....From The Tree Of..................Pain Around Us
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_______________________________________________________ erase it's such a simple thing, a delete key's all it takes; well really more than that it takes a heart willing to bite itself in half, daring to beat the while and never breathe a word, not even bleed or send up smoke or say the name it's eating stroke by bloody stroke After Out of the black of thought, a long LINE of iceBERG white and it doesn't make any diffERence howling, no one hears because the ears are gone, the genie's out of the bottle. Milkspilt wound gone gangrenous; too late toolate, ohmuchtoolate I'm out of dimes I've even burned my one good pair of black pants. Knew One Oncst There's a certain kind of man hasn't any shame has plenty of guilt, that's not the same. Guilt greases appetite and once he's punished enough he feels entitled to a spree. Sackcloth and ashes serve as party clothes; it'll never tame him into civilized, he goes for marrow of the living bone of innocents the ripe red hollow ones, the finger lickin sweetmeats. What is worse he looks as dour as Job, as 'gentleman' as a walking cane. He causes pain. madness Reetika Vazirani what mad, unreflective pools had you gazed into, what black eyes, eyes like stone without moonlight playing, what abyss so deep -what unrepentant angels, weepless, sword in hand had held you lost and leaving life, your child with you like luggage for the next, where sadly you will find the inn is full and there is loss enough for a thousand gashed and bleeding wrists, that loss is limitless, that we must bear it- that you and he are two more pebbles on a vast and jagged shore, beneath those crossed and stumbling stars. Cutting Bait Old man in a wooden skiff, the middle of the ocean doesn't see his isolation. The Kingfisher casts with black bead eye, looks for prey, sees miles of rolling blue and other oceans. The one, dark shape below bobs on an on. The Kingfisher cannot hear the way the old man talks to bait; swimming in a bucket at his feet. His fishhook bare, the old man cannot part with what he thinks of as companions. He does not see the salt cracks of his lips, does not hear his voice as it fades and fades and after it is gone, his lips still move. Blinded by the silver sea, the fisherman will never know that what he calls companions are baby sharks until he dips his finger in the bucket; he dreams a ring of mermaids circle round then knows that they are moving in for blood; the old man doesn't care. He feels flesh ripped from bone, but tells himself they love him so. He's been so long in the boat there is no other world, but feeding little pieces of himself to perfect strangers. Over And Over For men whose mother's were whores, perceived as slattern, whose tits refused to stay inside the gapping wrappers, those of you whose mothers were whores so that every female thereafter is draped in some hot outfit or other, strutting slutlike down some garden path she's always leading you to with sway of hips, the too red mouth from which lies will stream thick enough to clog the heart- you see the yellow, cautionary tape- the space beyond where she's taking you, but hey, the trip is worth it. You know her heart's too unruly to be anyone's one and only, why not jump the train and take a ride with her? You know you'll be the first to leave, cause after all, she's only a whore: there's more where that one came from- where no mama ever was. No Safe Harbor In a life spent picking scabs- no sooner one space heals than another takes position. It used to be easy to guess what's coming next to nick or gouge, do damage, bleed a little; once, it was my heart but I've given that away. There's nothing left to break, so where'd this bleeding come from? And why these half-moon nails an eighth-inch deep both forearms stretched in supplicant pose to eyes that look through wobbliness of tears- just what has stowed away in me? Whose wounds am I wearing now? Speechless It's hard to talk to the dying when every word is strafed with some decay. Flowers are all chrysanthemums whose cloying calls to mind the death bed rooms, the insufficient air. What shall we do for the dying for whom all favors are one: Do something. Let me live another year. We can't so we talk of lighter things, till flesh will go where words cannot. We touch a blue-veined hand pulsing, like a setting sun hoping to draw them back from some horizon line. Tongues Of Wood When her mother disappeared she looked in mirrors, searching for the other face; her father slipped around her like a shadow. A twelve year old who floated up the rafters, leaned away from sudden unfamiliar hips, the waist that stole the place of homely gangliness. That old sweet stick of child was gone, with nothing yet in common with the new one, save a mass of flame red hair. Her father was a post of wood, too dried to offer much. He'd turned wooden, dried, and grunted all the words she strained to hear but never had, not once. The earth goes round and round the sun. The girl danced round and round the father till she tired. Grown past her grief. When he was sixty nine, she, thirty eight, he died. She went through drawers and boxes. Searched for pieces of the man that she had searched for all her life. At the back of a bottom drawer, secured within an empty tin of snuff she found one coarse, red curling hair he must have saved from the tub they'd shared. Curled, just like a questionmark- small, obscene, he'd kept it locked away. Kept those days from sliding one by one right to the slippery edge of secrets, and then off. Contretemps Moi Maybe a time when all time rains and suns together, somewhere, maybe the broken is whole, yet broken remains, is conclusively somewhere and it all makes sense somehow. While brokenly whole, I am writing these lines from fragments, Reading them right and unwriting them fevered and cool, it is then that I feel I can't- I know I can't, because I can't feel what I know without wanting to cleave. It's hard when you can't believe any more. On To Page 16 .............. Return To Contents This site sponsered by 
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