Five years old and they
   could not hear me in the backyard --
   I called out, the gate was locked and
  the screen door, mesh frayed at the handle,
  was locked too -- I could see it --
  and they still couldn't hear me and I
     was afraid and the mesh
     was frayed and my little finger
         just barely fit through and then
             aunt Lucy came and made sure
                 that I was punished.

(The reward for my fear was
the most frightening and humiliating
experience of my childhood)

                   I hid.

"Get out here!" my father yelled
and his voice made me flinch and
trembling I unhid.

       my uncle and aunt watched
as my father spanked me
harder and angrier than ever before,

       my uncle and aunt watched
the shock of every blow
reverberating
through my tiny body
                                    until

       my uncle and aunt watched
everything let go
and I ****** myself on the floor
in front of them

weeping and violated

I do not remember what was said after

they left the room and
I was alone with my shame
while the sun fell the walls
faded blue the ride home
was silent --

-- all over some torn mesh
      and doors they should not have locked.

When writing about oneself
ceases to scratch that awful
self-absorbed itch,

and the heart realizes
that writing about others
and what they've done to us
is the same itch masked
in a fresh disguise,

the trail of words
leads away from "I"  --

   like breadcrumbs
   dropped at intervals
      for poetic feet
         to follow --

            -- at last finding the untamed

where one is more than a mouthpiece
for sorrow or rage,

   for ignorant opinion or
       self-righteous argument  --

where the horizons are bounded
not by fear but imagination --

The irony: what one keeps thinking about,
one keeps thinking about
convinced that integrity depends
on never letting go.

Egotism
fettered by a soul
feels sorriest for itself.

Dazzled by
the glamour of robber barons,
   a **** fetishist
      shills for feudal revival
         ambidextrously flogging
      bleach-white equestrian bones
   eventually dying
a looter's death.

Most spend their days
obsessed with themselves:

   how the hair looks,
   do the teeth sparkle,
   what others think of them,
   whether they're happy enough,
   opinions about others' opinions,
   the validity of their arguments
   their educations

   their careers
   their achievements
   their expectations

      their fading youth
      their politics
      their legacy

         their entitlement
         the imminence of irrelevance
         the safeguards against

            their avatars
            their audiences
            their likes

               Biding time with empty
               distractions and temporal
               snares keeping the mind
               oriented to survival.

This
is what it means
to be self-centered.

She's a rainbow

-- that rainbow in every
rock song about nothing,
a hidden hook that snares
a sucker's wallet

   *I'm so hot for her, I'm so hot for her

She
is the philosopher's stone transmuting
garbage lines into shiny trinkets
in desirous minds

   When you're old, nobody will know
   that you was a beauty

         What would pop culture be
         without woman to exploit?

   She's a gooooooood girl
   crazy 'bout Elvis

Obscured, behind
the Micks and Pettys
   the Kellys and Ushers
      the Pauls wailing MAMAAAAA
         the free spirit groupie cliché

is Woman fictionalized
by peacocking pimps
deceptive plumage splayed

is Woman
   sung about
   talked at
   reduced to an abstraction
   dispensed with
   forgotten
   and sold
   and the men
get rich.