FRIENDSHIP

Good day, good death
Good death away I go
Not with bleeding
Not with frozen heart
Not with easy noose
Not with fireworks behind the eye
Not with blare and bang
Not with the steady slow
Not with today with you I go
In your once face I spit,
Good death, good death
One day though good
Death with you
I hope to go.

Α ∞◊ ♣ § ♥ ♦ ∞ Ω

I AM AT DEATH’S DOORBELL!

I am at death’s doorbell!
Zing! Zing! Zing! Zing! Zing!
Old One, this here’s the sunny, sweet pit of spring!
Let’s us have a bucket-kickin’ bloomin’ April fling,
Don’t be a creeper, you sleepy reaper. I rang!
Now—Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
I’m knock, knock, knock, knock, knockin’
On your cold, cold, cold marble mausoleum door.
What are you doing, counting out last year’s no-see-ums?
Where in Hell are you? Let’s get our bones to rockin’!
Throw on something. It could be brown. It could be a croquer sack.
Get your hearse out of reverse. Let’s paint this town anything but black.
O, you! Boo, on you, you gloomy bore, you hourglass totin’ totenkopf!

[Creak.]

O, that’s precious. Such a stunning cloak.
Black is so very you. So sleek. So chic.
What do you have on beneath that frock?
May I peek? O, but, sorry, no, I don’t smoke.
Go on, light up for all I care.
If it’s your bag, have a puff. Just don’t be a dreary drag.
I just know you have on to-die-for underwear.
Let’s go, let’s go, let’s take us that new day dawning garden stroll.
There’s just no telling what flirty blossoms at last will for us unfold.
O, bony-fingered curling one, why the evil condescending grin?
You don’t scare me. Your hoody skull is dull, dull, dull.
Take my hand. Life is leafing out, unfurling all across the land.
What do you care? Off your long-gone nose it’s no skin.
Somber you and silly me, let’s go, let’s ride, let’s scoot and toot.
Let’s weave our white-tassel handlebar, straw basket, ring-ring, red
Squeeze-bulb horn
Chrome steel white-wall tire red bikes,
You just might sniff out something that you’ll
Drop-dead like.
Perhaps dangling wisteria will give you the swoony deliria.
A sniff of pink roses might slay you to your bony toeses.
Maybe lilies of the valley will waft up your bony darkened nasal alleys.
Don’t you know that harvest time lies far, far afield?
Rest your august soul-sweeping scythe. Pick up your pair of spinning wheels.
Come, let’s fly! Breathe deep, old chum, this magic, this gift of life.
O, lose the glum! O, look at you!
And, say, just how did you get so gol darn looming grand?
Are you a he-wrangler in snakeskin boots or just hell on high heels?
You know, I’ve never asked, O.O., are you beneath that hood
Somehow in some way, shall we say, ahem, misunderstood?
Are you male, female, both, or neither?
Your secret’s safe with me. I’ll not breathe a
Word that…I’ll take a guess, er,
That you, death, are a cross undresser.
My word, how absurd:
Death goes stag, because he (or she’s) in drag!

Α ∞◊ ♣ § ♥ ♦ ∞ Ω

THE COMMITMENT

My house is a commitment
To pragmatic poetry.
Sophisticated technology concealed,
Structural cable runs throughout.
Materials reinforce each other.
Light? Natural. It filters in
Through sublime expanses of glass.
Fixtures are programmable.
Climate? Controlled. Geothermal.
I take it cool from the earth.
The efficient system exchanges heat from the air.

I needed a private centered space,
A reference point
For the interior.
To contemplate art and nature,
I directed views inward
Crafting my house around its interior courtyard.
My property afforded me
Little privacy from neighbors.
The environment? Spare. Unforgiving.
It was the greatest challenge.

I built my reputation
On Platonic shapes,
Forms with clean lines.
Sublimely abstract, they flow through natural layouts.
They grow—as though alive—
From the specifics of how they function.
My geometrics dance across the plot.
They interlock.

I am not at all aware of the neighbors.
It is the most serene setting imaginable.

There is ample storage space.

Α ∞◊ ♣ § ♥ ♦ ∞ Ω

OVER THE HILLS BEYOND THE BAY

I have been a long while out,
Out at sea—
A symphony of blue. Thoughtless,
Past countless coral archipelagos,
I must always go on, and on, and on,
Venus—my guiding star. One day
I may slip boldly into the head of a cove,
A fertile island on the confused sea.

Dark closes in
The dirty sea; the wicked sea
Anchors me, bowels scrambled,
Exhausted in velvet bondage.
I am naked, like a worm,
An evil spirit to be destroyed.
Grim shapes, dim shapes rush to feast,

A savagery marvelous to behold.
The moan of the gale in my rigging
Would drive a lesser man mad.
There will be peace after the storm,
After the mountains of destruction.
All storms must end sometime.

At Devil’s Point,
The food was burnt, ash covered.
I saw a man selling leaves.
I collected the web of the giant forest spider.
I took aboard a cross-eyed man:
One pupil stared east,
The other to the sun.
I was given a human leg as a special gift.

Pigless, carrying my fishing pole,
I rock the Boat of Heaven,
Black and glistening, full blown
On a moonlit sea of cream.
The captain, her hair let down,
Black—a midnight fire—waterfall.
A tiny gun in her pocket,
A bodily interview she gave me:
In war, in battle, in the grip of the beak
Of raving death, I am your leader,
Your lord, queen, ocean mistress.

In love, in passion’s haste,
In passion’s moonless timeless waste,
In the golden roaring seven times hot furnace
Of my whistling windsinging soul, I put a crease
In her sheets. The fresh white mainsail,
I stretched. My big red-plumed
Cock crowed nightly, and we saw
Invisible fish.

We sailed off—
Off the charts,
Into a void.
One night,
A long arm,
A waterspout,
Lowered itself,
Enormous,
An enemy-
Seeking
tentacle.
With phospho-
Iridescent
Luminosity,
It whipstirred
The sea;
Towering
Over our heads—
A pillar of fire
Against the black,
The quilted sky.

Remote islands, new landfalls,
The perfect atoll of fiction,
The sun sinking in glory
Over the hills beyond the bay
Never to be, never to be.

Α ∞◊ ♣ § ♥ ♦ ∞ Ω

I AM BECOMING

Greasing my legs, I am becoming
Ready to give them to you,
Slippery pliers for your life-giving screw.
Greasing my arms, I am becoming
Ready to give them to you,
Taut canvas for the sting of your tattoo.
Greasing my buttocks, I am becoming
Ready to give them to you,
Dough to burn on your oven’s floor
Greasing my breasts, I am becoming
Ready to give them to you,
Targets for your arrows’ burning hiss
Nape, throat, brow, cheeks, ears,
Even toes, I lubricate for you.
Consume me in your furnace.
Grind me on your wheel.
Enmesh me in your celestial gear.
O, sun, I worship you.
God, help me, I do.
I cannot bear to look at you.

Α ∞◊ ♣ § ♥ ♦ ∞ Ω

VISCOUS

Viscous:
I like the cheap, the nasty
I like my runny cheese
I smoke fags on a sticky, stinking yoga mat
I ride the Underground
It takes me where I please
And I take the tube
And I get off where precisely it is at
I play the drama canvas easel queen
Erect screwed tight legs wide, you know what
I mean I want
To melt into the woods
Of sweet Sicily brown
Where larvae like licorice twist
Where brush goes round
Where fawns in high heels lurk
Where aromatic rooted in this
Womanhood red, I like riding Robin plug away—
I want to give you my rich my messy thing
My rub my, my, my on poor almighty earth
In pigments, dirt, I pick up clues, power on my pelt—
Sheer pleasure, my paint, my pal o’ mine
I want to be inside your mouth, male dominated,
I want to copulate frenetic—O, to reign, a bit!—
Until my cunt pink and red becomes a swirl
(Luscious, creamy, slick, slippery, glossy)
Vaseline on
My lens greasy let’s
Mutual masturbation pull
My skin apart
Lolly, lolly, lolly I’ll be your dolly, and
Carnally with nibs and knives and mops and cloths and spatulas and rollers
Fetishized focus, I do it with finesse
Slapping slabs with tend’rest love;
Sweet and gnarled
I, truth, abject ilk
Do in violent visions;
Aren’t I smashing in
Shades of red fire silk?
Sheathing shades sheathing
And breathing and heaving and breeding.

Α ∞◊ ♣ § ♥ ♦ ∞ Ω

I WAS DREAMING

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that an arrow was lodged deep
in my back,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not reach it.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was an iron cooking pot,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I remained empty and cold.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was the chaff that had
blown away,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not be found again.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I lived in an open grave
and was cold and wet,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not find the door to let me out.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that all my bones were broken,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not move but could only lie and cry.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that my heart was wax
and had melted,
and no matter how hard I tried to pick it up,
it slipped away.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was a dog
outside a walled city,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not find a way in.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was chin-deep in a bog
in darkness,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not find land that was dry.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that my home had collapsed
around me,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not build it again.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that all my teeth were broken,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not put them back together again.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was water streaming
out of a pitcher,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not help but slip out.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that my face was blotted out,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not see my eyes or nose or mouth.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that all I had to drink
was a bottle of my own tears,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not satisfy my thirst.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I had counted all the hairs
on my head,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not remember their number,
and I had to start the task again.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I had a thunderbolt,
but no matter how hard I tried,
I could not remember where I had hidden it.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I had painted a picture,
but no matter how hard I tried,
it was still a picture of nothing.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was under the wing of a bird,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not escape its shadow.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was a vegetable on a vine,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not grow ripe.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was a lonely bird on the
eave of a lonely house,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not fly away.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I wore a collar of iron,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not find its button to undo it.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that my head had shattered
and that shards of it lay scattered far and wide,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not find them all.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that the moon had crumbled,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not hold my head up and see the sky.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find
that I was candy in the mouth of a fool,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I would not melt away.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I was hiding
in a nest of leaves and grass,
and no matter how hard I tried,
the snake kept slithing in.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that a bit had been placed firmly
in my mouth,
and no matter how hard I tried,
I could not shake it or my blinders off.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I stood guard
over a field of cabbages,
and no matter how hard I tried,
peasants snipped them free with shears
and stole away in the night, hunched, hugging them.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find that I could not help
but laugh at everything because nothing made sense.