| YELLOW SNOW Yellow
snow
wherever he goes,
it's all that coffee
he says, but knows
it's more than that
it's something genetic,
he's marking his trail
alchemic, hermetic,
he's writing in runes
while I collect bones
and follow behind
eating yellow snow cones. |
| DRINKING TREBOR'S PEE
To drink Trebor's pee
sweetened, with lemon over ice
would be a bastardization of the
Truth; one
drinks Trebor's pee, like one
swallows Trebor's semen, hot and
directly from the fount -
or at least within minutes from a
favored mug or goblet.
I consume Trebor's pee the way I
consume Trebor's words, without
question or editing of my own
conceits; who
am I to challenge the visceral ejacu
lations of so worthy and proud a
beast?
I seduce; I consume.
I succumb; I am consumed.
Love is neither easy nor attractive,
wholesome nor sane;
when Trebor speaks, worlds are rent
askew, hearts pryed from their ossi
fied tombs; when
Trebor speaks my gonads quiver, my
scrotum tightens and my anus
convulses with the revelations of a
burgeoning dawn.
Who am I to challenge this mystic-
eyed mongrel; I
set out my bowls, plates, and watch the
varmint pick and choose from my
table -
if I am lucky he naps on my sofa be
fore wandering back to his sacred
wood; if I am
lucky he stops to feed me from his
trove of used poems and found
objects; if I am truly
lucky he does not bite me but re
sponds to my caress with a
sigh or a low growl,
and I know that I have fed Trebor some
thing he can use,
that my offerings have been
accepted -
and this is more than enough for
one small lifetime.
|
| IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE
I'VE LIVED WITH A STRAIGHT BOY Billy's been here a week and
everything smells of him.
Strong smells.
Intense, aggressive
smells.
Not just the reek of Old Spice all over the
bathroom sink, lining the tub,
but the construction sites in their
entirety, big men, steel-backed men,
burly black men and truckloads of
dusty Mexicans;
a lockerroom hanging from his bedroom
walls, oozing from blankets and
pillows - the small bathroom
rug that wafts entirely of
rank socks, as if some elixir had spilt
out of his boots.
His towel, two days fresh, has a
life of its own, matted with
hairs, exuding pheromones -
what are these little gray balls in the
bathtub drain?
In the kitchen I boil pungent Chinese
herbs, burn Tibetan incense and
pour elegant teas;
in my bedroom, the tastes of
sperm always linger, some
lotion or another, the
sour breath of latex.
Can he smell me for what I am?
Oh not just the Royal Copenhagen I wear to
remind me of Grandad,
but the urine I've consumed,
the semen I have bathed in,
the feces that have permeated my
pubic rags, the smoke, the
nitrates; the fine dining in my
brain, the elegant hotels,
the liqueurs, the wines that
critics covet?
Here he is now after pouring
concrete all day, blue collar to the
neck with mud and grease
to boot;
moments from now his steam will
blast these aromas thru curtain thru
doors, into towels and pores,
he'll come clean, but his imprint will
ever remain, in the head of
the air, in the strains, in my
hair -
it hardly seems fair,
but certainly
I will become accustomed. |
| ORANGE KITTY BLEEDING
I killed the old orange cat this evening.
After chasing him for three months, I
crawled up on the roof after him;
right between the eyes from not more than
five feet away where he had Bagheera
treed up the great live oak.
Orange Kitty fell and I blasted him four
more times as he jerked on the ground
below us.
Bagheera came down from his high branch;
and after, I brought out Marlene, Tao and
Quan Yin to show them that the rein of
terror had ended.
But as he lay there with his fur blowing
gently in the oncoming storm, I had the
strongest urge to take his bloody form into
my arms, smooth his once-beautiful pelt and
tell him that it will all be all right.
I miss all my old lovers, wherever they
lay bleeding beneath the grass, I would
take them all once again in my arms and
tell them that it is not that bad, that
it will all be all right;
death after all seems so unreachable to
the living, so temporary as though it
were but a mistake, a dream that will
fade back into the reality of the
sunny morn.
But I didn't touch the orange cat, he
was covered with blood and had been
sick, wild and unreachable as it was.
Instead, I thought of Vince Romano,
James Parcell, Steven Buker, Frank
Drummond, Jimmy Barron, Victor Lopez,
Bobby Consolmagno and however many
more;
warm warm hearts that had once
beat against my own, now cold lying
somewhere in the shadow of what had
been life, their fur now matted and
soiled.
The cats avenged, we came back into
the house just as the storm was blowing
in from the west.
I thought of Orange Kitty, of covering him
with newspapers or old clothes lest he
get cold and drenched where I had
left him among the periwinkle.
Instead I removed the bullets from the
remaining cartridge and set the twenty-
two across a pile of fresh-folded
linens, to be returned to the
neighbors in the morning.
The rain began spattering like
gunshot across the fiberglass back
porch roof;
my dinner was still warm.
Smoke Rings
Taylor and I, this evening,
cleared a large faerie/fire
ring in the upper pasture,
marking carefully with an old
nylon rope radius where the
stones will soon be placed,
and again notching a second
circle where lombardy poplars
are to be planted. We
burned grasses and debris from
trees surrounding, warming our
penes against the funnel of
flame, which lapped against
the overcast sky until at last
the semen drenched us to the
bone.
Pagan rituals left us brimming
with energy, the cats following
us back wild-eyed to the
house where beer, wine and
olives saturated our elated
senses.
Sated now, the rains are
steady and calming, our
flame extinguished but the
smoke in our eyes must never
clear.
This at last makes sense, two
old witches who have reunited
not for lust nor for love nor
money, but to rekindle a
flame of tradition that has
bound us for ages to the
same wooden stake, if only
to be burned again.
Goatboy
Goatboy thinks he's Pan
and maybe he is,
who am I to say
strange passion, this!
What recourse have I
when horns do sprout,
but to watch the child grow stout
and goat about.
Who am I to criticize
the raptures of youth,
make angels of devils
or decry goatly truths?
Goatboy thinks he's Pan
and well he may be,
he'll find no reprimand
from an old satyr like me.
Gabe:
exquisite macho white trash jerk
abandoned by his hippie mother
raised, uncaressed, by his
alcoholic dad.
Who can deny
they would like to be a
14 year old girl in his dirty hands?
Who can deny
they would like to tie him to the back of his truck
and rob him of his manhood?
|
The Object of War
I have no objection to war,
the object is to find something worth
dying for, and never country nor
religion that I have known is worth
the suffering, the misery the
disruption of home.
But once upon a barren land, laid
waste by ideals and God's greedy
hand, I fell upon a youth with
tattoos upon his wrists, whose fair skin
blackened beneath even the most
stolid kiss.
And this I thought, as I licked his
blood from the shore, for all the
hatred the strife and the wars, this
when eternity slams shut her last
door, this at long last was
worth dying for. |
The Poet Writes
(for Antler)
The poet writes of his own death, while
penning the life of others;
the poet writes of his own lust, while
harking the sex of his brothers;
the poet writes of his own birth, while
witnessing the death of his mother;
the poet writes of God and Truth while
sleeping with the Devil.
The poet makes time with word and phrase,
calculating his periods precisely;
the poet lets anger rip through the page
while choreographing metaphors nicely;
the poet reads his own words and shrinks with
fear, stricken with the knowledge;
the poet studies his every turn, his
toilet is his college.
The poet flies with osprey eyes and
lands on distant mountains
and every where the poet goes his
rhymes spew forth like fountains;
the poet knows what poets know, that
life is just a teaser,
the poet goes where no man goes, for
only death will please her.
The poet sings the songs of Spring while
battling with the Winter;
the poet curses tree and limb, while
prying at a splinter;
the poet lives with cat and deer and
eats upon the gravel,
each day consigns his soul to hell, each
second slams the gavel.
The poet is a dreamer but in dreaming he
doth live;
the poet never stops to think, Is this a
poem? or is this?
The poet wraps each moment on a page of
withered leather
and as each volume falls to dust each
dream is pressed in ether.
The poet knows that sin is just the
way to amuse the angels,
who, jealous of him, covet his world its
lures its laughs its dangers,
and sinning thus, the poet conquers all the
worlds of illusion
until his lust, at last, is but the
dust of self-ablution.
The poet dreams but does not sleep, the
poet laughs, the poet weeps,
and when the world has come to naught, the
poet, of all, can not be bought,
for having lived and having died, the
poet spins his worlds inside
and when his spirit meets the air, his soul, always
forever, is waiting there.
The poet is a metaphor
for all who come and go;
the poet is an elegy to
all we live and know;
the poet cants a eulogy for
god and devil and holy ghost
and when he dies, the angels cry -
'twas he they loved the most. |
A Measure of Pain
It is not reasonable for a heart to hurt so long
that the pain becomes a pleasure
and the pleasure of this pain becomes one's raison d'être.
But then, what is reason? not a process of the heart!
the heart speaks in rhythms and pulses
rather like the tides of the sea,
and as each wave digs more and more of Earth's sandy flesh away
who are we to say, Wait, that is our shore you have eaten?
The heart does as it will, as what is Fate must surely occur,
and what is inevitable will come to pass;
So, as long as each pulse continues
we are slaves to these rhythms, castaways in an oarless dinghy,
and the only map home rests in the lap of the Fates.
Let your pain be your pleasure,
until, pleasure filled, your breast bursts forth with the Spring
of fulfillment,
as Persephone returns to her mother's bosom,
as the sea embraces each moment of sand
and swallows the earth with an impassioned kiss.
Don't try to measure Bliss. |
| EPITAPH: When last I lie
to rest my head
let it not be said
I missed a bed. |
