I cut the middle fingernail of the middle
finger
right hand
real short
and I began rubbing along her ****
as she sat upright in bed
spreading lotion over her arms
face
and *******
after bathing.
then she lit a cigarette:
"don't let this put you off,"
an smoked and continued to rub
the lotion on.
I continued to rub the ****.
"You want an apple?" I asked.
"sure, she said, "you got one?"
but I got to her-
she began to twist
then she rolled on her side,
she was getting wet and open
like a flower in the rain.
then she rolled on her stomach
and her most beautiful ***
looked up at me
and I reached under and got the
**** again.
she reached around and got my
****, she rolled and twisted,
I mounted
my face falling into the mass
of red hair that overflowed
from her head
and my flattened **** entered
into the miracle.
later we joked about the lotion
and the cigarette and the apple.
then I went out and got some chicken
and shrimp and french fries and buns
and mashed potatoes and gravy and
cole slaw,and we ate.she told me
how good she felt and I told her
how good I felt and we
ate the chicken and the shrimp and the
french fries and the buns and the
mashed potatoes and the gravy and
the cole slaw too.

there is always somebody or something
waiting for you,
something stronger, more intelligent,
more evil, more kind, more durable,
something bigger, something better,
something worse, something with
eyes like the tiger, jaws like the shark,
something crazier than crazy,
saner than sane,
there is always something or somebody
waiting for you
as you put on your shoes
or as you sleep
or as you empty a garbage can
or pet your cat
or brush your teeth
or celebrate a holiday
there is always somebody or something
waiting for you.

keep this fully in mind
so that when it happens
you will be as ready as possible.

meanwhile, a good day to
you
if you are still there.
I think that I am---
I just burnt my fingers on
this
cigarette.

the lady has me temporarily off the bottle
and now the pecker stands up
better.
however, things change overnight--
instead of listening to Shostakovich and
Mozart through a smeared haze of smoke
the nights change, new
complexities:
we drive to Baskin-Robbins,
31 flavors:
Rocky Road, Bubble Gum, Apricot Ice, Strawberry
Cheesecake, Chocolate Mint...

we park outside and look at icecream
people
a very healthy and satisfied people,
nary a potential suicide in sight
(they probably even vote)
and I tell her
"what if the boys saw me go in there? suppose they
find out I'm going in for a walnut peach sundae?"
"come on, chicken," she laughs and we go in
and stand with the icecream people.
none of them are cursing or threatening
the clerks.
there seem to be no hangovers or
grievances.
I am alarmed at the placid and calm wave
that flows about. I feel like a ***** in a
beauty contest. we finally get our sundaes and
sit in the car and eat them.

I must admit they are quite good. a curious new
world. (all my friends tell me I am looking
better. "you're looking good, man, we thought you
were going to die there for a while...")
--those 4,500 dark nights, the jails, the
hospitals...

and later that night
there is use for the pecker, use for
love, and it is glorious,
long and true,
and afterwards we speak of easy things;
our heads by the open window with the moonlight
looking through, we sleep in each other's
arms.

the icecream people make me feel good,
inside and out.

I love the smell of coriander
And cardamom roasting in the morning
Coffee and cinnamon scattered on the floor
We share our laughter with the water
These plants are tender
As your fingers gather medicine
From the yard
We tie them up and bring back art
From its repository
We are sharpening our hearts like knives
And watering our minds
Gardens pop up everywhere she walks
Humble hearts make
Burning arcs throughout the sky

i often forget
the previous week
with my eyes wet
of tears so bleak

i often forget
who's there
who i met
the love we
used to share

i bet
there is no savior
only a debt
and my empty behavior

i remember
the debt of life
a burning ember
i hold no strife

forget the ember
forget the soul
forget the joy
forget the life
forget the will
i dont recall a hope

drag me on
painful obligations
drag me on
lost connections

i hold
no regret
just the weight
of every poor mistake

there will never
never be a day
where i make the wrongs
the rights
a day where i
where i ***** the mistakes

only a day
where i breathe the air
of an eventual
hope

hope is absent
as with a usual breath
the cycle continues
this sickness unto death

lack of hope
lack of hope
drag me down in
my lost self

drag me down
oh
drag me down
dead hopeless spirit

drag me down
my dear dead spirit
until hope comes

there is an elephant in the room.

it showed up about ten minutes ago,
just strolled on in as small talk
turned into big talk and the
elephant couldn’t find bigger talk anywhere else
so it stayed.
i offered it food, drink, a corner
in the garden, it laughed
and told me to stop trying
to be a good host
and just let it be, but i couldn’t just be,
trapped in the kitchen,
stuck between a rock and
a hard place, the hard
place being an elephant.
meanwhile the talk grew bigger
and it grew bigger,
there was an elephant
in all the rooms, we should have
built the ceilings higher,
made the thresholds wider,
if you’re going to invite
an elephant into your home,
it has to be able to fit.
otherwise, you’re looking at
tusks in the wall,
a tail in your face,
an elephant and no room.

the elephant swung its head
and our eyes met as the big talk turned
into small talk but the elephant
had heard smaller talk before
and i had offered it food, drink,
a corner in the garden.
i didn’t want to let the elephant
inside, but we had left the door wide
open, so who could blame
it for wandering in?
it stayed in the kitchen
and i stayed with it, it laughed
and told me it didn’t need
company, meanwhile the small talk
grew smaller and the elephant
grew bigger, i didn’t want company
but there was an elephant
in the room.
i didn’t know
how to take care of an elephant,
but that didn’t matter,
it already knew its way around
the house, knew how to small
talk even smaller
than our talk.

i asked the elephant
for its name. it laughed and
told me it didn’t matter,
it knew mine and that
was enough. meanwhile the
small talk stopped and i stopped
trying to talk smaller.
the elephant stayed
in the room.

In a strange mood - see/write art



in a strange way, disorganized but straight on,
light tinted magenta, issuing, in frothy large pours, from my mouth,
knowing what to say, and the meaning too,
I can more than walk, can write, on water,
where all can read weeping, Mary-miracles of seeing, living words,
themselves, on light waves lapping in a
shifting rotunda vision, color reorienting spatial senses.^

in a strange, strange stitch, seasonal spirits and witches,
Chagall, Baez, Dylan Thomas, Donovan, Richie Havens
doing their knitting in my brain, from Montmartre to the Midwest to Monterey,
painters and poets in lockstep head-messing with me,
imperfect clarity but still one voice,
see/write art,
so went and caught the wind, going gently into night
to banish the hodgepodge of uncertainty from inside out.

knowing well you don't understand fully, but jumbling tumbling
verses are sliding off my rusted tongue as fiddlers fly above,
roughened words, hewn from a paper cup, spilling diamonds uncut, imported from Sarajevo, Montparnasse, the Lower East Side.
wretched me, in the hour I first believed, this amalgamated conception conceded,
seceded from my mind into your palate for a tasting,
tho neither drugged, nor deaf and dumb, just slammed poetical-like, this write is
all I have to portend is your affections, your attentions, to yours, am beholden.

a *****, well respected man in daylight,
the hidden references accuse,
woke up to see Wednes-day Caesarian born,
askance glanced at the prior passages of the night before,
when my palate clefted,
when eyes chose not to distinguish
between right and lefted,
in the nightlight,
a ***** man disrespects language convection/convention,
and lays before you activating stanzas and his mind, prone,
but always the truth, speaking,
the visions, leaking, mind to eye,
recombinant, into our minds eye.




^ http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell


Rather than write extensive notes on the many references, inspirations in this poem, if there is a line that intrigues, ask me