How can I tell someone like you
That I need you?  You expect me
To lie, to say I'll be all right.
I never could avoid the truth;
You say it's easy, with practice.
Soon enough it's second nature.

I should be kissing your shoulders

What can be ever sung, a fraction of
The pain that's splintered on the sun & moon,
Ignoring Venus with her clouded cuff,
Swift Mercury in retrograde till June.
Red god of war, the ******, marches through
The stations of the terroristic cross,
As body counts become the evening news.
And Jove, enormous father,  albatross--
The rings that sing of sky & earth devoured
High sons of water & the underworld,
Anticipating wearily the hour,
The tenor of the unrelenting sword.
Should love be born again, how would we know?
The ocean offers secrets for the crow.

But then, when does it go,
This madness that could not
Have been expected
Or prepared for?
How to put it, in layman's terms,
Thin patchwork of a day
In need of much forgiveness,
Words that break apart from overuse,
Scattering syllables
Like a convict's rock,
A monk's waterfall,
The seed of some neglected question.

to label it absurd
does not deny
the pleasure of the nerves
that lie in wait
of overflowing presence
pushing words aside
for better witnesses

My thoughts should be
Arrested
But for lack
Of a reliable witness.
Forget memories,
However real they reconvene.
Dreams have no defense
In the morning
And I feel a difference,
Understanding love is mortal.

With that sure reckon of a horse
Returning to its stable, I
Am in your arms again, strong force
The fiery pit could not deny.
Where words have no place left to hide,
You offer much that's not been said
And I, a prisoner of pride,
Lie famished, begging more than bread.
And should we find a stone removed,
Would this replace mere words with flesh
That time itself shall not improve--
Wine lately vinted from a wish.
Should I give notice of my tongue
Inside the cave where gods are hung?

The night Chet Baker died,
Dropping from a second floor balcony
Of the Prins Hendrick Hotel
In Amsterdam, we spent the night
In lover's arms,  a brief menage
Unstable as ozone
Or a note held
Past the point of breathing
And she, the young one entranced
By jazz and rock and blues,
Even poetry,
Wine & **** & wrinkled sheets
Said I must be
The happiest man in Kentucky
And briefly I was