I keep falling in love
with my mother,
I dont want to hurt her
-Of all people to hurt.

Every time I see her
she's grown older
But her uniform always
amazes me
For its Dutch simplicity
And the Doll she is,
The doll-like way
she stands
Bowlegged in my dreams,
Waiting to serve me.

And I am only an Apache
Smoking Hashi
In old Cabashy
By the Lamp.

one April dusk the
sallow street-lamps were turning
snowy against a west of robin’s egg blue when
i entered a mad street whose

mouth dripped with slavver of
spring
chased two flights of squirrel-stairs into
a mid-victorian attic which is known as
O ΠΑΡΞΕΝΩΝ
                      and having ordered
yaoorti from
Nicho’
settled my feet on the

ceiling inhaling six divine inches
of Haremina   in
the thick of the snick-
er of cards and smack of back-

gammon boards i was aware of an entirely
***** circle of habitués their
faces like cigarettebutts, chewed
with disdain,     led by a Jumpy

***** who played each
card as if it were a thunderbolt red-
hot     peeling
off huge slabs of a fuzzy

language with the aid of an exclamatory
tooth-pick
And who may that
be i said exhaling into

eternity as Nicho’ laid
before me bread
more downy than street-lamps
upon an almostclean

plate
“Achilles”
said
Nicho’

“and did you perhaps wish also shishkabob?”