Once upon a time my name
Was bloodlust,
And in its Stygian fury I came
Like thermonuclear landscaping.

I became that furnace
Into which all
Bad ideas are tossed, and which
Generates the white hot,
Ghost hound heat
To fuel a motor,
To fill a peoples’ festering maw,
Their yawning, gurgling need
For macabre dances,
And human plane crashes.

It went like that for uncounted eons,
Only mentioned in bleakly
Humorous passing,
And spoken by dry tongues, and
Unbrushed teeth.

I danced, and crashed, and
Held court on Hell’s balcony
While the sun shed morning blood,
Again and again.
All the while, black smoke built up like
Silt on the popcorn ceiling.
That **** ceiling, which dropped
Little dreams and teasers on the carpet
To be pried out by desperate fingers
Which only proved themselves to be plaster
After I had snorted them.
That **** ceiling.

The audience, for being so large, was so quiet
Biting their knuckles, and waiting, breathless
For the final blitzkrieg that would have rendered my Poland
A cratered waste.
I did not want to disappoint, crawling like a pig
Sniffing, searching, sweating, and
Not wanting to let them down.

I used to want to be in love,
And read Pablo Neruda in the sun
On creaking porch steps in spring,
Understanding, it wasn’t always hard like this

It wasn’t always hard like this,
It once was fresh, like cut grass
Without the splendid stains of ***
And the strange maturity it imbues.
It wasn’t always hard like this,
It once was gorgeous, plain-spoken but
Warm and glowing as it welled up
In me and through you.
It wasn’t always hard like this,
We used to talk,
On your moonlight bed
and in my cluttered closet.
Our voices carried by phone line.
Across the city, and under the night.
We talked for so long,
Untill the dawn broke like
Rose petals, and orange peels.

But I miss you,
Your sweet-wax smell
And your cherry lip gloss,
My darling, once half
To my unfinished whole,
I miss you,
I remember reading Keats
To you in sunny lawn chairs,
Time forgot us both.

I would hug bones,
small fossils, to my chest
as if they,
like an errant breeze,
contained lost gods.

So many silent, semi-potent ghosts
melted away like
salted ice
on the long road
past my door.

In keeping their sands and secrets,
the feast of their tombs,
I search frantically beneath
palms, and dates, and acacias
for the last morsels of antiquity.

An anchor, perhaps, to
the vainglorious fictions
written by bloodied generals
and sunken eyed conquerors.
The chain rope of skepticism
pulling me deep into
and old- old river.

Sand rises; silt and watery dust,
filled to the brim with
old oil drums and drangon bones,
becomes the last venue
in which I find the
pitiful and incomprehesible demoralization
of my alcoholic fever dream

So you want a ******* piece.
A piece of my body? A malfunction?
Then I’ll cut into myself with half chewed nails
And the bread knife by my bed.
I’ll pry out my hope for you.
I’ll pry out this malfunction
For your hungry eyes,

I’ll **** into your voyeurism,
And I’ll cough into your open mouths,
And I’ll pour my hate, the me that you hate
Over your tongue and down your
Quivering throat.

What doesn’t work on me?

My **** doesn’t work after days and days
Of shoveling draino, baby laxative, and *******
Into my face.

My legs don’t work after leaving
The ninth funeral I’ve been to this year,
In a black suit that’s threadbare
Far before it’s time.

My heart doesn’t work after loving,
And loving, and
Loving,
And having her **** my best friend.
  
I’ve seen myself starve.
I’ve seen myself die.
I’ve seen versions of myself
Come and go like setting and rising suns,
Waxing and waning moons,
That I could count a thousand ******* years
Of terror by their deaths and births


Have my hope, darlings.
Care for it and love it,
And wipe the blood off it.
It is all I have left to give
To you, this hope.

It will remain unwrapped,
Unribboned, unshorn, and
Bare. For you.
I give you my hope.

Go home sleeper.
Go home,
Rest tired arms,
And worn soles.

Go back, alone
Though you may be,
Smiles and old heart beats
Wait for you.

Go, sleeper, go.
Leave us the last
Few steps to take,
And beds to make.

Go out across the night
Forward to dawn.
Go and leave us be,
Following soon enough.

Go.
What you've given
Is ours now.
What you take with you
Was given gladly.
Go.
Your smile will linger long
To warm tired mouths.
Your kindness will yet
Dry crying eyes.
Your love will ripple 
Across eternity's water,
Until we meet again, 
On the other shore.

So go, sleeper.
And know that you
Are just beyond our dreams...
Just beyond the bend...
Just so.

Godspeed.