I can’t think of myself as anyone else
I haven’t the slightest idea
After six months, I shall do what you wish
That’s not true
It’s not true. I tell you it’s not true!
Not another word
What’s the matter with him?
I feel that he is my equal
That’s all right, then! That’s all right, then!
Let’s say I’m not worthy of it
When I look a man in the eyes
I become incapable of giving him orders
I’m going out
Don’t believe a word of it
You’ll be more comfortable
“There you’re really yourself”

As a child in primary school
curled beneath a black coat
with neon-pink and -yellow zippers, empty pockets
holding my chest
beside two gray recess doors.
I’d pretend it was my living room,
with no visitors.
Watched t.v., mainly, and not talk on the phone.
Drank apple-juice beer from my concocted fridge
on my green recliner chair
until the doors opened and my building fell
apart.

I moved to an apartment
on a busy city street-- no green
recliner:
no beer, no t.v.
Stealing internet from Burmese-jungle refugees
to read about food shortages, and indiscriminate mass killings.
Beside the doors with
zipped zippers, and isolated goosebumps--
Monkey bar plucking, screaming
running and jumping-- trip and fall
in love, dancing haphazardly-- well
until the sound of a bell.

Die Tuer ist geoeffnet und leer
Im Zimmer liegt Kopf um Kopf
Und Dunkelheit ueberall
Im Tiefsten, am tiefsten
Der Herzschlag, ich
Schlug, der Schlag
Durch die Tuer
Doch die Tuer ist schon geoeffnet
Und leer



[The Open Heart

The door is opened and empty
in the room lies head upon head
and darkness all around
in the deepest, most deeply
the heartbeat, I
beat, the beat
through the door
of course the door is already opened
and empty]

Nod, vociferous lackey,
Agree that it will end just fine
You raise that hand to me, dying vine behind
Acknowledge every burning sun-drop
Culling and surmounting your radii--
Misled and triumphant
You're half of that.
Vast plantations of regrowth and abysmal
Serendipity in life?
No more;
Cut off-- a world harvest
Of blood, and blue-black poison
In the fields spewed
Once,
Not again
Not there-- again, the stalks
Lay dormant from your careless sickle
Numbers and numbers
Insurmountable

Fissured seams-- shutter widens and catches
Black foreground on sky
Whirlpool current
Order
Yawning underneath
Swallows
Handel-- Cargo taken whole
Into those eager stomachs
Once more-- for all time
Greedy serpents misspend hate
With whips
Bloodying their subjects’ once dry mouths
Who offer,
with that salty ocean
Apéritif-- to quell nothing
Their meal won't be had