Working the ghost of a dead girl.
Shining in America's silent sorrow
When tree and stone face the panic
Of an ordinary tomorrow.
She's alive --- the rage.
Exorcised in the life
Of my bottomless pen
Ink drips the bloodstained page.

In the milk of moons between light and night
Her fingers war paint the groove of truth.
A wall for an eye
An ear, a black swamp.

In one last breath
I inhale your death
I inhale your life as my own.
A Jupiter Venus life to gasp.

I imagine you in death
Your face purple and smiling.
Your hair smelling faintly of butane.
Your weightless body wearing the perfume of cooking gas.
Suddenly your smoke shot black
Racing through Frieda's past.

Learning winter is sacred.
Learning nothing is everything
To the poet.
Dying for the fate of insects.

I never held you,
But you are with me every waking hour.
A flood release
Of book covers and blood stained pages
Blood so dark, red, lovely.
(taste it)
You echoed my brain's cool fog
As accurately as the tip of a hot knife.
(the whore's tongue is in the freezer, Ted)

I live for you.
For one word.
Burning.

cf
6/15/99