“There’s a strange stalker in my chest, walking fast, unable to rest.”

And how you know it,
feel it every day,
sleep with its weight
as your comfort and dismay.
A blanket of shame to wrap yourself in;
another way to get warm,
another game to play.
Sleep alone and sleep thin
thoughts, weave them into dreams
until you feel distraught.
You
killed
a child
you
didn’t
want,
moved away back to Vermont.

Spanish

   Yo hacía una divina labor, sobre la roca
Creciente del Orgullo. De la vida lejana,
Algún pétalo vívido me voló en la mañana,
Algún beso en la noche. Tenaz como una loca,
Sequía mi divina labor sobre la roca.

   Cuando tu voz que funde como sacra campana
En la nota celeste la vibración humana,
Tendió su lazo do oro al borde de tu boca;

  —Maravilloso nido del vértigo, tu boca!
Dos pétalos de rosa abrochando un abismo…—

Labor, labor de gloria, dolorosa y liviana;
¡Tela donde mi espíritu su fue tramando él mismo!
Tú quedas en la testa soberbia de la roca,

Y yo caigo, sin fin, en el sangriento abismo!


              English

I was at my divine labor, upon the rock
Swelling with Pride. From a distance,
At dawn, some bright petal came to me,
Some kiss in the night. Upon the rock,
Tenacious a madwoman, I clung to my work.

When your voice, like a sacred bell,
A celestial note with a human tremor,
Stretched its golden lasso from the edge of your mouth;

—Marvelous nest of vertigo, your mouth!
Two rose petals fastened to an abyss…—

Labor, labor of glory, painful and frivolous;
Fabric where my spirit went weaving herself!
You come to the arrogant head of the rock,

And I fall, without end, into the ****** abyss!

He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide,
He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside;
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair,
With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear

He was very poor and humble and content with what he got,
So we fed him bones and biscuits, till he heartened up a lot;
Then he growled and grew aggressive, treating orders with disdain,
Till at last he bit the butcher, which would argue want of brain.

Now the butcher, noble fellow, was a sport beyond belief,
And instead of bringing actions he brought half a shin of beef,
Which he handed on to Fido, who received it as a right
And removed it to the garden, where he buried it at night.

'Twas the means of his undoing, for my wife, who'd stood his friend,
To adopt a slang expression, "went in off the deepest end",
For among the pinks and pansies, the gloxinias and the gorse
He had made an excavation like a graveyard for a horse.

Then we held a consultation which decided on his fate:
'Twas in anger more than sorrow that we led him to the gate,
And we handed him the beef-bone as provision for the day,
Then we opened wide the portal and we told him, "On your way."

It's thirteen below outside
Fingers are cramping, they're afraid of this temperature
My nose and ears soon follow my finger's fright
*** on a cold passenger seat
I can feel my spine begin to settle in to frozen comfort
Maybe if I had a cigarette, I could light the end
Stick the burning leaves to my ice cold hand
Thinking to myself
Maybe this is what love feels like

O Love! thou makest all things even
In earth or heaven;
Finding thy way through prison-bars
Up to the stars;
Or, true to the Almighty plan,
That out of dust created man,
Thou lookest in a grave,--to see
Thine immortality!

They enter my office
and I am their landfill
They take a cozy seat
on my blue heartbroken couch
They unload all of their garbage
One by one
a banana peel of tears
an alluminum leftover
of regret
and as their tainted trash
piles to the cieling
I take it all from them
with nothing in return
I offer them a clean towel
and an uncluttered
clear hope
And I genuinely
love them for it

I will take all of your dirt
and brown disgust
you've held in bins
all these years
once a week
as long as you want
my beautiful dears

Rest
in
peace
Herb.

It's
just
over
a year
now

since
you
delivered
that
'hot shot'.

Did
you
send
it
into
your
veins.

Or
did someone
overdose
you,

did
some
one
other
than
your
self
give
you
that
lethal
injection.

Maybe
some
pretty
little
lady
that
had
you
wrapped
around
her
finger
'cause
she
needed
a little
rock
and
roll.

The
day
after
this
had
happened,
I
found
myself
knocking
at your
door...


Funny
how
things
work
isn't
it..




I miss you herb.

© copyright 2012