We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

Stone and stone
and black street
of these concrete
paths.
a laugh
from burning man,
the bloated veined man,
that stands on his kingdom,
that stands on stone and stone.
the yellow teeth,
gold like his withered kingdom,
that both host refusal,
refusal
to shine under
sun or thunder's
roar,
for
he's a king,
the king
of stone and stone
and the needle his queen.
oh gentle queen!
caress him with a kiss,
a last cold kiss,
"goodnight
goodnight".

Alt-Title:Prince of  the Street/ Filth and his Highness