It was the thick
kind of dark
we had out back before they
put in lights. The kind that throws some
fury
in the bone instead of fear, 'cause
when Billy lost his mind that night
and came in minus pants, and blood
and blood- you know- the blood was
where it shouldn't
have
ever been; I don't think rats
or Puerto Ricans with baseball bats
would do it
like it looked; like Billy said.
And why's he always changing bulbs from 40 watts
to a hundred
in this house? He knows
the people in this alley aren't made of money.
Mostly, I think
dark
is what's inside him now.
Closure
The first time I chased chaos
I was twenty seven,
married;
nothing
in that blue-trimmed
double-dormered life could hold me.
Gin and vodka mornings, Lite beer evenings
and two children and a turtle and a flatbed
full of guilt.
I could talk a good 'transcendence',
float above it for a while. Bottle
swallowed bottle like the Worm Ouraboros,
I held hell
behind my eyes.
Crept into a ball
that morphed
into a grid
of stately, clean brick hospital.
A month of days
that felt like days that everybody has:
noon/moon
noon/moon.
I wrapped my mind
around what could be wrong.
I took
the pills,
played cards and ping pong,
went on
outings to the mall in one big bus.
The happy, loony
home
of us who hadn't any other.
I role-played,
Rorschached,
'opened up' in Group, I learned my coping skills
and how to keep my lid
tight shut
and went back
to the blue trimmed hidey hole
and really did
some serious drinking.
Two years later,
I was back again
but this time thinking
I could catch a killer
who was raping nice young women,
and then doing things
to them
I was
afraid to know. I had become
a danger
to myself
and others.
My plan was:
"Walk the highway
with your knife
until a car stops. You get in
and see what
hell
is really like
before you stab it
through
or it
stabs you,
but one of us is
gonna' get some closure."
The Meaning Of Color
He painted the floor pink,
that's how it started.
Ran crepe up the flagpole announcing
intent.
Saw eyes in the bedstead,
saw doves bathed in blood
turn to pink on the floor
from the wash of the flood
of the sea that was
400 miles
away.
The ax was long hid.
On Tuesday the house dropped its walls
when policemen moved in. When secrets,
like bats
were released from the skull
of the former, eccentric occupant.
As he raved of the eyes and the pink
of the truth,
they discovered
a hand
that was holding
a bloody red
dove
of peace
at last, a kind of gift
before
its severance.
Comparative Religion AT 2:00 AM
There are more horrors than miracles
that's a fact.
One birth to seven murders.
Sixteen gouged hollows where eyes should be,
scraped clean and dark
for every person with a Third one
smack in the middle of his chakkra,
enlightened:
smile like Buddha.
I hear the scream
from under the covers.
I hear the shriek of rabbits
caught in claws, under the moon.
Heather hides snakes:
there is poison under purple.
Baby's Breath is dangerous.
We celebrate marriage,
birth. Culture forms a chain of dance
around these things to petal-strew the truth.
Wedding cakes
have leavening to make the tempers rise.
Long after rice is thrown, blown by wind
to separate beds of discontent, life is awakened
full of disconnected arms. New need bawling,
puking, reaching out for what's
already lost,
and the smacking,
smacking shrill-love mothers,
striking back,
palmprinted limbs already scored by nails.
Why give me this?
This sack that's never filled,
never still?
Why don't You
die on that tree AGAIN, you bastard...
Having been dragged by wearier mothers
in poorer times, to churches lit by candles
to escape the dirty-handed
fathers
who had them Pray for Peace,
after. Buddha,
soft and solid both,
show them
how to bear it.
One tree kills, the other
promises
nothing
but what is, and how to hold it.
Before you knew who Buddha was,
you sat,
under a tree in your mind,
counting
breaths.
Like now, at 2 a.m.
when you feel
everything.
Crazy Mary
Crazy Mary
dragged her love
in a wagon
only
she
could see.
Down the streets
and up the streets,
making gestures
in the air.
Heavy load of love
she had
when daddy died
or left (or should) with half
her mind.
Three year olds build wagons, castles,
drag them all their twitching lives.
Flinching
from the truth: that once,
in all the world, 'they were too small'
to matter.
Dark Of Understanding
You'll never know
how sickening
your slavering over prurience
disguised as halting
memory, painfully pulled,
with shame, into the light can give my stomach
such
hard
turns.
How maggot-like you feed on it,
squirming there in gleeful
heart
stop/
start
ings.
Vehicular Empath
Razor-cut, kinetic shock,
sidewalk field of blood-stars
splices to the eye
and spreads,
the edging red,
the stopped
cars.
Stranger twisted,
broken
doll
fallen here,
raw-torn from wheel.
When did I slip on your life-
feel my blood
with yours
congeal?
Exposed
Odd
to stand where
someone always stood beside
and feel the wind,
cool as loss-
leeward
where the love was.
I'll have
to grow a thicker skin,
grow used to breeze against me.
Cooler, more dispassionate,
that part of me
exposed-
that used to feel
fat, happy prop of you.
Ring Of Fire
Loners skate
on thin foundation
out
where no one
wants to go.
Their minds twist
in
different wind.
Circling the campfire
long enough,
and locked outside-
a man
becomes
a wolf.
He makes a deadly choice.
Charles Whitman
climbed a tower
fired,
and found his voice.
He was a good boy, but
he was
a better shot.
Bawled Out Funk Of The Nagged Husband
One of your moods
has snarled up the day.
Punched a hole right through this morning,
went on tearing phonebooks,
showing off how strong it is
and will be there tomorrow when I want to get beyond it.
When I wake and find the lines still down,
your brain still cooking in the steam of meanings
only you divine
by tea leaves
telling trouble.
When you have me
in your mouth I will, like all
small things,
go limp.
....From The Tree Of