....From The Tree Of..................Pain Around Us
|
_______________________________________________________ Mass Mailing Of the many ways you could have said some things, you chose the worst. The kind that's written with a tail tucked 'tween the legs and dipped in blood. Mine, I think. All prettied up, you sent it out into the 'ether'- I believe you'd call it. ......Is the bone you're after worth it? What Dread Grasp Most all of his life, he'd carried her picture pressed in his billfold; needed her close. Yellowed old print of a blonde in a leopard skin two-piece, posed with tiger. He met her just once at sixteen. Her partner was male but he bore him no resentment, they were 'circus folk'- her marriage was to the cat--the cat who curled in brain and belly, slid in epithelial cells, melted deep in graveled growl, stretched full length with paws as big as plates-- he hated the cat he loved the cat. They went on tour around the world; for twenty two years, the clippings he'd kept made several shoe boxes worth of masturbation. The three of them in each of them- saffron and fang and black-striped, nightly torment. His favorite, of course was still his 'Jane In The Jungle Suit' kept close to him in calfskin. The last photograph he had of her, he'd cut from the Entertainment Section, the New York Times- not yellowed yet, still new- 'a tragic accident'. The photo had a splotch or two of semen marring half the face tucked into white-blond hair, back when she had a face- said "Tiger had to be destroyed. It mauled and killed her partner also, one week later." His eyes, the whites strained red with tears had never shone so bright or green, and never before, his footsteps seen as graceful. At night, it's said he paced his room, the only sound it made were clicks like claws on wood... Knock Three Times Everywhere, I read the need of antennal hearts. Nicknamed, sophomoric, wearing letter jackets of leathery strophes or flushed, cheerleading iambs often indented, .....hung back, practiced in their shyness, leaving hankie-dropping dashes at the ends of stanzas, hoping to land another lonely poster- who wants to find a quiet corner, probe the .....unspoken .....surely waiting at the other side of .....ellipsis ended poems that say, I have so much to show you... .....follow me... Write of woundedness if it is pure; if it can be brave and self-contained, silent in its existence, whose purpose is not to elicit questions about the life of the one who posts it; in everything be true and clean not spinning threads to make a web for catching hearts too soft and helpless to know better than to step inside. Each time you write of pining .....for the arms of someone else's husband- or the girl of mists and magic you've never been able to find, I feel that surely there must be Sundays with the cold thrill of popsicle in your mouth, a roll with a pet on grass or a glass of sherry whose rosy fingers massaged a heart that is often open, not merely cracked: that there are happier things you could say, however sadness is the proven lure to make the other lonely ones knock one, two, three- the secret signal to be let in a little, never all the way... you teasing torturers of the partnerless. Find another pastime. Tear the wings off flies, not other skulkers in these too warm rooms. Stop bullying pain. Stop pulling the light out of its belly to wear on your finger, standing in the dark, admiring how it glows on you; your belt is notched enough- now pass on through. Flogged Never count the blows; the back's already scarred. The mind's the thing that breaks in calculaton. Certainty He knew he'd squandered everything and chased a thing that didn't have a name, though he was certain that he needed it. At night, he shot up straight in bed convinced he'd heard a voice that said, "Be cold, old man. You've passed the last fire." Paradox Finally the door is opened far enough for something to fly through and get away, and the oddest thing is that the flight occurred by slamming it first. The only thing left to say is 'thank you'. To Blown-Up Worlds I know the carbon taste of standing here at the edge of an imploding star: perched on the corona, looking in at where it was, I wish you happiness however brief or manic. You're the mechanic now. It's yours to fix. A For Effort Try as they might, the night brought only empty bowls nothing to show for the love they knew was there, and so they they rubbed and rubbed at one another, trying to make a genie appear again, but they were sticks without the flint. The fire stayed cold. Generator I should know that love of sneaking, lurking, not just with me, but love of the thing itself would finally do it. Do what able to; what a world I guess it's like Neil said, we need to make our own lightning. Loophole There are two kinds of people, those who say never and mean it- and those who say never, and mean sometimes if the circumstances warrant it. Mostly never, but we'll overlook the sometimes when the moon is full nostalgia, like a child who's wandered out onto the Midway, carousels turning, light bedazzled, wanting one more ride. Those times that never count because they're holy, because they say so, and the never-never ones, they shake their heads and stumble on to look for black and white serenity, a place to go to lay their heads for once and all; if ever there was a recipe for heartache, it is when these two try walking hand in hand. On To Page 17 .............. Return To Contents This site sponsered by 
|