the bells ring
And the incense rises
And the voice calls
By the altars of the Lord.

1. Master of Ceremonies

Of personality the cultor, infinite necessity,
Host of lords and lord of hosts:
I would have garlands of flowers,
I would have nymphets in mauve blouses lined
With bells whose clink-clink could waver
Through corridors of time — not space, blind
As I am, I know that space is made
Of sound, that these vibrations
Clatter and recede like hollow brass;
It follows life is music, coo of pretty voices,
A verve of gowns slipping over sandaled feet.

I Live Not Me

Is there a lord of rivers? — Rivers asked. —
Then I will reach the ocean in my own
Way; for what is this lord but a blending of voices,
The rivers' vast possession into which they flow,
Transformed? Is then this domain
Contained within itself, or do its entrails seethe
With foreign keys?

The sea never owns the sea: the essence of the water
Is a diversity of lands made water in the foam of islands
And peninsulas, where every cape and proper strait,
This grand apparatus of mountains and their minions
Meet. It follows that to own a land is to recognize
That one is owned, and this proud ocean
Does the bidding of his vassals, utters their commands
With a voice that redounds of particular
Rocks. Then where am I flowing? Into myself,
But myself made master of myself, the Lord of hosts.

Mass in B Minor

For Kevin

Out of the opening cord rise the first plaintive notes
Hymning the grace of a distant lord,
As love is distant; and within the sanctum of the song,
The center that contains it, my heart calls out to you.

How far will these burning fibers reach
Before the lapse of time makes me an urn,
And you become the ashes I contain?
Already my metaphor resolves
Into discordant strains of memory and song.

Never our relationship,
But only these relations will remain,
Set to the music of an empty voice,
Singing through a hollow corpse.