When all summed her home was
immaculate,  like pearl polished
porcelain and her maple floors
smelled of good soap and wax;
between Sunday lunch  and
dessert, she would stroll
to the bathroom
to throw-up.

Your hair falls
on my chest,

I call you
cowgirl,

you say giddy-
up horse,

hips
click.

We met beneath the mushroom
And drank dew drops from great-
grandfather's horn. Drunk we swoon
Lips of purple berry parted.

We lie on the warm belly of a hare
And it's heart like a kettle drum
Fills us to the brim with joy
Sunset and moonrise
**** we swim in a puddle
Laughing pale as newborn babes

I oft' recall the music of that laughter
When I am alone, but I am old now
And you have long since become stone

I retreat into myself
Into the corridors of me
I lounge on the well worn flagstones
Gazing on the marble columns
Arranging tapestries and paintings in
A more perfect order
I stalk down old hallways and explore unnamed galleries with a
Single candle to push back the deep
Sometimes rooms are filled with old Furniture
Sometimes entirely empty
Once feeling brave I held onto
The threshold of such a room and
Stretching out I hold the candle aloft in the chasm. Nothingness, darkness complete the light puddles at my feet pitiful.
When I recall that yawning abyss the silence of
It persists.
In ballrooms I play Chopin's waltzs' for no one  in particular
Yet I take my bow and my place at the head of a table set for a score of kings
I lay on marble steps trying to guess the riddles that my echo whispers
I climb the  towers and the spires to dizzying heights and many weeks I was lost in the labyrinth of cellars of basements of tombs beneath
I have seen strange things lately: a chair upturned or
Bed unmade, quills still wet, and doors open and shut of their own volition in the inky black
I swear I have seen before
A tall figure in a hooded cloak dart
Into the shadows, and it did not seem
Altogether human

I read for years inside my library  
And have spoken at length to Shakespeare and Plato
I have seen Yggdrasil and the seven hells
And sped through time with
H.G Wells. Of death and moon, of birds and galaxies I am enamored.
Tea with Julius Ceaser, chess with Captain Hook.
Breakfast with The Buddah
Coffee with The Christ
Did you know that Captain Ahab takes His water with a squeeze of lime? No Ice. Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain know me by my first name, I have fenced with the Gods of Olympus and of Asgard and I remain undefeated. The divine crowd my hearth and many nights have been passed here in quiet conversation, with Confucius, with Archimedes, with Epictetus, Davinci, and the brothers Grimm
I have lived ten thousand lives and Will live another ten

-Without a single thought of you-

I wander
To my garden
Gently lit by paper lanterns
The path is smooth and heady
The amber blossoms
And weathered sculptures
Make my eyelids heavy
Monuments with fists clenched beat my
Ego ******
New flowers sprout from the ivy throat
Always things are grown but never overgrowing
I steal through the hedge maze that only I know
To the secret center where no plant grows
Pavilion and pond
Where no bird sings year long
In that quiet I endeavor
To look without fear
Into the pupil of forever

My life will end
as a blank canvas
on an empty wall
in an empty house
in a street that no one remembers
I will fade into the endless black
drowned amongst
the many nameless
forgotten by all
who once swore
to remember me
I will lie dying
in a potter's field
with a wilting flower
and a first name only
I will never publish my words
and I will never show my art
And I will forget to leave this town
fading like every other here
who had big, but fragile dreams
I will always exist
but forget to live.

Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
each ****
took, at 8:00 A.M., a baby
and sauteed him for breakfast
in his frying pan.

And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.

Man is evil,
I say aloud.
Man is a flower
that should be burnt,
I say aloud.
Man
is a bird full of mud,
I say aloud.

And death looks on with a casual eye
and scratches his ****.

Man with his small pink toes,
with his miraculous fingers
is not a temple
but an outhouse,
I say aloud.
Let man never again raise his teacup.
Let man never again write a book.
Let man never again put on his shoe.
Let man never again raise his eyes,
on a soft July night.
Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
I say those things aloud.

Something
cold is in the air,
an aura of ice
and phlegm.
All day I've built
a lifetime and now
the sun sinks to
undo it.
The horizon bleeds
and ***** its thumb.
The little red thumb
goes out of sight.
And I wonder about
this lifetime with myself,
this dream I'm living.
I could eat the sky
like an apple
but I'd rather
ask the first star:
why am I here?
why do I live in this house?
who's responsible?
eh?

1331

Wonder—is not precisely Knowing
And not precisely Knowing not—
A beautiful but bleak condition
He has not lived who has not felt—

Suspense—is his maturer Sister—
Whether Adult Delight is Pain
Or of itself a new misgiving—
This is the Gnat that mangles men—