Despair

I shall call it by a Capitalized name
And it shall be bearable

Disorder, Hormonal Imbalance, Addiction--
named, defined, and so controlled

For when there is a word, there is a professional in charge of the word,
And so in charge of me

Without denomination,
what abyss of uncertainty would claim me?
What could I say?

Only-
"Something is broken.
There is no promise of repair."

Funeral

I lowered it into the square of ground
And mourners in midnight gathered around
they glanced in discomfort, shedding dry tears
A few of them whispered "but what's buried here?"

"What's buried," I said, "was not meant to live
but what a bright sunishine it was while it did!
I worked, and I cherished it--still, it would seem
my love couldn't save it, friends--it was a Dream"

Mutation Killed

---


...And so, sir, do you think
We can reinvent the life between us
Into a creature split
Between 'friends' and 'lovers'?

Do you think
Because i have shut down the dreams you had entertained
There is a strange half-life still available to them?
No! Don't be foolish.

Any mutated conjunction of two living things
Will be monstrous, grotesque.

And which have you heard of? legends, mythical!
The centaur, the unicorn, the gryphon
Dangerous.

Were they found on this earth
They would be crippled beasts.

So can we play such a game?
Standing in the light three feet apart
And in the darkness at a hair's breadth?
Can we verbally affirm our congenial indifference
While using eyes
And hours
To speak volumes of lover's nonsense?

One must run forwards or backwards;
The feet do not stand still when one is dancing,
as we are.

There are only two roads open to us;
the two lie in different lands altogether, with different weathers,
Topographies,
Climates.

We cannot pretend that it is possible to enjoy Asia and Europe
In the same moment

We cannot be merely friends and lovers simultaneous;
No one could.
A life will die, if so deformed.

It is yours to choose; you know my wish.

Kill the thing altogether, or call it 'friends'

And we must stand by its name.

----

The Siege

-----------


It was a storming--yes, it was
The night you sent your soldiers in
A pair of lips--well trained and sure
And overeager for a win

They entered through the foremost gate
And plundered all they found alone
They sent the sentries--senses--reeling
Acted as a stepping stone

For scores of hands who then attacked
Who suddenly were everywhere
Around the rear, inside the head
Surrounding wrist, invading hair

I curse my tactics, in my sleep
And ask myself just how it fell
The queen, at least, escaped intact
But fall it did, you know it well

It's gone, the innocence before
A kingdom, world, and heaven, lost
The turrets, bridges, sag, decay
They did the moment they were crossed

Yes, it was a storming, love
(If I so call my enemy)
But two commanders did the deed
The first was you... the second, me

-------

A Youth

A youth curled himself comfortable upon my floor
His mouth was thin and wide and free
But he looked up at me
and his eyes were cracked
Mist escaped from their separations
and he said,
"Even I am terrified of loss,"
he swallowed,
"but it is life."

And I knew that he had caught a half-truth
which, clung to, would kill him.

Four Sisters

Three sisters sat upon a porch
sewing garments prettily
One had wit and one was kind
the third had beauty--from the sea

There was a fourth, I saw it then
As I stood chatting with the three
Who joins--they say--all of these traits
In multi-plaited quantity

But she does never leave the home
she stays within, is quiet there
for when she went into the town
every person hated her

I wondered why, I puzzled it
I strove and could not understand
Until I felt my heart grow hard
The moment that I shook her hand

Can You Sit So Serene?

And can this very you sit across the very aisle so serene? Illumined in the stain of colored light? I could take three steps and sit upon your lap, to the sounds of my mother's swoons and the outrage of congregated eyes and ears, and laps.

Could the hand now clasped upon the oaken beams have once skied from breast-crest to valley, grasped and stolen it, unpaid, as fruitstand oranges by a starving man?

Unpaid--the man would boom from this pulpit--could he know; as it is he moans admonition in the same key that I did with the floor upon my back--does he not look at us?

Can you sit, so serene? We had not been to church! You knelt me upon an alter of down and carpet, instead--too soon, too soon--pried confessions from my mouth with a spirit unholy. Now can you to church again?

Can they not see that the bruise upon thy neck is the liquid sign of sin itself and has a twin beneath my chin? Could they suppose it was a thoughtless child of accident--a wheel-tossed stone, a branch assailing from horseback height--not the son of forceful, laborious deliberation tendered by the verbal-est muscles of another face? Could they be so foolish?

Can you sit so serene, before the Ghost that we could not shut out with mere key and door and whispered 'hush'? And could they be so blind? No; methinks now they are not blind, but hiding--the elder there I now see in a midnight haystack, and this rolling wife here still has her suckling babe, but why does he not possess her husband's washboard forehead? --No; I am blinded by the muddy browns in my own pupil--he is standing and his trousers are pressed; she is wiping her baby's washboard head.

Can you sit so serene? They see us--and your lips move in song--but they see us!--and your brow wrinkles in prayer--but they see us!--and your buttocks are still and submissive upon the pew--but they see us!

Can you sit so serene?