I designed and built this valley mansion
   obscuring a view of the mountains -
A magnificent multi-storied structure
   with many rooms dimly lit or darkened,
A few rooms admitting a minimum
   of filtered starlight.

In one room only
   is there occasionally
   direct blazing sunlight
And this is the room of longing.



- fr

I had entered the blue lights
And fog of the joint
Mostly to become oblivious
Tip of elbow
And Gin colicky
By sunken treasured
Green olive
No pimento
To dissolve through the juniper taste
Salty swill
And swilling

And would to the extent
Of almost un noticing
The cantor of would be stallions
Surrounding my ******
Their prance intent
On heightening my heel
A good five inches
That oblivion
Hooked
Spiked over
Curved steel
To balance Gin effects
Over the bottom of
The barstool

A mighty swig
Or two or five
Might notice their buck
And haws enough
To grind stilettos
Into dance floor
The Stones in the mix
Pivoting my drunken hips
Enough to cradle a hand
Or three

Enough to squint against
Red rimmed eyes
Displace my empty
With a poor replacement
Cheap thrills
Vain attempts
At “No”
That came out of my
Movements
“Yes”

But soon the ponies ran
As anger bent ****
And flooze
Into something ugly
Curved and toppled over
To the floor
That did not deserve red shoes
Or top shelf
Anything

As hard as I try
I cannot remember dissolving
I do not remember the hands
That tried to catch my fall
On my way down
To fast escape

By my stool
(The second from the end near the tray of olives and maraschino cherries)
There might be a marker
That reads
“Here lies Jen, you should have seen her drink”

In that world there were a lot of maybes
I just don’t know