little ladies
than dead exactly dance
in my head,precisely
dance where danced la guerre.

Mimi à
la voix fragile
qui chatouille Des
Italiens

the putain with the ivory throat
Marie Louise Lallemand
n’est-ce pas que je suis belle
chéri? les anglais m’aiment
tous,les américains
aussi….”bon dos, bon cul de Paris”(Marie
Vierge
Priez
Pour
Nous)

with the
long lips of
Lucienne which dangle
the old men and hot
men se promènent
doucement le soir(ladies

accurately dead les anglais
sont gentils et les américains
aussi,ils payent bien les américains dance

exactly in my brain voulez
vous coucher avec
moi? Non? pourquoi?)

ladies skilfully
dead precisely dance
where has danced la
guerre j’m'appelle
Manon,cinq rue Henri Mounier
voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
te ferai Mimi
te ferai Minette,
dead exactly dance
si vous voulez
chatouiller
mon lézard ladies suddenly
j’m'en fous des nègres

                        (in the twilight of Paris
Marie Louise with queenly
legs cinq rue Henri
Mounier a little love
begs,Mimi with the body
like une boîte à joujoux, want nice sleep?
toutes les petites femmes exactes
qui dansent toujours in my
head dis donc,Paris

ta gorge mystérieuse
pourquoi se promène-t-elle,pourquoi
éclate ta voix
fragile couleur de pivoine?)

                                with the
long lips of Lucienne which
dangle the old men and hot men
precisely dance in my head
ladies carefully dead

We first met at the fair...

Our eyes locked, we were the perfect pair
Ariel, the mumbling movement of your lips
Drew me, gently, to your side.

My adoration I could not hide,
You made my heart do flips.

Until that sad, sad-sorry day
On the water's edge you lay,
So peaceful, and so frail-

I picked up all the shattered glass
Who knew our story would so soon pass?
A tragic end, to our sweet tale

Watching you float away with the tide,
My beautiful goldfish, had sadly died

They say there's so many fish in the sea
But you're the only one for me


October 5, 2012 with Sarah, Gabbi, Madeline in Introduction to Literary Analysis

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

I sigh over a childhood that was nailed to a cross.
Captured memories return home knocking
Though they were lost.

I sigh deep in the cracks of my soul,
Remembering childhood as it rolled,
Echoing stories untold.

I sigh over what will never again be.
I lament over my childhood,
But is there anyone mourning for me?

I don't really know you, not at all
Forgive me if I am too hasty to hope,
But you remind me of someone
That I've never met

It bothers me sometimes,
The way you turn your head
So slightly against the sun

I've seen that before.

I just want to get you alone, shake you and demand answers.
Who are you?
What are you thinking?
Where did you come from?
Why are you here?

But I can't, for fear that you would look at me and think,
"Who wants to know."

It's me! I'd say. The girl with orchids in her hair.
Who rode the train with you to the end of the line, and fell into the lake.
Who you grew up with in your own hometown, and who always ate the crackers you didn't like.
Who sat in a tree and held your hand till it got dark.
And whispered that she loved you.
And would like to marry you someday.

And then you'd turn, like you'd never seen me before
And say, "I never knew you."
And the worst part is, you're right.

Then why, why do I remember YOU,
The one who visits my dreams at night.


9/15/12

I WAS a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity-I asked
why men die for words.
  
I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
lilacs, told me the high golden words are:
Mother, Home, and Heaven-other older men with
face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality
-they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.
  
Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks
of doom and damnation, soup and nuts: meteors flashed
their say-so: and out of great Russia came three
dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die
for: Bread, Peace, Land.
  
And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with a ******* his knee for a memory in ports circling the earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things and I always get by-gimme a plate of ham and eggs-how much?-and-do you love me, kid?

I saw a meteor scream across the dark,
a chemical green flash above the park.
Breathless, I sought another--just one more?--
no, that was it--all quiet as before.

Thus left alone, with nothing but the smack
of waves necking with rocks behind my back,
I sank into the cool, slow-breathing grass
and shut my eyes to the star-strewn morass.

*Oh, your name is a raft,
   and my mind is a lake,
and all the night I sailed that craft,
   meteors trailing in my wake.

Well I'm all alone once again
My lady rests as my mind tests
The sweet taste of these keys caress

I'm trying to make sense of this place
But the focus just ain't right
I don't know enough about that
And this hat, well, it just don't fit

But don't think that I'm aiming to quit
For the pick of the pine is sharp

I hear those drinking downstairs toss
Their darts as the dark engulfs
Every single last one of them
Praying for the lost line of their kin

No war on tonight
Only what they'll show us
Were too lazy to drive, you hear?
Someone else
Is going to go and do it for us
Perhaps even
Force it

Now
If I knew how to write about love
I would do it
But every time I do
The words just come out all wrong

I know not where the
Heart or the soul rests
For when I try
I foresee an image that
Has nothing to do
With any kind of truthful feeling
For truth has nothing to do with it
Every feeling is true
Even if it is Faked
By the seer or the feeler

Glasses of grey turns
Her head away from the storm
Shuffling bed spread, I hear
The wind of forgotten love affairs
Mixed now with tears of
Love that has come around finally
And again

Form takes my hand
I pull it away

Regrets ocean washes
Over my bare naked white feet

I attempt to regain
My hand in shaking pain

But her lifeline has slacked
Her eyes glazed as the sun's
Haze quotes itself again n' again

Day in, day out
The farmer's on crippled
Horizons, their backs bending as
They stack pile after pile
Of golden heated hay

Where here I ponder my own
Fortune
Future
Fortitude
Likeliness to
Survive the storm

And though I show
Not alone

There is the bite of the solitude winter
That brings each body to a state of a beginner
Chained to this we are slaves to that

I nod my head as the birds above me swirl
Hearing the tranquil quill stab its blackness
Into parchment that whimpers back unforgiving
Yet in my chest the heart continues to go on beating
No matter how much I thrash this body with each beating
The rock never wavers, the stone inside never retreating
Only below is where we see the dead defeating

But when I leave
With my chests final seethes

Touch not my soul nor
Chase to where it goes
For the morning for all
Is bright and should not be taken
With ill imagined fright

The wind has settled, the blossoms have fallen;
Birds sing, the mountains grow dark --
This is the wondrous power of Buddhism.