Clothes
Put on a clean shirt Before you die, some Russian said. Nothing with drool, please, No egg spots, no blood, No sweat, no sperm. You want me clean, God, So I’ll try to comply.
For My Lover, Returning To His Wife
She is all there. She was melted carefully down for you And cast up from your childhood, Cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies. She has always been there, my darling. She is,
The Other
Under my bowels, yellow with smoke, It waits. Under my eyes, those milk bunnies, It waits. It is waiting. It is waiting. Mr. Doppelganger. My brother. My spouse. Mr. Doppelganger. My enemy. My lover.
The Angel Food Dogs
Leaping, leaping, leaping, Down line by line, Growling at the cadavers, Filling the holy jugs with their piss, Falling into windows and mauling the parents, But soft, kiss-soft, And sobbing sobbing Into their awful
Noon Walk On The Asylum Lawn
The summer sun ray Shifts through a suspicious tree. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow It sucks the air And looks around for me. The grass speaks. I hear green chanting
You, Doctor Martin
You, Doctor Martin, walk From breakfast to madness. Late August, I speed through the antiseptic tunnel Where the moving dead still talk Of pushing their bones against the thrust Of cure. And I am
I Remember
By the first of August The invisible beetles began To snore and the grass was As tough as hemp and was No color no more than The sand was a color and We had
The Fury Of Sundays
Moist, moist, The heat leaking through the hinges, Sun baking the roof like a pie And I and thou and she Eating, working, sweating, Droned up on the heat. The sun as read as
The Nude Swim
On the southwest side of Capri We found a little unknown grotto Where no people were and we Entered it completely And let our bodies lose all Their loneliness. All the fish in us
Hurry Up Please It's Time
What is death, I ask. What is life, you ask. I give them both my buttocks, My two wheels rolling off toward Nirvana. They are neat as a wallet, Opening and closing on their
As It Was Written
Earth, earth, Riding your merry-go-round Toward extinction, Right to the roots, Thickening the oceans like gravy, Festering in your caves, You are becoming a latrine. Your trees are twisted chairs. Your flowers moan at
Ghosts
Some ghosts are women, Neither abstract nor pale, Their breasts as limp as killed fish. Not witches, but ghosts Who come, moving their useless arms Like forsaken servants. Not all ghosts are women, I
The Lost Ingredient
Almost yesterday, those gentle ladies stole To their baths in Atlantic Cuty, for the lost Rites of the first sea of the first salt Running from a faucet. I have heard they sat For
Locked Doors
For the angels who inhabit this town, Although their shape constantly changes, Each night we leave some cold potatoes And a bowl of milk on the windowsill. Usually they inhabit heaven where, By the
The Kiss
My mouth blooms like a cut. I’ve been wronged all year, tedious Nights, nothing but rough elbows in them And delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby Crybaby, you fool! Before today my body was