The New York style trumpets galore
inside this tiny, slimy world.
"Eagle hearts for ten or more!"
When he shakes his leather fist...

It cannot begin to take you back;
the style doesn't handle that
without a meal of chicken fat,
a pile of aging grist.

The style box talks and it knows all
of screams and ashes in the fall.
Must we run before we crawl
through this fine and rose-red mist?

Stylin' men and stylish girls,
with blonde and purchased stylish curls,
kick and reach for wanton pearls;
deny the fatal twist:

That each and all who know style best,
must go west, west, west,
and so begins the style ******
in a hazy, ****** mist.

Light-hearted?
     difficult.
Gloomy-eyed
     more typical.
Strangled by the umbilical,
struggling to be original.

Is this what you wanted,
my parents
(who raised me well)?
To think what others have already thought,
to follow and not dwell?

Is this the life you wished for me,
my teachers
(who taught me well)?
To believe the precious theories wrought
by fat scholars, paid well?

Light-hearted?
     difficult.
Gloomy-eyed
     more typical.
Struggling against the umbilical,
blind to the original.

Is this what you would have me believe;
that I
am just another?
To work, get paid and raise my kids
in a world that can only smother?

Light-hearted?
     impossible.
Gloomy-eyed
     most probable.
Strangled by the umbilical,
struggling to be original.

Who can write a poem
for each of your hairs,
as I can?
Sing a new song
each time you smile,
as I do?

What man wishes for you,
and only you,
each time a star falls?
Who can love you
to the point of suffering,
joyously,
exuberantly,
as I surely do?

I hope that there are many such men,
but I beg you
to just ignore them,
because they
are not me.

It begins in my jaws:
a tingling, itching vibration,
then slithers,
like thorny vines
through my veins,
to the back of my neck,
and shoots
downwards through my spine.

I sit *****, energized, enlightened,
stare into your eyes,
and then I say it:
"I love you...
I love you."

You say,
"Oh, that's nice,"
but I can see in your eyes
that you feel it too,
the closeness and the fullness,
that both our hearts are pounding
the same lover's rhythm.

I see you,
reflected in my eyes,
in my reflection
in yours:
the visage of joyous,
youthful anticipation.

We are together,
inside one another,
surrounding each other,
and I can see it all.
The smallest bit of affection,
and the largest lump of love.
I can see it,
you see,
so it finishes in my eyes.