They say that only man
can know of death-
but you, old dog, you knew

the pain within your eyes
would mingle with the sadness
in our own. How tactful

was the vet, as her tender needle
probed your shaved flesh.
A final shudder of your lungs,

then all was still. No more
lusting after scruffy *******,
no more fetch the ball,

no more flying disc, ragged from
your teeth, no more the eager whine
when we arrive. Perhaps someday

we will be as strong and true
to life as you have been
to the death that took

your pain away
and left us longing
for your furry love.

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.

I let my cat outside the other day
(or perhaps he escaped- I don't recall)
he stayed away all night and day

then he returned- his freedom spent
with a furry present- a small brown
victim clenched within his jaws

he dropped the thing at my feet
at first the mouse was still
then fear took hold as it ran

the beast pounced and seized and released
eager paws batted prey to and fro
then the final act- the curtain drawn

and as I watched I could not help but think
how kind of cat and mouse
to play and die for our amusement

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.

The blood that rushes in the womb
unfolds the waking of desires.
My fingers gather round the cord
and pull me, heaving, to your smiles.

In the valley of forever
where yesterday once ruled
we walked in hand together
in country spare and cruel.

I let the child within myself
embrace another's heart
but soon I found myself deceived
alone, and more apart.

The soul that yearns for solace
seeks another place and time
a place where truth and righteousness
are king and queen in mind.

Such journeys are but simple paths
bestrewn with bitter roses
that pressed within an ancient book
once opened, never closes.

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.

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.

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 had forgotten what it looked like,
the death of a tree. Somehow
it all came back to me-

the empty hilltop holding it alone,
denuded of its bark. Somewhere
inside its core, the tree lived

the forgetfulness of death. Perhaps
it was the beetles and the grubs
that did it- although I doubt

the old boy ever knew what hit it.
High upon its former crown,
where freshened leaves once had grown,

grew a jagged slash that lightning
tore asunder. I'm sure the limbs
defied the angry thunder, while

creepers hugged the trunk and limbs together.
Above, the surly buzzards glided by,
wrapped up in a most indifferent sky.

O
elves
tanenbaum
tree top angels
babes in mangers
toy soldiers marching
nut crackers cracking
putting elves on shelves
those eggnog swilling elves
all the pretty ribbons and bows
rudolph blows his ****** red nose
where did the wise men put the gifts
drunken daddy passed out in a snowdrift
why are the **** lights always so tangled up
twelve day hangover makes me sick as a pup
and the
******
elves

How dismal is the burning of the day
       as dusk ensues.        
Emerging from her burrow

               she tests her brittle light-
ON            OFF          ON          OFF
               her abdomen cold, yet hungry.

She seeks a mate-
               or so the males believe.
Tempted by her spark,

               they answer back.
The scanty light remaining
               reveals her true design-

the chewing jaws, the male deceived-
               while ragged cornstalks whisper,
               waving
                     goodnight
                           goodnight
                                   goodbye.

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.

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.

It smells of dead smoke and stale beer.
A faded barfly warms an ancient stool.
Her cigarette stabs at stale air.
The sax man solos. He's cute, she thinks.
He plays a lick, leers at her, and winks.

How desperate is the sun to stay afloat,
the sullen burning orange. The gulls
are not yet sated here,

quarreling for scraps and tidbits
clinging to the crusted foam
at water's edge. A buoy stands alert,

the bay's floating sentinel. Nearby,
an angler, struggling in the gloom,
strains to pull his tarpon in.

The harbor master knocks the rosy embers
from his pipe and, shrugging,
wipes his salty chin. In the water

by the tiki bar, a manatee disturbs
the surface, bobbing for rainwater
engendered by a sudden storm.

Refreshed, she spies a drunk, and disappears.
How quickly even purple fades to grey,
to twilight, and then the eager nothing.

Still, insufficient creatures that we are,
we feel the surging in our marrow,
pulling us further, further out to sea.

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.

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."

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.

The man-god stands apart,
burnishing his youth.

The sword he clutches drips
with gore more green than red.

The sisters hover round
her broken frame and murmur,

Pity, pity. Their tresses hiss
and snarl, coiling, writhing,

coiling, writhing. Her serpents
lap her clotting blood. Her sisters

stretch their leather wings
and fly to purge the bitter gall

of their revenge, singing,
Sorry sister, Better you than us.

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

the lotus of spring
eight petals floating in torrents
freshened by sudden rain

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

the old man naps
sudden snore erupts
startled child cries out

frosted autumn moon
shining in the bottom
of my saki cup

your smile
is all the poetry
i crave

the winter tree
how it yearns to be
the summer tree