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•
Pull the blue coat
tight
around you (Night) - I have swallowed
this
Word & Broke
my tongue upon the
Shore 
he slept fitful his
breathing ticked uneven. she put
her finger on something it was
his wrist. or was it.
there was a train in his sleep he
jumped
she woke he did not but
spoke:
Have you ever
kissed a stone.
no she answered he
continued.
I kissed a bookshelf once
but the whole
thing fell apart,
the whole thing broke.
Thus went their
conversations in the evening
one awake the other
dreaming.
he was very large with hands that covered
everything.
she knew him just a little. she might have
known
by his hands, light
particles
scattering across a full
blown torso. Light, we are
characterized
by it- Light- which is not a
sum.
•
esteros ,
evening
elios , sun
i have
begun
to unwind myself into the light
punctuation
of his wrist . in this:
[risk]
•
water-ether-light
the right light
dilution
I shall exchange
this wound (for
the Sun)
we die together from loving each
other
X's voice was
saying
love comes
---------------------------
[there is
enough
room for us inside this
bed laid out
inside these
dead she said]
---------------------------
We shall exchange a
single heavy Sun
when the Sun-Man comes.
Annihilate- I
dilute myself (Sun) I am
nowhere gathered
together
here- Swoon without
killing myself (Sun). (hypnosis).
As a wound, love
comes.
I'll probably die
here (northern California)
either in rain or
drought
never have that
place in Santa Fe
or Tunis
something more
exotic
than these green winters:
poppies and flowering plums
the windy
spring
the cold & foggy
summer
& sliver of
golden autumn we sing praise to
in these raw sandy
hills
brash trees &
sassy coons
an occasional fox
our
jewels
instead of the lapful of opals I'd planned on
light off the yucca, pampas grass the music
drums from a
Buddhist temple in a cabin
on what was once
a
Presbyterian campsite
just down the road from
garlic
& artichoke farms
NEW MEXICO CUT-UP
I am as large as
the space between the houses
A burning river, standing there
in the doorway
Not interested in any religious
group.
The plane dropped a ladder
onto
a big old
Cadillac
teetering in a field of dried
plants.
Ruth & Jerry dug up big blue
beads
by the side of a log
cabin.
He saw that I was in desperate
need
of those little
things we define ourselves with.
As she touched them, in
Amazonia
a yellow and black bird
climbed
onto my heart.
Drums were beating
in the villas
of the super rich
down out of the
mountains
and making excuses for
her.
We're here to get
you out of this
Wolfstar
You'd better get
dressed really fast.
Three women were building a medicine
wheel
around Colombian guerrillas
in the curvy
driveway.
I moved fearlessly.
Shame hung back
On the acacia trees
In the rain.
A muezzin was calling
folks
To
prayer.
We spread a picnic
blanket
On the
bed.
That's how everything happened first.
#42
Loving was such a panacea, a blood
letting
That when it
was raining on the Galata Bridge
The sky broke itself into two
And poured
Upon us.
# 43
Where your face ended and your body
began,
That's to say
your neck,
Was an
erogenous, neutral zone,
The slippery cliff of passion.
# 74
My black mulberry, my forked darky, my
Gypsy,
My grain of
pomegranate, my grain of light, my only one;
I am a tree, my limbs, a porch hanging with
grapes,
I am a hive,
you are my honey, my bitter honey,
My sin, my ague.
Tongue of coral, teeth of coral, thighs
of oyster,
I gave
you a life, my wife,
My black mulberry, my forked darky, my Gypsy,
What more will you be to me, my odd
one, queer one,
My
smiling quince, my weeping pomegranate,
My baby, my stallion, my wife.
# 75
When quinces become
pomegranates
You
become mine,
When
above our troubled heads
The world is translucent.
the Muse
is
defiant, taciturn
equipped with
blade
& bone ; &
laughter
to cut one's throat on
hello
seawoman
(blue wash over
palimpsest)
over rock, over wire
hello
seawoman
"goodbye
like
waves"
Poet!
o You!
"we're down to the
wire"...
but "Sing in me, Muse, and
through me tell the story..."
the grey-eyed
poet,
eyed me, laughing
She must not tear
her lovely
skin
lamenting
O!
When the grey-eyed
Athena lit up the
world,
Goddess she is, or lady
the "subtle witch"
in
her long hall
Am I a boy,
that
you should make me soft
&
doting now?
he entered the
flawless
bed,
his heart
crashing
Vaulted (but gods
do this, &
everything with ease)
....he ended it
I am worn in love
and
thought
Has he made me a
half-wit?
What am I cacling for?
I've been cut
clean,
but hear me further-
.....He ended it!
And here I am now,
come
myself to this strange
island
(a shaky bag of tricks!
a bottomless deceit!
a raging mind-)
His cool & nimble tongue
desired
battle...
the grey-eyed
lady
fell silent,
"bear reports to the wide
world" she said,
a tiny owl nesting
purring in her
hand
--------------------------
but I am full, & have
not
tempered my hunger
--------------------------
"bear reports to the wide world"
--------------------------
but Everything sticks to
me!
--------------------------
"Bear reports to
the wide world" she
cast a grey eye
; sprightly, my
poet-lady
armed W/ every consort
(the bickering,
O!..)
the little owl keeping his
animal
watch at the
shore,
in shoaled
coral,
seething out
the sea, the
thread,
the hot song
WE'RE THE POETS
SUCKLING WILD GOATS!
travel away, and
came to a station
choked into disuse like the
train
by the assault of trees. And if we
looked
to find a directional
clue,
it was perhaps in the white rocking
chair
positioned beneath an old
map
on which red asterisks were starred
above
prospective gold mines. Gold in the
river,
gold in the hills. A film star's mansion
burnt
for being on a site.
We found the
stationmaster stood upright
in a tank of honey, his flesh
preserved,
and later on the lake. The bears were
there,
prophetic, still, so gold it seemed the
dark
was light around their forms- and fish
jumping
were liquid elocution in the
night.
Camp
The moment
glamorised. I used to read
John Ashbery on the
underground, get high
on weird and quirky lateral
metaphor,
surface in a distracted
state.
I like those big impossible mauve
dreams
in which something happens with no more
sound
than a tennis ball falling out the
air
into high grasses. Later on that
spot
has sprung a statue, nose and
eyes
inquisitively peering through mobbed
blades.
There's got to be a high point. Thrown up
arms,
dramatic gesture,
coming out the crowd
a sequinned jacket, just like
poetry
surprises by image. She used to
work
in drag by night, somebody else by
day
and keep the link by send up. It's too
bad
for men to keep one gender. In the
stars
configurations are mineral
tonight,
dazzled clusters like DNA
blueprints.
I mostly like to
imagine their roar
the huge fire energies that have them
spin.
Later the club. A torch song
cabaret,
I need to feel the
hurt get broken down
in a smoky ballad, and sense that
pain
burn with indictments from a jealous
heart
left on the blueside downside dark of
town.
Time of Hunting
I.
Tea
Time
(You! and tea time)
bringing the house to life. Halayik is pouring the tea. Lumps
of
sugar, lumps and lumps. Bedevi rewinds the clock. The Bey's slender
penis slightly
trembles. The castle gate squeaks. And a girl called Rage wakes up a
girl, called Flower.
...and the Bey comes
downstairs and kisses you. The house trembles slightly.
And
house gone.
The child lets go of
his paper ship in the pool. Returns and waits for tea.
Your face sails
far.
II.
Men
Men who went hunting
are returning. They hold birds on their hands. Quietly the
women
waited for the men. Men return with flowers In their
hands. Swans look at the men
returning from hunting. The
hearths crackle. The women sit down and are read to
from
a book. Birds and flowers join. A peacock stands up
as in a painting. A casement
window opens from inside, closes
from inside. And the Sultan's bootmaker fetches the
Sultan's boots at
last. Then they go hunting again. A man comes and teaches the
women
calculus (women knew mathematics then). A dog
watches them and leaves. Then the
cavalry soldiers come. Nobody
thinks of the battle. There is only loneliness in
battle.
It can not enter any house. A Jew sits backwards at
a student's desk and fucks.
A girl looks at other girls. The
man holds the woman's hands. The faces of the women
were
long
a long
delicate
face
enters
paintings
There were no
Americans then. Women wore underwear (Terry Moore visited Istanbul
as
Mr. Hilton's companion when the Hilton Hotel was opened and a newspaper
photographer
took her picture her knees up in bed with no
underwear under her skirt. Oh, the scandal!).
I began a moronic
dirty tasteless poem, but couldn't finish it Women were then in
decorous
paintings. Nobody went into houses. Nobody went
hunting in the houses. But soldiers did
return from hunting. But a book
of tales always stood open. A window leaned against the
sky,
(at which we used to look.)
III.
Women
First women met him.
First a woman firmed up her breasts. Then all the
women.
The male fighters used to fall
asleep.
I used to play. I ran my hand along the shores of
his mouth.
Two row boats were shoved into the water. Then we
used to sit and wait for him.
A woman is washing
herself next to us, watching her wash herself. I took her
lines
and went away. The woman holds your hips. She knocks
against the door. Slender.
A horse is ridden
outdoors
snow white
is let go.
It returns
somehow,
Black.
IV.
Queen
a)
Upstairs is
loneliness. Castle walls on castle walls. Castle walls on sheep, silk,
Egyptian
red. Tecimen drops his bolt of silk and leaves.
Embroidery frames are straitened. The
maids' slender faces become
clear. A liveried boy holds the gate of the castle.
Musicians
arrive. They twirl their moustaches before the
Sultan.
The island remains far away. A bolt of silk falls
into the water. Three Beys laugh.
It reaches
us.
b)
The queen
descends
shot dead
Something else descends
with her,
yellow,
like sex
V.
Child.
The women were left
downstairs. Very much downstairs.
Vineyards went to seed. A child
put
his long
foot
on ours.
(The trees cross
water, the water. The black servant fetches the mirror, the
knitting
needles. The sheep's fleece is sheared and combed. A
woman makes love to a balcony.
Galleons, the phaeton with two
horses and the streetcar enter.) Clang.
She opens a book and
reads. A black servant passes by with a painting. A sleep
leans
against a balcony.
The child took always
the side of the canal.
VI.
Sultan
...and men looted
those places and joined the fleet.
Then the Sultan comes in. (I am
looking, suddenly your hands are different.) The Sultan
crosses his legs
& Sits down. Your feet disappear. They leave into the night Then
that
man long,
lovely
he takes you. You...
The Sultan keeps sitting. Stares at Ahmet III.
That man doesn't let
you go. That man laughs. Winking caresses the rope. The feet
that
you possess (these feet never came to me) - these
feet - lean against my sky.
The Sultan stands up. The fleet
stops. Maybe the Sultan never stands up. Too weak.
Rope climbers never
climb up. High wire walkers, tents and bridges, the acrobats
who
roll trays in the air never come up. So that the Sultan amuse himself.
I, where can I take
you? Where is where?
A fragment of an arm is out of the phaeton. Maybe they are
burning the fleet and
we are of of here.
And the Sultan stands up. (The buses stop.)
---------------------------------
A woman takes a woman's mouth in her mouth. Upstairs.
---------------------------------
VII
Flood
The baby boy lies
prone. As if born this morning he lies prone. Some water seeps
out
first. Potent, slippery. Sneaks towards the other water. Then like a
moray spreads
and embraces the other water. The other water
becomes wavy. It keeps staying wavy.
Then as if washed with soap it
alters.
Flat, it falls flat.
The girls pass by.
The men avert their eyes. Pressing on the gas they pass by.
The
yellow stuck on those oak floors and didn't come
off.
I pick one of the
boys and leave.
VIII
Me
They are carrying a
white cross downstairs. The child Mohammad is laughing out of
the
walls. Chora on her beautiful camel is feeding the birds. Three four
storey houses.
Arched, tiny,
windowless.
With yellow walls and floors. And their beds are white (beds are white
in every
epoch, they are white in our epoch too). There was a
lot of crying. Then the winter
sweets come out, rose waters are
sprayed. And donkeys, camels are pretty. A black
servant
gathers the girls together & strips them. The
maidens cover their vulva. In a painting
Zeus kidnaps Europa and rapes
her. How beautifully the man held the book of stories.
Angels come, but
don't come down.
And in cavernous
rooms they make love. Women took no one with them & made
love.
Grown a bit big they come downstairs, attracted by
our white sides. Maybe they love your
hands. I was weak, couldn't stand
up. Looked. I looked & I was weak. Wore a new
crescent shirt. The
horse as always waited at the gate.
grown big you came downstairs
grown big by my looking
I stood
up.
IX
Sefine
One night the hunting
ends. Sefine comes out. The galleons stop. The three Beys get
off
their horses. Partridges, falcons, mountebanks, the fleet get off. A man
makes the corpse
laugh. The Queen takes a pheasant and leaves. The
men unbag the slain animals and
distribute them. Boys light up
the hearths. And women leave traces of paper light wind
behind their
flounces. The frigate stops. Copper trays of halva come in. The slain
animals
reek. The ember dims. Suddenly the house is full.
The house recedes. The tents come
down. A man burns the slain
animals to cinder. What a beautiful child is the hunted
animals, with naked
feet...
And I set the
galleons to fire. I stand against the live smell of the flesh. The
meat
recoils and waits. Copper trays infested with rice
stand still. The girls walk to the
pigeons. The girls cross the
canal, walk to the pigeons. They hold their hands to the
fire
and don't withdraw them.
You kept climbing up a ladder kept climbing down.
The slain stand
up.
X.
Dead
(Oh, you!... and) The
dead comes in the evening, ember. We look. The black
servant
lights the candle. The girls come out. The horse
doesn't stir. Suspires on the dead.
The sky comes in. Rolls up the
carpets. Calls up the girls. The hand snatches the
story
page. The sounds come downstairs. Wander around the
house. They come and steal a pitcher.
It, it stays yellow. The nail
cuter walks in and cuts the hand nails, toe nails,
already
dead, of the Sultan.
The corpse is bored. Kicks back the carnation.
Eurydice
If I Wasn't a
Girl, I Would Have Been a Fish
And We Would Have Met In a Stream
Slithering through the tagged purl, she
can barely be seen
as he catches a million images of himself reflected on her
skin-tight silver leaf scales.
Her muscles pulse with the stream. The bright sun-feathered
hook and lure, cast into the depths kaleidoscopically,
dangle
before her lonesome eyes. Although she
sees her fate (it's
the too polished bait that warns the catch away), she
impulsively swallows the shiny hook into
her moist mouth.
Right on cue, he pulls back, lodging the metal deeper
into her
gums, adeptly yanking her out of the water and reeling her in.
He is fast. She convulses with seizures
as if orgasming, all the
while refracting light off her shimmering
scales into her glinting
eyes. He pauses, momentarily turning back into a
boy, remembering
his father and a 10 lb. salmon they'd
caught, and grabs her pale
throat. Her eyes soften, bulge, and glaze.
He rips the golden
hook out of her swollen lip as if in violent kiss, tearing the pink
flesh. A piercing heat rides through her
mouth like a new
language ; but this is of little concern
to her, because she is with
him now. With a quick stroke of the lip of his knife,
he strips her
sleek body naked, then rips the oily scales into scars, exposing
her open, wet, prime, and cardinal red.
He runs the blade down
her glistening back and, skilfully removing
her delicate spine,
he fills his palms with her helpless flesh. He gives it a hearty
slap. Her heart, still beating, feels
apologetic for the crudity of
his pleasure.
Under his breath, dry tongued, he mumbles
about a beauty that
can't be reproduced, "like a phoney cunt.,, As he turns her meat
over, her shredded lips tremble, anticipating
a princely transforming kiss.
She confesses: "I love you because you
see me as pure meat;
not even U.S.D.A." He lifts his knife with a jerk
can't he see her?
Can he resist her expectant gaping lips?- and plunges the bloody blade
into her throat, splits her down to the
heaving belly, until her gleaming
spleen, liver, gills and heart drop on
to his bile-washed boots. Her last
thought as he chops off her head and tail
and drops her filleted fish into
his hot-rod iron frying pan, is that he
reminds her of Faulkner.
She tries to recall his Nobel speech: It is easy enough to say that
man is immortal simply because he will
endure: that when the last
ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded...
She simmers until she
stops her inexplicable squirming. Now he says, "perfect."
Knife beaming in slippery hand, he looks
at her... from the last
worthless rock hanging tideless in the
last red and dying evening... She
looks delicious. Without removing her from the sizzling
pan, inhaling
her roasting salty aroma with well-earned pride, he begins to bite into
her scalding flesh, impatiently trying
to fit the whole of her into his
puny inexhaustible mouth.
Only Then, Tasting the Pungent Textures of My Body,
Would You Realize I Wasn't a Fish But a Girl
who Could Not Swim and Had Grabbed Onto Your Lure
to Keep From Drowning
DEATH OF A LADY (a moral fable)
At precisely 12 noon on the last Tuesday
of the year, Eu knew the
instant she woke up that she was dead, because her
outer body
lay rigid with a dense chill only known
in myth, her pores had been
rimmed with firm yolky mucus and clotted
blood, her dried and
swollen tongue cleaved to her petrified palate and she couldn't
even lift her blue fingers, and at that
instant she began to
understand that we are taught the reverse
of everything we
need to know, and she finally and for the first time felt fully
dispossessed of herself, caught dead as
she was in her any-old-day
underwear, for, having gone to sleep the
night before in menstrual
stained frayed sheer off-white Victoria's
Secret panties, partly
because she had been too tired to slip
them off, but mainly because
she enjoyed wearing in heathenish secret unladylike and abused
undergarments which made her feel terrifyingly
intimate with herself,
and now, being dead, she was unable to
make tea and brush her teeth
and change into the proper deathwear with which to welcome God, who
she knew would come any minute to take
her to the Unspeakable
Beyond, so, as she heard Him knock and then, as she
expected, saw
Him walk through the wooden door and gawk
straight at her distended
breasts whose rock-sharp nipples peaked
out of the faded red satin
sale rack bra that was cutting into her
senseless cobalt flesh, and
beam a heavy-lidded wink that asked "Eloi, Eloi,
I'm come, are thee
ready?" , His meticulous gaze coursing down to her haphazardly
protruding pubes, and as she stiffly swooned beneath His fiery eye
that was imprinting for all eternity into
the Divine Memory the image
of her unclean high cut briefs, cringing
as she had been taught by
Mom with shame at her soiled unreadiness, watching
God bend, in
His peacefully harmonious and continuous
movement, over her fetid
corpse, gasping "Oh, Father!" as He leaned
down and kissed her full
upon the stony lips, with His trembling
hand locked in hers to raise
her up, EU at last knew that the secret to liberty
and fraternity and
peace is finding out what is utterly unimportant in life and so, free
of herself, that is free of her dirty
underwear, she was not shy and
did not resist the restless tongue of
God, and thus was carried up
to Heaven in full and clanging orgasm.