i was buried

by a minyan of

neckless men

with lavender

eyes that rolled

around in the cups

of their houndstooth

fedoras like pills

on the roulette wheel

pivoting round 

the centripetal force

of an absent god

gazing skyward

all the while

forgetting to finish 

I like the word fuck because of its implications

Fast, sweaty, hard

But also because of the release 

From my mouth and brain

Like a spoken orgasm

Fuck me

 

 

 

it pierces and vibrates
with a concupiscent staccato
it cuts two ways

a sword with no hilt
i overused it once
in callow exuberance

i hope my children
learn to curse fluently
in their mothers tongue

your pixelated breasts
the sweat on my pillow
my fantasy is

only to reach through
the screen to
grasp inside you

and the only word
that will do
is

fuck

as i peel cockles
off the wharf
someday too
the marrow will run dry

from your chalky bones
and pool around your
ankles as grey matter
leaks out your ears
in an encephalitic ooze

i decipher
the voluptuous braille
of your spine's topography
a dream
where i bathe in all
your scented parts



the ocean between us
 i won't


let


it




wash














me       clean

i rearrange my chemistry
like so many chairs

the patio furniture
roosts in my
living room
unheimlich

i've bathed lately
in your lingering scent
on my unwashed sheets

you smell like a woman
who's taken men
inside her and judged them
inadequate

my desire for you lies
somewhere at the center of
that judgement

the threshing
and winnowing
the yes
and the no
but recently the yes yes yesyesyes


so tomorrow
just fuck me into
that fertile oblivion
i seek where the chairs are all seats
the seats are all thrones

and all the flowers
blooming smell like a
woman who knows

i'm always returned
to bike rides on Rising Son
a stranger in my home town
leeching strength
from the dilapidated row houses
in my neighborhood
we get close to what
poisons us carressing it
not letting anything
permeate but aroused by
the sweet toxic proximity
of thanatic lust

you said that you're
okay if you stay away
from needles and
my god if in that moment
i didn't want to crawl up
the dropper's neck
and drown with you

but instead we wrapped
our arms around each other
and we drank the
expatriated autumn air

i need to work on this
but i won't
i'm weary to death
of this false transparency
glass walls
are just walls
and more terrible
is the flood that you
can see bubbling with anger
and shrieking behind the fracturing levy

Augury

this is not the side
of you you'd like me to
see you said but which side
do i show i am a
curator of addiction and
dissolution and the occasional
smatterings of bumbling
success the next girl
must always be the
best girl and she is
until your best girl
is a slight autumn breeze
and you are left stroking
yourself and gauging the
inbound and outbound
itineraries of certain birds
and making gods
of withered tea leaves
where is the naked love
of my youth if not
burrowed deep in your
cherokee eyes

Carnival in Louis Armstrong park

This feels like perhaps it

Should be significant or

Could be or

The jazz wheel in

The treme

Is something literary

God am I fucking

Inadequate

This maybe is what

It's like to lose one's mind

To speak in the royal we

Like you're a surrogate

Or a petri dish

I'm so terrified

Of the trappings of

Precision

I don't know if I'm

Laughing or crying or

Why I can't be the Cardinal

Why I can rent horses

On Macinac or why

It's so perturbing to be

Grandiose and all

My problems find their

Solution here with

Your head in my lap

Looking out across

The marbled bricks

Raindrops fall like

Dappled slugs I am

Reaching for excuses to use

The treme

A place on television

If someone found me

I hope they'd stage my death

As holding more intrigue

They'd hang me up

Like strange fruit

And pluck me

For some strange purpose

All I can think about is you

All I can think about is being

You

Dixieland.