It wasn't bliss. What was bliss
but the ordinary life? She'd spend hours
in patter, moving through whole days
touching, sniffing, tasting... exquisite
housekeeping in a charmed world.
And yet there was always
I saw a man this morning
Who did not wish to die
I ask, and cannot answer,
If otherwise wish I.
Fair broke the day this morning
Against the Dardanelles;
The breeze blew soft, the morn's cheeks
Were cold as cold sea-shells.
But other shells are waiting
Across the Aegean sea,
Shrapnel and high explosive,
Shells and hells for me.
I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory’ s halls, austere, supreme,
I was passionate,
filled with longing,
I searched
far and wide.
But the day
that the Truthful One
found me,
I was at home.
I was thinking: God has abandoned me,
So, what of it — he is a priceless ray of light,
Or a thin needle in the haystack of man. And cruel.
I have turned away from him — torment me no more.
But which of us is more cruel? More to be feared?
The one who has no body, of course.
He has made us endless, vast —
So that our grief will know no bounds.
Providence, 2001
If no one ever marries me, —
And I don't see why they should,
For nurse says I'm not pretty,
And I'm seldom very good —
If no one ever marries me
I shan't mind very much;
I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,
And a little rabbit-hutch:
I shall have a cottage near a wood,
And a pony all my own,
And a little lamb quite clean and tame,
That I can take to town:
And when I'm getting really old, —
At twenty-eight or nine —
I shall buy a little orphan-girl
And bring her up as mine.
Knocks on the door.
Who?
I sweep the dust of my loneliness
under the rug.
I arrange a smile
and open.
Lucretius grabbed my arm and led me
to the spot where he went nuts. I watered little
drums right away and entangled the Sava River
with knitting needles. I putrefied a small soup,
dismembered seven towels. There, He — The
Terrible — burnt on the stake, squatted, too.
My god, I beat him up his ass. Puff, puff, but
no one had heard a thing. Now here, I’ m flooded
with flowers by cumin. Even Tarkovsky appears.
Now I will suck you with my thumbs, mold
you like clay with my horns, till he’ d vaporize and
I find it helpful to imagine writing in a blizzard
with every inscription
designed to prevent snow
crystals from drifting in.
Avoid the hive mind. Go fly a kite,
raise a stained glass window in the sky.
It’ s the opposite of making love to drudgery,
what I do for a dying.
Remove the bitter sediment
trapped in the brewer. It will be new
whether you make it new
or not. It will be full of neo-
“Mexican”
is not
a noun
or an
adjective
“Mexican”
is a life
long
low-paying
job
a check
mark on
a welfare
police
form
more than
a word
a nail in
the soul
but
it hurts
it points
it dreams
it offends
it cries
it moves
it strikes
it burns
just like
a verb
