The songs we sing,
we sing not to each other
anymore,
but look at the moon tonight.
I think he's growing
tired. So many many howled out, hammered,
lifted lines of turgid tone inspired
he's heard, and heard again. The world
is old, my throat is raw. My heart
is hurt. I think I'll lie down
in the light
awhile.
Where The Mouse Sings
The forest velvet,
rough with trunk,
right-angled to her feet,
she stymied, stopped. She pulled her life
around her like a cloak. A frog croaked, the moon
stayed distant, cool as thought.
Somewhere where the mouse sings,
Daddy dreams the shrill cry, the high scream.
All life long she'd listened for the sound
and found it, thin as blade:
wire of being held,
pain of being born,
cadence like a thumping heart
squeezed of blood and wet.
When she found it, fingers full, it said her name.
She shot right off to heaven.
It said her name,
then slowly surfaced
names of all who'd come before; the burrowing,
the beauty, and the shame all shared
before her.
She flung it back.
She wiped its trace
in search of such a virgin thing
that she would be its only face
in all the world.
The only eyes,
the only tongue: the only one.
Somewhere where the mouse sings,
Daddy dreams the shrill cry, the high scream
asleep again,
asleep
-now don't you cry, child.
The Move
The apartment,
beiged
and comfy, orderly
neat-
brought along as much
of the past as could be packed inside,
but home
it was not.
The white haired
haint who lived there now
brought caravans of pots,
boxes full of what nots-
went from room to room
doing
what she did: she yearned.
Every now and then
a fleck of older joy
floated
on her eye
like a dust mote dancing off
into a month or two ago.
When she followed it,
I found
I sat
alone at a sturdy table
with a list of what was
packed in each new drawer.
The trolley outide
click-a-clacked,
and ducks cried off
into
fade painted
skies.
The Murder Of Dolls
Ass-flesh,
cheeks to ledge, this girl child
perches, toes tipped down
to test the mire that waits below.
Her lips, the ripest color
ever wrest from daddy's
shoe
and then the shoe
of him to step on her
in days to come.
Look how dwarves adore her;
tend her, smallest men
of meaner temper. How her hair
is tied to leashes, lifted,
locked to beast
and beasts to come
call, 'Little one,
come here
to ride a cockhorse.
Ring round
rosy one,
my bonny bright
infant-i-cide,
my bride,
where will you jump
to
when the lion wakes?'
Neighbors
The neighbor who lives
just three doors away
is always smiling.
He has yard gnomes
and those plastic pinwheeled flowers
that keep spinning like his mind.
He decorates like Macy's.
The flags all vomit
'patriot', the bunnies
hug their Easter eggs
and Santa
and the Virgin
light the snows
of late December.
The neighbor man
wants everyone
to think he is like everyone.
He mimics our expressions
and is celebrant of each.
There is a swimming pool
a trampoline
a barbecue
his benzedrine
of mind
has told him
everybody wants.
But why is it
that late at night
his family starts their
screaming. Full-throated
like the knives
are coming out.
And why is it the son
who kept a goose dressed in a bonnet
like the children's rhyme,
walked out one day
with feathers
at his crotch?
And why, since Goosie's gone
does he look long,
and with that 'crazy eye'
at me?
Room 211
Motels are recycled garbage
bags of fallen hair,
rings
on furniture, the occasional kleenex
found brown
and wadded, crumpled in a corner,
disinfectant can't quite
clean away. Perhaps the revenent
of forgotten, one-time
masturbations.
For those who come
two by two for an arranged fugue from their little lives,
these bacilli are far from thought;
the carpet's soft
- the light,
flattering,
with towels
thick enough
to tampon a lake, and that is what I
remember
not the nicks or gouges of departed guests
who left skin cells
and stains upon the spread.
It was a
bed of ease, that hostel
tucked
in Gettysburg. It was a
respite and a random cease-fire
from care.
But every night
at eight
o'clock
the man next door
alone, brought bags of goodies
back, and let himself into his room
to contemplate
his sharing
with the leavings of the ones who went before, seated
in the wake
of their departures. I imagined him
at bed's edge, holding a stiffening, upon which
a tear
fell down, adding yet another splotch
of history.
After Plath
Head in stove, it mattered not.
Her veins were filled with painful ink.
Sylvia fought for death
and didn't think
she'd shrink the world by dying
but she did.
Sexton reached for pills and drink,
birthing words of love and rage.
Never heard the gasp she got,
the shock of bleeding on the page.
'A quill dipped in the womb',
she thought.
The world shall miss
the cello of her tongue.
The fair Ophelias
drowning,
sinking lanterns,
one by one.
Play Dead
"Play dead", he said.
I did.
He breathed so hard
so fast and close
and licked, his tongue like snails
along my arms
and neck.
My eyes were closed
but I could still see
eyes
that burned with crazy.
I knew for sure
that something
could die
that way- "Play dead",
he said.
I did, and didn't
even
breathe
again. Not to this day.
Suit With Pleats
Under rubble,
body jigsawed, rasberry jelly
over all, it seems the wall street
Icarus, his hand
holding
Kmart snapshots, two girls six and nine
and now
he's pate'
wrapped in pleated pants.
His last thought was
the smell of Mr. Bubble
Saturday last
and
flash and
gone.
Walking Point
Mind like Gatling gun gone
round the bend
it shot
out
razors,
whores, herring- looked for meaning,
plucked it
from the air, the brief
prayer, assassin
all at once.
The
new mooned,
dark-crawled
exit
taking out
whatever caught in flack jacket, porcupined
with pain. Your mood
was flat,
your shoe thrown
at the dog who follows biting,
biting
....From The Tree Of