little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,
instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and i won't use it
yet.

Sag my corpse
in 32 degree weather
through the city of God
where paraplegics dream of running.
“Oh Rhodesian mercenary,”
humble my soul again
like in C(hi)(ca)ongo.
But remember
The revolution starts
on my mama’s bed
at half past six.

So excuse me while I smoke my drink like a Brooklyn Leftist from the 40’s tramples
burning cigarettes on cold pavements where codeine and Sprite
make any Tuesday fabulous because we already suffered from (and for) the goods of mankind.
But before you read me the history of Hatchepsut;
I learned the art of man within the confines of FCC regulations after my ‘Pa threw ******* out the window and made life in the cell not mundane by telephoning philosophical-entendres    
that tomorrow never happened.

He too was from the blood of the ancestors whose bodies were charred on as goods—
whose children now char their bodies with the goods of the goddess of Victory—
the official trademark for the lost Exodus—the blood and blue moribund—
sagging pyrrhic victories in 32 degree weather as homage to their charred ghost (fore)fathers
who preyed to the city of God for bread

Looking for the lost prophets
that seemed to slip right through the sand
through the cracks of time…

My thoughts of you bring a warm sensation
that I shouldn’t have
You’re my Peter Pan, something to fall upon
when the real world is null and grey.

I still think of you from time to time
and remember how I felt
when I’d talk to you for hours and hours
About particularly nothing at all,
my mind said.
But my heart found a reason to be
in you
And then you went
from my little world
where the sky was always grey and
saw its first glimpse of blue
from the light of your eyes,
shining into me.

It’s a lonely existence when you think about it,
I’m surrounded and isolated all at once.
Is there anyone in this world
who shares these thoughts that
echo in my mind?
I still think of you,
but why?

You disappeared and came right back
So sheepishly, as though I’d never welcome you
back into my door, into a dusty house.
I kept a spot open for you, and everyday
I stared at the empty space that
needed to be filled
in this quiet house
in my quiet mind, that needed someone
to reassure me
that I’m still human.

I still think of you even though you probably don’t of me.
I thought those thoughts when you walked away,
and then you saw me.
You saw me standing there all alone,
trying to fill the spot you left behind
they didn’t fit, no one could.

I thought for sure you’d forgotten me, but
it was as though I saw the ghost
of you.
You were just as I remembered,
and when I told you
of that empty space I tried to fill
and that artificial fluff I tried to stuff inside,
you told me
of all of those nights
you stayed up
And thought of me.
How you’d stare at my letters,
all the things
I’d given you.

I still think of you,
But I hate to think you’ve left a second time,
third, fourth, fifth?
I lost track when I accepted,
that I was going to live this life alone and old,
my dear Peter Pan.

And a woman who held a babe against her ***** said, "Speak to us of
Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable.

I woke up on Tuesday and I was older by the calendar and the law and I said “hey that’s grand”. When I woke up on Tuesday I was also older by the symbolism and I sat wide-eyed between suitjackets on the 7:45, coffee half-down and a brand new watch on the left-wrist. I made spreadsheets. I shook hands. I was The City when I took my first swallow on the rooftop. I couldn’t see the Empire through the cold-May-fog but I could see it in the mirror and on his knuckles and in his eyes. When I woke up on Wednesday I made more spreadsheets. I made more coffee. Then I was home early and Connecticut again. But Friday was the best ******* day. The sun beat me to good-morning and my favorite gone friend ate a gyro with me and another chugalugged to 42nd street on the bright red leather across the aisle. My favorite hand to touch was there for the second drink too, and I loved my job because I admitted that I hated it, and that’s okay. And he was there again on the cusp of days, and he’s there now still between my ears, and Friday melted to the next good-morning and I’m here now, city-drunk and sky-drunk and *******-I’m-so-lucky- and wine-drunk, and dizzy on the rooftops I’m imagining are better than the ones I rule, and Sunday’s coming and I will sleep for ages and hey that’s grand.

It was a Wednesday,
the postman in glorious blue,
a horrific thin letter
in your mailbox.

Across the street
the plump woman watched,
you tore it open,
birthday present in June.

Rejections, maybe.
But no. Instead
black words
said something other.

Happiness crashed upon you,
jumping up, up and down
as if on a trampoline,
a fire, smothering the dark.

Accepted.
You called it a creative wave,
rising, frothing wildly
and falling again.

In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares

They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.