I was at the street shops, seated below the canvas
and drinking my sake
innocent to the world
and lost to my cup
when she walked past
smooth, elegant, slow-time
her eyes straight and her manner modest
O I only had eyes for her
that was all there was, that desire
as she glided through the street
her kimono red and strewn with flowers in bloom
her scent lingering in the air
the gold clips gleaming in her black hair
O the kimono was like a cloud ablaze
that wrapped a Being from the Realm of Desires
and my own being was in chaos and stirring
and then just at the other end
just at the bend
the beauty turned her head
and she cast her eyes on me,
just a flitting look
O the beauty looked back
and it is on me she cast her binding gaze

And now, for me,
as for a madman
there is no looking back
I must go where she beckons

So, long ago
we had the Renaissance Period,
and then there was
the Baroque Period,
and then there was
the Classical Period,
and then there was
the Romantic Period,
and then we got to
the Twentieth Century,
and we called it modern
and we called it contemporary
but we can't use
those words anymore,
so I say
we call it
the Weird-*** Period,
where every artist,
musician, playwright,
composer, poet,
and so on,
were doing weird-****.
I love this period.
So, in the sixties or so
we had the killing
of music
by John Cage
in his silent piece,
and the death
of painting
in the blank canvas,
and there must have been
a blank piece of paper
that was a poem,
and then
we had the rebirth
of art
in the work
of the minimalists,
and of course,
don't forget
the conceptual artist
who had himself shot,
so now,
we are well into
the Twenty-First Century,
so it must be
the Post Weird-*** Period,
but maybe
we should call it
the Bizarro Period,
or something like that.

I hop into a bed most nights,


                         most nights I take my ******* off and if I’m lucky then there’s something soft like a blanket knit by my grandmother’s hand or sometimes the boorish **** of a man, it’s all the same;

something soft to soothe my soul at night.

sometimes I paint my lips the scarlet of a harlot so that my smirk will weaken someone at the knees,
                         I only hope; and to get into my bed at night they need only say please, brush my dissipated face
with their disappointed fingers
and then whisper you could be so beautiful… and the loneliness consumes me,
then it begins to confuse me
and I could hide in here for days simply staring at a picture,
or I could drink it all away with a girl and then I’d kiss her

    but it’s all the same escape; I’m just trying to soothe my soul with something soft tonight.