the end gets harsh. many of you
now fall pray to doubt.
nobody forces anybody, but somebody,
nevertheless, must give the orders.

the acids have grown lazy and fat.
something more cruel than they are must be found.
if you give up now, if you do it now of all times,
neither the tomb nor the sky will cover you sufficiently.

you are the possessors of the alternative and this is
the only one. that's why i've talked to you about her
in so many ways.
the little that is about to disappear lies now
only in you and in your power.

a black shell pulls to the shore.
i didn't say that everybody is climbing aboard.
but the quiet fright with which we work on the stars
will stop them from falling for a while.

Ioan Es. Pop**, from *the livid worlds

we knock on the doors for them to open, to
let us out, but those on the other side don't hear us and
they too knock on the doors for us to open and let them out
and when they open it's ourselves we bump into
but we don't pay attention to ourselves and we say we want out
and they say we want in, don't take the door away with you,
we wouldn't have anything to open on the way out,
there would remain a blank spot in the wall,
we won't find any way to get out.

Ioan Es. Pop**, from *the livid worlds

his darkness became
tainted by my red

i burst like the sunrise
on the canvas of his skin,
raw and hot, red, red, red

i set flame to the somber
blues we'd once painted
our skin deep with.

kissing the echoes of
our past, but always
pulling away too soon.

i was too red, too vibrant.

he didn't like the taste
i left on his tongue
it was bitter like him,
it stung of the past he'd
tried to bury on my lips

my skin would ash
but he'd miss the flames.
my pulse would gallop
and intrude like
summer into his veins.

tonight, something a little
stronger than poison
runs through my veins

it festers, intangible,
pretty like belladonna,
sweet like nightshade

it sways in the wind
of my lungs, it has it's
own tune you see.

i know it's a plague,
like him, we've all
been infected once.

tonight, it's angry,
venomous,
gardens of deep rose

and happiness returns
to being but a distant,
wavering sun.

I like to stroke your hair
till my hands get electric
free in between the echoes, desires
your touch so easy that
I start biting all the half truths
and stop dreaming about the other side
of the moon
your hot soles without breaks:
I feel like a woman
blessed with
love-days

smothered.
the word(s).

a hissed
centipede,
the millepede
of lowering fear.

a smoothed
inner cracking.

this crater
of smoky numbness.

*(why can't i tell
you
my love?)