Hi, my name is 'TheWord'

and

I am unreliable and messy!
A symbol!
A figment of projected meaning!
A run-around!
A silhouette!

And how I have fallen in love with myself.

Word

falls from my tongue

d
   r
      i
                    p
                       s

like saliva on my floor

you tissue it up
find ways
to make it river

I smile
you understand

There appears a window
at the top of my head
and at night
the stars and moon shine
clear to my feet

Like a greenhouse in the sun
my organs are warmed
and grow stem-like arms
and bulb-like eyes
and root-like feet

When the snow melts
I stand on my hands
and open the window wide
for spring cleaning

Spin me
Roll me
Turn me
Tearing off piece by piece
Not even stopping at the skin
Do my clothes look white and fluffy?
You certainly seem to think so
And no my name is not Scott

How many wipes are left anyway
I feel emptied
Right down to the cardboard
And these **** stains
don't even come out anymore

But lovers are like a roll of toilet paper
They're always being replaced

evening
my Japanese friend returns to his room
I sit in mine
listening to the sound of rotting wood
Then she comes again
sneaking past the sleeping attendant
she looks 14
‘You want make nice nice’
No, I don’t want ‘nice nice’, I say again
She laughs
I refuse, leave my gray fungus covered hotel
walk into a temple
Rows of orange robed monks sit all around
Death not a mystery
He lies in front of me
Burning in his saffron robe
Orange smoke spiraling up
joining night clouds and moon
At midnight
they will come and take his bones
Not a mystery
later, I sit with Buddhist children
playing a guitar
They sing melodies of the east
our voices spiraling up
joining orange clouds and saffron moon

It is not yet midnight

O dear sweet rosy
     unattainable desire
...how sad, no way
     to change the mad
cultivated asphodel, the
     visible reality...

and skin's appalling
     petals--how inspired
to be so Iying in the living
     room drunk naked
and dreaming, in the absence
     of electricity...
over and over eating the low root
     of the asphodel,
gray fate...

     rolling in generation
on the flowery couch
     as on a bank in Arden--
my only rose tonite's the treat
     of my own ******.

                         Fall, 1953

Let's just face it: hai-
kus were invented in Ja-
pan and don't always...

(uggghhhhh)

Would the world make as much sense
if the sunset was green?
What if forests were silver and the
dirt was purple?
          Would love feel warm?
          Would comfort be found in fear?
Deep seas of sunflower yellow
          and mountain ranges of teal
Long roads of deep maroon
          lead us to ponds of lavender
          and caves of sapphire
Maybe in such a world
I wouldn't have forgotten trust
          Would we have met
                       or
          would we only know each other
                       in strange deja vu