a soft packet of Marlboro's seems ****
these days,
and can i be the flirting first
to give a **** movie critique?
three black guys,
a white girl -
elephantiasis thoroughly established -
no, not the ******* part, the thing you flinch
as to have said: embraced -
      i'd be called a knife-weaving loner with
that sort of dangle -
    and there's me thinking:
that thing is readied for a Serena Williams'
buttocks - it's doubly pelvic in terms
of gravity, how many more inches
do you actually need to bypass those
*******? 12" ain't enough!
              plus, given the size of the actual
thing, how much of it will you actually
get soaked in phlegm while she ***** it
off into an ice-cream? i'd say a third if
not a fifth of it - the rest is kinda lost...
you need an African girl with enough
**** to tickle the tip of that skyscraper you'll
never get to build.
hard looking at the truth, isn't it?
you sorta hope it were a Pythagorean sample
of lecture notes on a beach on Rhodes...
      **** me: and they told me i was naive
but there's still
that:
and all that Darwinism and white self-loathing
to eradicate colonialism -
those 12" chocolate extensions were there
with fat enough bums... 'cos' you had to
bypass enough third-party jiggles
to get to the opportune part of insemination -
white girls and their ******* idea
of a shortcut... well done...
if you have an *** that's bulging enough
to be called the double pelvic or what
geneticists call the double-helix:
then i'd mind singing: and i am a tripod too!
believe me: in 20 years time Kubrick will
not be relevant... **** on the other hand?
next to the apples at a market stall.
               and i am holding a packet of
Marlboro's in my hand, a soft-packet,
sexier than Kenyan Camels sold without
filters (in a soft packet also) -
                  i'm still wondering about the white
girls' shortcut... a ******* tried to make me
strangle her neck by saying: all the black
boys have it... inch for inch...
               i told her: i bought an hour of gymnastic flex,
not your opinions.
         then in dodo the theta goes missing
when everything goes albino crazy when stated
in: discotheque -      techno oceanic -
                         tec (as: shortened) -
odd, isn't it: we are perpetually stating the halves -
never really the blunt obvious,
      charismatic loss of dynamo of language -
oh i'm not jealous, i'm thinking of all the things
i don't have to buy: perfumes, jockstraps,
     daffodils, we're-strangers-type-of-dinner-dates:
        let's freshen things up: escapades Francais -
the new risque - pervert dogs ******* strangers'
legs in the escalator sort of: till death do us part.
                       i just have 12" of concept
in a Nigerian buttocks to define gravitational
                                            pistons when
           that excess is matched with a buttock that's
twice an armchair: and only half to the said, ****:
or what i like to call the onomatopoeia filter:
         it doesn't sound like i'm knocking on a door
and the subsequent opening -
it sounds like i'm knocking on a crocodile's cranium
                and the ****** thing never shuts up!

You're fine, son
I'm worried
You should be
relax
I'm scared dad
It's okay
I don't want to lose her
You might not
But
You need to stop doubting
I can't face this
If she has the heart you think you've found
You need to be what you speak of and keep it

I know she loves me
but she has a hard road ahead of her
You know what, perhaps she doesn't?
Perhaps your worries are your own
Yes they are dad, mine alone but
Then don't lose her by hiding away!
deep breaths

But dad, what about mum?

It's cold in my living room and the kitchen and the bedroom and the grocery store aisles
It's cold during hot showers and long hours and morning coffee and humid afternoons
It's cold under blankets and sheets and stars and in bed
It's cold in my bones and my lungs and my skin and my blood
It's cold wherever you aren't
And its coldest in the place you left your fires burning in my heart

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
once
you
knew?

I'm riding home on the Colma train
I've got the voice of the milky way in my dreams

I have teams of scientists
feeding me data daily
and pleading I immediately
turn it into poetry

I want just this consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies
contained in my speech

I am the desirous earth
equidistant to the underworld
and the flesh of the stars

I am everything already lost

the moment the universe turns transparent
and all the light shoots through the cosmos

I use words to instigate silence

I'm a hieroglyphic stairway
in a buried Mayan city
suddenly exposed by a hurricane

a satellite circling earth
finding dinosaur bones
in the Gobi desert
I am telescopes that see back in time

I am the precession of the equinoxes,
the magnetism of the spiraling sea

I'm riding home on the Colma train
with the voice of the milky way in my dreams

I am myths where violets blossom from blood
like dying and rising gods

I'm the boundary of time
soul encountering soul
and tongues of fire

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I can't sleep
because my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the earth was unraveling?

I want just this consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies
contained in my speech


©2003

Better natured today than yesterday,
smelling less like cigarettes and more
like laundry detergent, you sit across
from your therapist at the bar and
ask for one more boilermaker.
You say, How do you desire what you already possess?

And your therapist says, Don't go down that drunk.
That's a bad drunk.

You're in a floral print A-line dress, one
you bought from your sister-in-law.
She's doing one of those multilevel marketing things
and though her Facebook posts make you want
to suicide yourself, she's happy and independent
and at home with her kids. Despite these lukewarm
feelings, you harbor some resentment as you finger
and thumb a seam that's already coming undone.

Sloane. Your husband keeps mentioning a woman
at the office named Sloane. You're at the bar,
almost alone, and promised yourself
you wouldn't think about Sloane. But here you are.
Sloane in a pencil skirt and stockings. Sloane
with a fresh ****** energy, the kind you can't
seem to summon, and you wonder why ***
is such an important thing. It's so brief,
forgettable, full of abject compromise.

*** is an inherently violent act, don't you think?
You say to the therapist.  

If your therapist hears you, he doesn't respond.
You don't repeat the question.

You watch yourself broadcast on the TV above the bar.
They're commenting on your hair and your arms
and going on and on about your likability.

Your therapist changes the mood. It's 6:30.
He gives the place a nighttime feel.
He kills a row of lights and turns on the
colored bulbs, the blues and greens.
The TV is turned down. The music is turned up.

This is what you've been waiting for, the lights, the music.
There's an hour before anyone really shows up. You can
close your eyes and drift.

Two or three drinks pass. A couple walks in.
You have your therapist put in for an Uber.

Maybe I've been asking the question the wrong way, you say.

Oh yeah? the therapist says.

Yeah. Maybe the question should be reversed.
Maybe the question should be
how do you remain desirable to the objects you possess?

That seems like a lot of work. Seems like you'd have no
sense of self. You'd always be bending.

I've been a plus one for a long time.
You say bending. But I wouldn't be
doing anything new. I already do all these things.
But I see them as a compromise. I'm just trying
to reframe, you know?

Why? your therapist asks.

You open your mouth and find no words. You smile. You say you've had too much. You're rambling. You're sorry. You better go.