Monday killed her, murdered in the dawn.
Wednesday bore the box wherein she lay.
Tears of Thursday saddened all the ground.
Friday swore of vengeance for the crime.
Saturday, indifferent, held his peace.
And Sunday ****** all the days to hell.

The lines are not so long today, my friend.
Stay close. Do not wander.
Our Leader has assured us
we will be fulfilled. The past
has never been as kind to us

as our Leader is today.
And all he asks from us in return
is a bit more fear,
a bit more anguish,
a bit more loathing.

Surely we can give him that,
my friend. Have you heard
the new plan the Leader has asked
us to fulfill? Such a wonderful thing,
my friend. More grain, more bread,

more meat, more fuel for everyone.
And all the Leader asks of us
is that we work even harder.
Look, my friend, the line grows shorter.
Soon we will have bread,

if any remains. We will return
to our families with food for our bellies,
and before the broken bread
we will thank our Leader
for freeing us from the tyranny

of the Left (or was it the Right?
I can't remember) that kept us
down for so long.
Trust me, my friend.
Better times are coming soon.

Breathe still for me, composed upon the sheet
you wind about my heart.
The moon is full tonight.
Her breathing is in time with yours
upon a moonlit bed. If she could die,
she would, to be as full of you
as I am. Her shining smooths
your brow where time has creased it.
How can she be more full than you,
shining, as you are, within me?
My love, if all the world must sleep
within itself, then let us ask the moon
to waken us. Perhaps she will oblige
and wrap her silver arms around your waist
as you lie dreaming of the moon upon your face.

Truth and Beauty had a quarrel, so I've heard,
(my ear pressed to the keyhole of desire.)
I heard one say, "I saw you flirt with Liar
on the couch, where Lust had gorged himself,
and later, sated as he was, he stood and watched
you play the fool, while Liar played you false."
The other answered, "Love, I could not help myself,
for Liar took your form. I beg you to forgive me."

I often think of words like these, especially
when walking on the beach, where waves are clasping
hands together, whispering foamy words in
salted ears; or in the woods, where one pine
strokes another in the wind, and says,
"O my lover, yes my lover,
rub me that way one more time."

Your mind became no longer yours,
dear one. It escaped somehow
from fissures in your skull and,

sulking, retired to some distant corner.
Duality became you, while you became
unknown to all, an ever present terror

on the street. Did your anger crawl
beneath the sheets at night and nestle,
snarling, at your feet? Mere despair

became a blessing. Gods in ghostly white,
mindful of your tortured psyche,
dispensed therapy and pills-

an endless communion. I knelt there
with you, upon the alter unforgiving,
and in my lucid mind I prayed,

Bless me dear, for I have sinned
against you, neither of us knowing
how or why, as reason passed us by.

I once loved a woman who walked in the day-
My love was returned when she looked in my way-
And sweet was the bed where my lover would lay
in the crook of my arm
in the hollow of my arm
in the crook and the hollow of my arm.

Then soon came the day when she said, "We must wed"-
And cold grew the heart, and empty the bed-
And Death was the thing that I saw there instead
in the crook of her arm
in the hollow of her arm
in the crook and the hollow of her arm.

Now I go a-walking in woods of the night-
Where hoot owls are calling, and moonshine is bright-
And soon they will find me, my head hanging white
in the crook of my arm
in the hollow of my arm
in the crook and the hollow of my arm.

Get down from there, my old man said,
before you hurt yourself.
Me and Little Sis were playing
in the hayloft where all the bales
were piled up high- so high

they liked to touch the barn roof.
I always liked to play
in the fortress the bales made,
like the castles and forts
in the picture book on Grandma's shelf

in the parlor. Pa and Grandpa
worked all day getting in the hay,
and when the day was done
they would sit in the parlor
and take turns drinking from the jug

on the shelf. After a while they would
start singing and cracking jokes
and acting kind of foolish,
and Grandma would holler at them
and tell them to act their age,

and when they got all tuckered out
Grandma would put the cork back in
the jug and put it back on the shelf.
One time I was out playing in the barn,
and I heard voices in the hayloft,

sort of a rustling sound, and now and then
a giggle, and I looked and saw
Big Sis and the farmhand playing
in the hay, and they saw me and
yelled at me, telling me to go away

and leave them alone. Later on
I saw where Big Sis was getting kind of fat
in the belly, and I said something
about it, and Big Sis got all mad
and threw her milk cup at me.

Pa said something like that's what happens
when girls make hay on their own,
and Grandma said that ain't
the right kind of hay to make,
and Big Sis got kind of red in the face.

I only ever saw Pa and Grandpa
make the hay, and when I asked them
what it all meant, they only chuckled,
and told me to go out and play.
I guess maybe I'll figure it out someday.

A woman made of paper lies in bed.
Skin like parchment curls around her frame.

The tubes that tie her arms to bed
buzz like ****** in her veins.

A man of God stands by her bed
bearing brutal sabbaths in his hands.

His fingers made of paper, fingernails aflame.
And all the wasp woman wants

is to stretch her crispy paper wings
and fly away to heaven.

Say there, you old fool,
what have you been up to?
Day and night you chase the moon
till daylight comes again. Why?
Her glow is much the lesser light
than yours. Don't you know
her sheen is you reflected?
Yet you persist, while other
stellar bodies stay neglected.
Best not to fuss with Venus-
her Mars is much too jealous.
Mercury is much too hot, thanks to you,
and Earth is way too quarrelsome.
Saturn would run rings around you,
and as for Jupiter? I know
of no planet stupider. Neptune
is altogether frosty, and Uranus
is simply out of the question,
in this or any other dimension.
And Pluto hardly seems a proper
planet anymore- not in this galaxy,
that's for sure. No, old Sol,
you'd best retain your sorry lunar love-
as the moon evades your grasp
and flirts with stars above.

The ancient ones, when warfare came to stay,
knew what to do. They combed their hair
upon the rocks. Blades grew keen and bright.
Greaves were fastened sure about their *****.
Heads encased in helmets; eyes grew somber.
Return with all your shields, the women cried,
or else upon them. Battle smeared their tunics
red with blood. Some came home, and some
found homes where spirits are embraced.

Their descendants know a different way of war,
more lethal and more telling-
the bombard and the mass assault,
the arquebus and pike,
the canister and cannon,
the minie ball and shell,
mustard gas and trench mortar,
the blitzkrieg and the mushroom cloud,
cluster bomb and ******,
and silent death from above.

Some believe the noble way
is killing face-to-face-
but I confess that death at distance
also has its place.
Ancient peoples fought their battles
firmly on the ground-
but we fight on a sea of war,
and we must swim, or drown.

This is not a lover's kiss
nor nightingale's delight-
this is neither cri de coeur
nor passion burning bright.

This is not a young girl's wish
nor whispers in a breeze-
these are merely careless words
that lovers beg from me.

in the night
lightning heats the summer sky
no warmer than her smile

upon this night
the moon shines full upon the face
that sings to me

The guests have gone. No one came to stay.
All the cigarettes have burned away.

Mother wishes she could drink some more.
The bourbon bottles have no more to pour.

Her anger turns to tenderness instead.
Her ***** kisses send us off to bed.

Under a raw red dusting of sky
stands the old man's dream.
"Colts want breaking, first thing,"
he says, chewing his words like fatback.

The mare stands mute within her stall,
neighing softly for her son.
The old man grabs the bridle of the colt,
leading it down the ***** of the corral-

But the beast is having none of it.
Electric is the blood within his breast,
a living wire of flesh. He stampedes
through the dirt, dragging the old man,

the rope's harsh friction slashing at his palms.
I see the colt, now fully charged,
tearing through the fence,
a frail and helpless wire electrified.

"Leroy!" I hear my mother cry behind me
as the old man tumbles in the dust.
"*** over teakettle," grunts the farmhand,
gnashing at his plug like fodder.

Ripped and bleeding, the colt's flank lies open.
"Aw hell," my father says, as he lies,
benumbed, covered with dust,
under a raw red dusting of sky.

I went into the kitchen the other day.
The salt and pepper shakers
were quarreling on the table.
The dish and the bowl
made a ruckus in the cupboard.
The bacon and the eggs
wrestled madly in the pan.
The toast leaped from the toaster,
crying, "You've burnt me again!"
I should have stayed in bed that day,
for no good will come from a breakfast of chaos.

Horsey, horsey, don't you stop,
Make your feet go clippetty-clop
And make your tail go swish
And your wheels go 'round-
Giddyup! We're homeward bound!

I like to travel through the country,
I like to travel through the town.
I like to hear old Dobbin's clippetty-clop,
I like to see the wheels go 'round.

Nobody lived in a village green-
Nobody wed the girl of dreams.
Nobody worked, and nobody earned-
Nobody fought, and nobody learned.
Nobody planned, and nobody schemed-
Nobody hoped, and nobody dreamed.
Nobody loved, and nobody lost-
Nobody knew what love would cost.
Nobody laughed, and nobody cried-
Nobody lived, and nobody died.

Spinning in her silken gyre,
all the bugs obey her laws.
The gods bestow their plain desire.
Dear girl, the fly awaits your jaws.