I wish that I
could fall in love
with a female,
for she would make
a far better muse than
the gruff sailors and musicians
and drunks and men
in general that I am
inclined to crave.

to write about
a painted pout or
skin that brushes against
your own like nylon,
sunlight shining through
the window onto a Cupid's bow
and dancing down to
a delicate clavicle, or
black eyelashes that bat
and blink remorse
into your cavernous heart,
to muse over such aesthetic
delights, would be
ecstasy for my poetess heart.

I linger, staring, at beautiful
women, androgynous women,
delicate, feline women,
stringing words
together in my head
over long legs and
hair that flutters like silk,
and they think I'm crazy
or in love with them.
well, maybe I am crazy,
but I crawl into bed each night
with my snarling, gleaming,
mahogany gentleman,
and I love him madly,
my rugged muse.

The urge to create, to write
to paint to compose
is only a disillusioned
form of madness.

But great art can come
of madness, and
sorrow can birth
extraordinary genius,
so embrace your
defects and fault lines,
for normality
is a fate
worse than death.

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.

I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the *****! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.

lonely lonely,
you leave me so,
inside out watching
the stars burn out
in an emptying
of cosmic sorrow..

and tomorrow I know
the sun will smile at me
your kisses will taste
like honey and
the birds will romance me
with slaughtered butterflies
and sweet lamentation.

But today,
I've been tuning radio static
to white noise and
flashes of Chopin,
trying to recreate a feeling
from shadows and memory.

don't leave me lonely,
dear, make love to
me in the hypnagogic
stare of the rising sun.
play me soft as buttercups
and foxgloves;
piannissimo,
gentle as death's
watchful eye.