Lydia & Absinthe

the evacuees, transports to Dachau
or Auschwitz understood minimalism

and despair.

They understood it short, but well—that
each absinthe convoy could mimic a covert:

When we exchange crucifixes, we exhange fates.

No Kansas farm-girl, corn-fed,
ill-bred, no Muslim covert

infected with love and longing could
follow this trajectry
until blind-sided until

the road insisted:

enough.

the dead girl and her traitor

oh, he crawled intoxicated by rose-cunt scent
and curls that tumbled blondly

and yet
at that turnstile moment
of do or die,
pass or stall

he left

a cowardly fox unrepentant.

Woe be the woman
who loves the coward, the civil servant,
the braggart and the moral infant.

the dead girl and her lover

beside himself he comes
inside her self no longer
for she has been duly
boxed inside an earthworm home

for now and furthermore.

ejaculate
mists the cold hard earth
her lips might curve

but in revulsion or mirth?

Umbrella Land

they can be
long stem roses,
unopened

untried and not yet tested,
dry fabric ripe for free-fall or parachute dress

allow me to descend
to mushroom land

my toes are springy and pink
and my will to explore
is as grand
as parchment under ink.

Diary Of A Transgendered Geisha

my ornaments fulfill
a cocoon silk box
of baubles and presentiments:

let the future
offer an earthquake

that blasts us all to Kingdom Come.

Oh, forgive me,
I employ the wrong cultural idiom.

As a time traveller,
my geography
is shot
full of holes

like the building you entered and wrongly
called home.

any old foes at war or play

seaglass impresses itself upon water:
I was the lighthouse keeper's daughter
until I was no longer.


This woman who presses silk and skin,
her lips strain in a sneer

and her rancid cunt is her veneer.

 

unchartered heart

I carry an alien heart
through unchartered waters

Terra Incognita
and I was born wrong

in continent and song

my colours display
a range of fear of rage

my darling, why
did you betray

a millennium of heroes and maidens
waiting, simply waiting

for their long-lost day?

oh, oh, oh, you errant number

generic
as a fish tail

you swish and slap

the designer tank, yet you are lost

in revision, edition, your good strong fins
shall surely save you,

but I cannot vouch
for the next generation.

Lisa

I have tried to save you,
Code Steinberg-Nussbaum

Cocaine, S&M 101.

The woman,
flat-voiced has reclaimed
a human form.

Holding wonder in a cup,
her tea & sympathy is rank and malformed.

Lisa,
your cream-blush
heart-shaped face
has worn a hole

into my soul. In a twilight
shift of love and thought

we perch together on a velvet bough,

admiring a rosegold sunset
and the force of why and how.

You were My Narnia (Death Rattle of the Frozen Heart)

frost-locked lips
kept a January promise

my lion-hearted assassin.

in one hand, you offered Turkish Delight,
Lokum filled with pistachio folly.

in the other—
a heart-shaped cookie cutter

that you pressed into my breast
until I bled and wept

until all that was left
leapt and shuddered.

The Ecstasy Of Veronique Rough

perhaps I should say
harmony or torment

these extremes are all the same
in effect and intent

my enraptured marionnette

With strings attached,
all gifts are sent, arrive

upon a pale blond doorstep

only there are no cover
stairs, just bullet holes

where homes once dwelt.

the wolf-child you carry in your feral heart

in dreams,
doors refuse to latch
because life leaves
us spread-eagled,

in timeless disgrace.

I hunt a civilized heart.
When it one day refuses to pump

I will slump
against broken locks and rabid bolts.

feral child with hot blood
in a goblet, racing fierce
upon four unequal legs,

nothing is fair,
and my pale ferocity

will be shepherded into blond  pastures
long after I am hidden elsewhere.

your stunted heart

dwarfed—it pumps
buckets of rosy ice

and a tongue that refuses
to rise, like a flag

struck limp,

your love is minimalist.

no time to protest

under the watchful eyes
of two full moons

you brace your selves
to die

none too soon.

tonight, my lover,
the condors are hungry


and your cooling flesh
satisfies.

length and leisure

your hair allures
it has all the time in the world

castaway doubts,
bouts with yellow fever and revolt

why do some creatures always appear
to be growing?

mermaid lie

what better way to say good-bye
than with a fishy alibi

humbled

I topple like a Greek Island icon
or perhaps a shipwrecked maiden

who waits for Jesus or Bin Laden

Anyone
who will help me on this cold, long journey Home.

your fucked and feckless heart, sweet tart

your legs
are Rumpelstilskin stumps

but your eyes and cock
know the Mystery of the cannibalized heart

you exist in the Mists
of Avalon, but I know

you have a day job

and a blown business card.

unlikely thorns

you were robbed
or stolen in carnival country

my darling
your colours were so bold: amber corn candy
shoe-red candy apple

and the death toll
climbs like a Biblical ladder

tossing gay Jacob
to  Palestine's rabid dogs.

Clench fierce and tight
the feast of abandoned dreams
is on tonight.

your ooakish heart

stuntman,

you are stunted, a Rumpelstiltskin skin
stretched taut

over your undersized heart

and that arrow of yours:

it squirts venom and spunk
in no particular order sometimes

all junked up. A short, salty
path down an open throat
can lead a derelict pussy
astray and then save her, to betray her
on a later day.

DeathWatch

how many times
must I watch myself die?

I tell you;

I am tired.

Help, Ooak's Alive

but just barely, her pulse
as frantic as a derailed train

her attire
virginal, bridal

yet she suffers
from itchy fin.

Oh!

My darling, my daughter, these fashion meisters
starve you thin, watch

your gasps on pink sand,
one-thid flounder, two parts
Beauty Queen

and your androgynous
pretty face

cannot get you out of this viral mess.

left to ferment in ooak hell

brine daughter,
I never intended to steal
your future. the elevator cage
descended in carnival brass

and there was room for only one.

now you fret in brine,
preserved for a millennium,
as ugly as you are lovely
and hopelessly untamed.

Sweet Heart,
forgive my cunting heart, your

ever-loving mother.

escape from ooak hell

 

my escape from ooak hell

was protracted and savage

 

one never leaves

unique torment

without a wound-stuffed blanket

 

and all those pretty dolls

I left behind: seawater in their eyes,

articulated torture

 

our Maker!

why have You been cruel

and blind? Why have You

been the Greatest

of all Traitors?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

My Feral One

your fierce orgasm
streams viral

in a sorrel forest,
you wear a cape with velvet

lining and a feral-framed smile

All is blood-thick and wild,
the churn of blocked clots
and heart throbs

oh, oh, my love,
the lupine pattern of your dispensed
disease leaves me spent

and thrusting futilely, against stone,

against water.

backstricken

look closely; there I am
backslashed, stricken
no longer bobbing like a rosy apple

your undarling departed
slicing a new moon shoreline

until I am tossed to wetlands again,
my skin bruised and clammy

persistent in this undead odyssey;
lies and knives bring you close to me.

I Tell You

I am ready
to slip the knots

escape stiff, coarse fabric
be a woolen maiden

full-lipped, cunning-hipped

and running,
not pausing for respite

or the cheap impostor—Delight.

Ouch! That Is My Cunt You are Trampling

husband, brother, lover
that is my pussy, my sweet and sour cunt
you trample

how can I express
my extreme distress

There is no file, no number

consenting sacrifice

eleven chapters ago,
I was threaded into the story:

seamstress' child

and you stayed beside me
to read and stroll

our landscape,
a stiff handerkerchief.


Lover,
I was happy, yet you abruptly
repeated:

Let me go;
let me go.

who was I
to refuse or ignore?

Eleven chapters later,
I am read no more.

stalking sea icons

all those pretty names
shimmer in sand,

desert roses blown
beside cacti blossoms

such vibrant knobs,
a nod to beauty

and what of trust;
is it worthy of your starfish hand?
raised even as arms
crumble

brittle and rosy
under the sun.

Not To Be Missed

Interior Travel
separates curtain from shadow

your rosy lining
blanched the coat of all colour

now in permanent exile—
a white tattoo on a ghost wall.

The Unenviable Miss SlipSkin

Miss SlipSkin, how  inside-out
you pull your face as though
it were a fine-traced mask

Your tears warm your throat;
if they were words,
they would leap and shouyt

grotesque. Your stockings
clot your veins and golden tresses

invade your strange intestines.

Peeled again and again,
your truth grows thin,

Miss Unenviable Slipped and Skinned.

the restless exile of the dead

the dead are exiled,
nothing more or less

we are ghostflowers
with the scent of rolled bottles

the ocean bobs us—
a lipread message unwarmed by kiss.

At Long Length

It does not matter,
my pain, an abortion in Three Acts,
your feckless dishonour.

My unbeloved traitor,
you have traded skins and gemstones
since the Beginning

of poetic time.

I miss you; you are mine.

Not with standing
my beheaded cry, you

refuse to live; you neglect to die.

your pocket fame

here we go again,
celebrating your pocket fame:

only 30 years dead, your name
haunts City Hall marquee

a ghost with no game

streets cobbled
like your sole and nape

all those timid curves
you could not control

now set in pitted sail.

The Nico factor

your flat feet
are water instruments;
walk upward, mer-angel.

and as for your voice,
it died before that final
heroin joy-ride.

as Middlesex as any beautiful
freak could be, you do not deserve

mercy, so perfectly
hate-worthy.

Diary Of A Dispossessed Optimist

I Do Not Have To

die this way; I may resist,
recalibrate, cry why.

Or

I can be one with the ocean,
conches, periwinkles and oysters.

It

is my wet and salty decision,
and I wait on the outskirts
of your enlightened derision.


Sincerely,
A Somebody-or-Other

Leonard, My Plump

You were a Kerouacian cunt:

And your Marianne-slash-Suzanne personnae
attend Nico's ghost funeral.

Mother, Masha
Father, Sasha

your plump framework
is simply No Damn Good.

Letter to an Unzenned Erstwhile Friend

Life often leaves us shipwrecked.

I suspect that Faith
Is the surest Provider.
Love,

Grace.

In Our Secret Lives

we fight,
and sleep on the sly
in fields of rye,
Catchers of Disease and Fright.

When you decided to deconstruct
my life, you left me no head, no bed

no might. Forgiveness charges
on a sweet grey nag;

I am here. I never betrayed
our secret; I never pretended
to be right.

Avenue Of The Unfound

Your city called to me
through laddered dreams.
I bought jigsaw maps
and stitched a scarred trajectory

toward your cold address, your timeless
vacancy.

My Sir Hyde

It behhoves me not
to inspire a twist of mercy

at the tip. I disabled
a stiletto on rose cobblestone;
now the slant of your eyes
blinds one final petal.

your bungled strategies

ride on, little stranger!
those safety boxes you construct
from matchsticks and fine smoke

cannot truly harm you.

What more can you expect
from debt except a sheepish
collector at the door?

My Pretty Anna

you have always been my Pretty One,
soft-toned Anna,
ever since the day of your shrill arrival.

Even now I wait,
I fret, I unstitch taffeta remnants
in colours unimaginable

and then I create your beauty again
just to watch the audience unravel.

the forgetful slave

absent-minded,
I go about your business

spilling eyewater and pink wine.

My pleasure, your insistence,
these floors that sweep us down

into the history of chaos, begin to tilt
like losing windmills.

My Master,
the sight of you on a fine St. Bernard
causes my memory to salivate
and painstakes my pride

anything but (except)

how can I be any thing
other than a piece of crap

eliminated from your waist band,

bobbing like a demented
Halloween apple,

blondely alone?

serves you right

Lady Polka Dot,
your self-promotion
backfires

leaving you egg-faced,
akimbo in a tea cup.

You are not at all worth
your while. Own up

to the disaster of Esther's ladder.

The Anatomy Of Pain

forget the music, sister,
your obese ladder stretches forever,

lunchbox cheese, a smile that neglected
its mother and scuttles like a demented spider

into safe corridor.

cellulite ripples, and so do memories, lies
and forgiveness.

you have crosses too many lines
to claim any kind of citizenship.

kindly
die.

Kafka On The Shore

you stop me on the Avenues,
my hair has paled, my lips a rosy hue

musica, lingua franca

a waifish Jane Birkin, abundant Adele.

Jittered, jolted,
trying to catch up with success and stammer,

my stroll is clipped staccato

I recall that harmed time,
you were stalled in Prague:

I cawed, "Crow, my crow,"
but you were too unilingual to know

that I was calling
for Kafka on the shore.

over the counter...top

green girl,
absinthe shoots those ladder legs

you climb
holes and all

to the tattooed thrust of Redemption Hall.