I wish you could see what I see
Than maybe you will realize
Why you mean so much to me

Time heals all wounds
But I don't ever want to be
Healed from you

I want your wounds
Deep in my flesh
Your name on my breath
Your hands in my dreams
And your face in my nightmares
I'd rather be haunted by you
Than forget you
Rather live in sweet agony
Remembering trembling
And shallow breathing
Yearning and hopelessness
Home in your arms
I'd rather die a thousand times
Than forget this

Ignore the hurt.
Ignore the pain.
Ignore the pictures.
Throw them away.

Ignore the emptiness you feel.
Just tell yourself, "it isn't real."
Maybe if you just ignore
your shattered heart upon the floor
then maybe you can just pretend
that you never lost a friend.

Never try to trick me with a kiss
Pretending that the birds are here to stay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

A stone can masquerade where no heart is
And virgins rise where lustful Venus lay:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

Our noble doctor claims the pain is his,
While stricken patients let him have his say;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Each virile bachelor dreads paralysis,
The old maid in the gable cries all day:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

The suave eternal serpents promise bliss
To mortal children longing to be gay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Sooner or later something goes amiss;
The singing birds pack up and fly away;
So never try to trick me with a kiss:
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to ****

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux ****
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
***** girl,
Thumb stump.

If I cannot love you as a lover,
Then I suppose,
I'll settle for loving you as a friend