The Colonies

I.

noble cat

feral woman

lead me down

a defunct stairwell

i'll stop and retrieve

the broken buckle

from your soot smeared boot

while you adjust your veil

never too old

to start again

your new life

awaits you

II.

I followed you

on wet asphalt

past garbage piles

and the discarded

ragged remnants;

things and beings

that were never whole

III.

showered by Leonids tears

you stared marveled with marbled eyes

to a place you’ll never reach

a journey you’ll never start

IV.

if only you had kissed just once

and walked away

I danced ballet starting in the third grade--
I never had a tree house or a dog. Saturdays
after lessons I sold lemonade with two girl-
friend sisters who lived next door.

I knewNijinski before I knew Michael Jordan--

but, there were problems.

The first time I tried to jump off a bridge was
back in 79'. I had returned from Munich, hav-
ing taken my Cecchetti exams. I was seventeen
and my hometown made quite a fuss over my
dancing accomplishments, plastering me all
over the newspapers.

Girls in town noticed me too and soon Michel-
la came along. She was a golden goddess.
Every boy in school was ga-ga over her long
legs and suspected naughtiness.

Michella started buzzing me like a fast saw
and soon I was down in a field of grass. La-
ter, I found out I was only a bet around town--
could she bag the virgin ballerina boy?

Soon after we graduated Michella split for
California without a howdie-doo. I was deva-
stated. I stole about a hundred of my aunt's
Valium, swallowed them and ran out of the
house.

I hid in the local cemetery. Someone found
me behind statue of Mary—

and I never danced again.

I left for college and dove into architecture
and art. That's when Tiffany, my future wife
showed up. She was the first girl to really
care about anything besides sex. I suppose
that should have clued me in to my future,
but after having gone through Michella,
what the hell?-- she asked me to marry.

I said, damn straight!

Tiffany would allow me to have vaginal sex
with her about three times a year. Her thing
was oral sex, hers. I figured I'd better keep
her temper in line by complying as she had
a hell of a temper.

She trained me well.

After fifteen years of this kind of crap, I got
chapped lips. I also found a lover, but then
the real games began. Kerry Anne was a
British Airlines Pilot and liked to fly high,
drive fast and wind me up like a toy. She
was single, brilliant and knew my buttons--
knew well that my dog's death eight years
earlier was a heavy weight on my mind.

When the scotch and soda made me too
crazy, she'd be the mean ol' school marm
and I would be the little dirty boy she
caught in the cloakroom with my hands
inside my pants.

Yeah, she had me wound up tighter, as
they say, than a drum. But it was Tiffany
all over again. Kerry Anne ran off with
an airline stewardess based out of Dallas.

Linda Lou, my wife now, and I got an invi-
tation to the wedding and then things
started going haywire inside my head.

Soon after I landed in Charter House on
Valentine night screaming "Mommy …"
naked as a Jaybird, playing Debussy on
my baby grand piano. It took four cops
to wrestle me down and carry me away
in cuffs.

After a month in the looney bin, they tag-
ged me with manic depression, sent me
home with a bag of pills that retired me
from my position as midwest branch man-
ager of the Tire and Auto Service Depart-
ment at Sears.

I quit the world. I quit the thought of sex.
For a couple years I sat on my back porch
barefoot, fed birds and smoked weed.

In 96' I read a book called "Go Ahead, Ask
Her If She Wants To Make Love," by Dr.
Tom Granfield, a professor of psychiatry
at Johns Hopkins University. He's also a
manic-depressive. His book deals with the
relation between manic-depressive illness
and the artistic temperament and under-
standing the creative process. In the book
I discovered artists and poets-- too many
to name here.

What I was searching for was the elemental
human desire to add meaning and perma-
nence to life that can be found in writing.

And as Anne Sexton once wrote, "Poetry led
me by the hand out of madness."

I first wrote as not only as a means of es-
cape from pain, but also as a way of struc-
turing chaotic emotions and thoughts,
numb-\ing pain through abstraction and
the rigors of disciplined thought, and

creating a distance from my house to the
bus stop.

I suppose it was a cheap man's therapy
and so it continues ...

Then came Annabel.

I was alarmed reading her poem How A
Girl Poet Grooms Her Pussy Until Its Per-
fect. The sexual nature of the lines sucked
me like a hummingbird’s tongue sucks the
juice from deep inside flower petals.
I couldn't help but write her.

So began our years of dialog, my opening
up to the realization that I could bare my-
self honestly and deeply with a woman
without shame or fear of rejection. I told
her I masturbated in the shower several
times a week. She wrote back and said
she did too.

And I told her other, more personal stuff.

I kissed her ... by email. Yeah, on the net
kisses aren't contracts, and you learn the
subtle difference between holding your
breath and chaining the soul. Annabel
helped me understand fun, how fantastic
life could be and what freedom is.

However, depression is a snake. It clings
like ivy around my shoulders from time to
time.

This summer my wife took me to Nags
Head, North Carolina. We went to a
restaurant and lounge called the Wind-
mill Point overlooking Roanoke Sound.
The décor of the place held the largest
collection of memorabilia from the S.S.
United States.

The barstools were all marked with
plaques of famous people who had once
sat their ass in them. I found Marilyn
Monroe's barstool and ordered a rum
and coke with a cherry in it. Next to her
spot was Jack Kennedy's and I wonder-
ed what he drank.

Of course my wife drank too much and
I had to drive us us back to our beach
condo. She was on the bed snoring be-
fore I even had my clothes off.

Somehow the beach seemed ripe for me,
and balconies always made me think of
Lorca. I always imagined diving off some
balcony, my long white silk scarf flowing
against the air, my hair cutting through
like a Chinese kite.

And for that moment, that one moment,
I leaned over as far as my torso could ex-
tend, still looking at the moon which
was bent like half smile...

and I thought about going over.

The moon seduces, especially on bridges
and balconies. Fireworks exploded from
the far side of beach past the pier. The
sight and sound jolted my thoughts and
I pulled back. My hands started tremb-
ling and I sat down in a plastic chair,
moist from the sea breeze.

My wife's left over cigar was still sitting
in the ashtray.

I lit it and tried to blow rings.

##
p
　

Beetle Light

As the street-light spanked the night
beetles darted then froze upon
hearing high heels clickety-click
on route to another dead-end trick

stained red lip-stick round
another dick-head
reminder of pleasure found
out of reach in their wife's bed

yellow casted glow
complimented hard lines,
trophies awarded for stress;
survival of insecure times

dead insects spotted the walk,
as she tramped through the night;
fighting beetles for the light

The Package

When I left Bertha's hotel room around
2 o'clock this morning, she was chewing
on a T-bone steak --

like a cow on cud.

That's right-- Bertha was a lady who gave
good cud. She gave good cud, alright, but I
wasn't thinking about cud right then. No,
I wasn't thinking about cud; my mind was
on something else—

I had to get to LA by noon.

It was a ten hour drive by backroads to LA
and I wasn't sure if I could get to LA by driv-
ing back roads-- but by God I was going to
try! I had to try. A lot depended on it--

maybe my future.

After an hour on the road, I started to worry
about Myrna. Yes, it was Mryna I started
worrying about. I don't know how I got mixed-
up with Myrna. It happened fast-- one day
I was a salesman for California Electric and
Coal, next day I was mixed up with Myrna.

I woke up with a bad feeling the day I met
Myrna. I took the city bus to the corner of
Vine and Third and when the bus stopped
at the corner of Third and Vine, I got off--

as I always do when I take that bus.

Well ... standing by a cab with the back
door open was Myrna. I didn't know her
name was Myrna right then. I found that
out later-- after I got mixed up with her.

She called me over. Seems she couldn't
pay her fare. The cabbie had threatened to
keep her suitcase and coat until she paid-up.
I don't know why, but I pulled out my wallet
and gave a ten to the driver--

that left me with a five and two ones and
some change I kept in the snap-pocket of
my wallet-- the one Aunt Hildred gave me
for tilling her garden two summer ago, when
wallets were on sale at Jenna's Discount and
Second-hand.

So I'm driving down these hilly back roads
to LA stuck behind a slow truck hauling
chickens, and I get a strange feeling. Maybe
some people would call it an odd feeling,
maybe a weird feeling, but I call it a strange
feeling--

like I feel something's going to happen,
which it always does, like it or not.

I started to worry.

When the chicken hauler turned off at Brad-
dox Junction, I kept worrying. Then I be-
gan to doubt if I could get to LA by these
back roads, by noon.

Plus, there was the Myrna issue, and since
last Friday, I had started to worry about
Vivian. Vivian is a waitress at Mid-Californ-
ia Truck Stop on Highway 114, a back road.

That's why I had to take back roads. I had
to stop and see Vivian and find out if she
still had the package. I left the package
with her about about a month ago; I had
to make sure she still had it. I needed that
package, bad --

for Eugenie.

After I met Eugenie at a noon rummage sale
downtown at Saint Vincent de Paul's, I start-
ed changing my mind about a few things I
wasn't very sure about before. At first, I
wasn't sure if Eugenie needed to see what
was in the package, at all.

And the Myrna issue still bothered me-- even
after our all-night talk sitting on the porch of
her rooming house and drinking lemonade.

I needed time to think-- that's why I left the
package with Vivian. A few days ago while I
was buying some treble hooks, a roll of mono-
filiment line and a new pair of pliers at Lake
Chancy Tackle and Bait Shop I realized I had
to tell Eugenie about the package.

I had to open it in front of her and let her see
for herself what was inside – that was so she
would know what it was.

I had to do it that way. There was no other
way. Sometimes a person has an alternate
way, or three ways to do something, but not
this time.

Eugenie was leaving LA on the noon Grey-
hound to Phoenix. That's why I had to stop
by the truck stop, get the package from
Vivian, and get to the bus station by noon.

I had to let Eugenie see for herself the con-
tents of the package-- then together we
would decide what to do, after that.

Everything was all mixed up. I guess it was
Blendina Coztagna's fault. All this started
with that redheaded IRS agent Blendina
Coztagna from South Lake Tahoe. If she
hadn't walked into my office at California
Electric and Coal, sat down to light a cigar-
ette, things might have been different.

If she hadn't asked that question right at
the exact time my secretary, Della, decid-
ed, right at that moment, to peek her
head around the door of my private wash
room and ask if I had some more paper
towels, as the paper towel dispenser was
empty,-- things might have worked out.

Ms Coztagna gave Della a hard look so
Della ducked back inside the wash room
leaving the door open. I suspected that
was so she could hear what we saying.

That meant of course Ms Coztagna could
hear the sound of Della was doing--what
was going on inside the washroom—but
that was nothing to me since I had heard
it all before.

Ms IRS stubbed out her cigarette in an
ash tray I had taken from the Ramada
Inn in Barstow and asked why I had
claimed a one Bertha Ratterfield on my
return as a dependent for the last five
years when Miss Ratterfield had always
claimed herself on her own return?

As I drove down the back roads toward
Mid-California Truck Stop, I thought--

if Vivian still has the package and if I can
get to the Greyhound bus station by noon,
everything-- hope to God—will work out.

I don't know though.

##
p

Unwound

The End Of The Beginning

XV.

sunrise

sunset

and then

the darkness

XIV.

a horse

a noose

and the relic oak;

this is your sentence

XIII.

"But I loved him."

XII.

"Your union was forbidden. And now his life has ended.

You carry death about you. This you know."

XI.

"Did you give pause to consider?" asked the Patriarch.

"I wear pollen and the smell of a saddle blanket. 

Every petal tossed into the Maiandros was worth the price." she said.

X.

Sunrise

then sunset

she went before the council

IX.

by decree

he had to be burned

VIII.

2 moons, and

2 suns

and

one last sunset

then

he was gone

VII.

sunset

moonrise

sunrise

then

the ague

The Beginning Of The End

I.

She tossed petals, one at a time, into the Maiandros.

II.

"Picking flowers by the bank, a worthy occupation."

He was tall, covered in dust and sculpted from raw iron.

III.

"I'll return for you later and

I will take you

here

in the long grass," he said.

IV.

"So you may. But will I be here?

I bend senuous with the watercourse.

You might find me by the oxbow lake;

it's equilibrium that I seek."

V.

after a while

the man returned

clutching riverbank grape

and a bottle of it's produce

handing her the parcel of leaves

"This is for your pleasure and

the bottle is for ours."

VI.

and later

her dress whispered

as it fell

VII.

sunset

moonrise

sunrise

It was just like that ...

I crawled up the pull-down ladder in the
garage ceiling, crept across the attic floor
to find Annabel, my wife of three weeks,
supine on a cot--

and there I prepared to lick sweat out both
her armpits to inoculate myself against the
sweltering heat and rigors of Air Force sur-
vival training.

Late July, Hondo, Texas.

Yes, just like that. It worked.

Just like that. Now that I a civilian again and
enrolled in Dr. Taylor’s rhetoric class, and I
see what I will have to go through, I need
some kind of inoculation against the way the
man teaches his class-- which we spend 75%
of the time by listening to him read his own
writings.

What the hell! We have books!

I need inoculation, a lick, of something, a
kind of sweat-serum, that when slurped-up
and self-injected into the soft tissues under
the tongue disagrees with common sense
and the more delicate palate—

but necessary.

Yes, it disagrees-- yet,

'Yet' (what a great word!), as we all have
come to understand and value the many
forms of atavistic cannibalism -- in disguise,
sometimes disguised as flanks of hippo meat
(Yes, Conrad meant human flesh).

To guarantee that a person won't find some-
thing even yet more disagreeable during the
day, they must upon waking swallow a toad
or lick sweat out of an armpit or groin.

Swallowing toads or licking sweat, while not
the most savory thing, has not only the effi-
cacy of providing the body with antibodies--
but as well, such licking is an action that in-
troduce synecdoche into the consciousness.

Some professors leave acrid, bitter instruction-
al rank in the room when class is over. This
heavy air feeling is similiar to having dangling
calcium carbonate stalactites on the soft palate,
also vinegar pock on the hard alveolar ridge--

on which a person often runs his tongue back
and forth like a windshield wiper to rid or dil-
ute the taste.

Yes, and to forget forever Taylor's class-- if
it makes you sick because you didn't inoculate.

Maybe some coeds like Taylor's class. If so,
they have to push Taylor's taste into deeper
recesses of their damp oral musculatures--
whence such taste might be coaxed out later
as a memorous vestige-- maybe in those ster-
ile, lonely times when the girl sits on a fire
escape and listens to Steve Lawrence sing,

"The Wee Small Hours of the Morning."

Coming to a Taylor class, itself, is for many
an inoculation against the melancholy brought
on by coming to class, sitting and listening.
Coming to class for some is an offense against
the time spent doing so and a stain that
washes out only when the cause of the stain
is excised.

So, I sat in class, not attentive because my
mind was on Annabel, who, when she got the
chance, ran away with some airman who work-
on helicopters. I guess she ran away from me
because she didn't like my tieing her to that
cot in the attic with her arms pulled back and
roped to the wall--

all required if I were to survive survival.

I remember the scene-- kneeling by the bed,
I looked at Annabel with her mouth taped,
eyes wide and her arms pulled up and back,
armpits soaked and glistening.

On the wall by the stuck-closed attic window
hung a thermometer-- 112 degrees. It was
a good inoculation.

I wonder who licking her now.
##
p

A Comment on Veronique's Poetry

Up to today at noon I have not obtained from
any poet the same drug of artistic delight as is
given me by a Veroniqian poem posted in one
of her rooms in that place called the Feverish V
Hotel.

By such meta-rich language I obtain there,
from the poems a fluid that greases my intel-
lect, such as it is, and a fluid that juices my
loins. Her mosaic of words, in which every one
by sound and position and by meaning diffuses
its force by cancelling in a kind of sous rature--
a fall back the better to leap forward, to the
front, right and left-- a stamping out, in the
sense of cutting a die, every word and re-
placing the whole with such a touch that I
want that touch to run down from my chest
to the base of my compass needle and make it
dance as if it were nearing the North Pole.

The poems illustrate a morality of inertia-- a
writing lure that comes to her neither by her
choice nor by her stir, but by necessity.

Her writing is Roman. It is noble par excel-
lence. Her poems are candle flames seen be-
tween slit lacunas in a basket woven with
river reeds and thrown over.

My poetry contrasts to hers as mere senti-
mental loquacity.

##
p

Wife of a Holy Roller Man

Eighteen-wheelers pass and rain falls
like tinsel twists into marram grass.

A preacher's wife in flimsy wraps
runs away from God and man--
cotton dress and shoes untied,
and a gob of rags between her legs
stuck sopping in her underpants.

Jellies canned and peach preserves,
calendars nailed to basement shelves
marked months of ugly wedded lock
to the cleansed soul and cold heart
of a Holy Roller, Bible Belt man.

He called her lewd the day she leaked
and stained the Bible Book, fingerprints
on Exodus, trace of smear on Genesis.
Against that blood raged Roller Man--
he'll beat the buckled-strap ten times
on her sweet and innocent bloody ass.

Headlights torch the marram grass;
gully nettles spear her legs
and insistence thicks the tacky patch.
A truck stops-- to a husky man
who honors blood she'll pay her way,
give good head and road romance.

Surprised by joy the driver laughs
and drones his wheels to Anytown--
rains falls like tinsel into marram grass.

##
p

Eulogy For The Living

Do not wait ‘til death
to mourn,
to mourn.
Instead stand shoulder to shoulder
and weather the winds of rage
as splintered hopes impale the last
refuge of delusion.

No funerary silks nor petaled
velvets can mend
the ragged threads of
marooned desires, and
no gilded box
will ever contain a compass
to track the clandestine
footfalls of serenity’s course.

Book Review Section **
Wagon Tongue, North Dakota--
by Winston Garmouth
　
Tessie Willden is a lonely 18-year old New
Yorker sent to live with a family friend in a
small town in North Dakota while her father
travels the continent and her mother runs
the company auto repair business.

Ostracized as an outsider, Tessie struggles
to fit in with her new surroundings--she also
struggles to fit in her new jeans, as she had
gained weight.

When Tessie befriends Lisette, a beautiful,
self-admitted lesbian ghost who had haunted
the town's cemetery since her mysterious
death 155 years earlier, Tessie is drawn into
an eerie story of betrayal, loss, old curses
and family secrets.

One evening ghosty Lisette, without warn-
ing, gives Tessie a quick slap on her ass by
flipping a towel-- this was as Mardi Gras ap-
proached and after Lisette had also slyly ap-
proached the innocent Tessie after Tessie
has stepped out of the shower.

This ass-slap leads to a culmination.

Something dark and angry has been brewing
for decades-- and also a light and refreshing
beer brewed inside the brewery on Hydraulic
Street.

This moody tale thoroughly embraces the
rich history, occult lore and complex issues
of girls kissing girls, ethnicity, class and cul-
ture that has defined small North Dakota
towns since pioneer settlement.

Rather than shy away from lesbian practices,
the author of this novel uses lesbian practices
to capture the essence of lesbianism--as prac-
ticed by lesbians from (in) Mardi Gras rituals
to voodoo spells, from lots of lip work during
Hurricane Katrina to under-the-table tend-
er hair-gropes in Jamacian Jazz bars and in
Peruvian cafes during July's mosquito infes-
tation.

This is a story that could only be written.

**
Ms Floradador Coaltrain,
New York Times Book Review

##
p

The Hammer Falls on Both Sides

I.  Mujahideen

there

on the curb

on a roadside

with no sidewalk 

on the other side

lay a young man

hands bound behind his back

and face against a concrete block

there

standing over

was the bearded Chechen

grotesquely fat and sour smelling

holding a sign post, orphaned from

an intersection

a hammer in search of a bell to ring

"Ti si licemjer." [You're a hypocrite]

"Gdje mogu naći moj mir u vašem okrutnost?" [Where may I find peace in your cruelty?]

"أنت كافر." [You are an infidel]

.[The spring will not remember the spill of your blood.]"والربيع لن تتذكر بقعةمن الدم"

""Što ti je to borba za vas? Reći će vam vaša djeca da su neki ljudi i neke stvari ne?" 

"Oni stupovi te držati gore, oni raspasti." ["What is that you fight for? Will you tell your children that some people matter and  some don't?"

"Those pillars you hold up; they crumble."]

"سأقول أولادي وأحفادي ، التي كانت آخر من النوع الخاص بك. إن شاء الله وصلي الله عليهوسلم".

["I will tell my children, and theirs, that you were the last of your kind. God willing and peace be upon him."]

"svinje s krvav kurac fucks svoju sestru na grob svoje make" [a swine with the bloody dick fucks your sister on your mothers grave]

before the altar of Kledusha, they used sledge hammers.

but the signpost did just fine...

II. Tupolev Tu-22M (Туполев Ту-22М) over Grozny

"Range" [Линия]

2 kilometers [

"Crosswind" [боковом]

2 knots

"Altitude" [высота]

10,000 Km

"Open the bomb bay doors. [Открытые двери бомбового отсека.]

On 3

2…1…

Release" [Освобождение]

Saguara

the ride was worth the whisper
mile markers passed by at a rate
generally reserved for a centrifuge holding vials
her hand holding the steering wheel
and the other holding a bottle
the car holding the road
my hand holding my hat
me holding my breath
a boy holding a sign, and
the sun holding
the sky
and
her lips
held a secret
a secret worth the whisper

Turner's Pudenda Drawings and Cocks-At-Point

Never in history has the reading public so anticipa-
ted the release of an author's first published work--
but the date is near and all expectations will soon
be fulfilled.

Yes, in mid-December the author known simply as
T. will have his new book, Turner's Pudenda Draw-
ings stocked in book stores across America and
abroad. For the first time art devotees and art de-
votas will learn the truth about those mysterious
drawings Joseph Turner made of female pudenda--

some 363 of them, 112 in pastel, 130 in charcoal,
115 in ink by quill, and six in some palish-white
substance, origin unknown but guessed at.

T. goes to great lengths to assertain the impulse be-
hind the apparent obsession Turner reveals by
"these 363 drawngs. Also, T. seeks to explain why
the artist left all his unsold work to the British na-
tion; and why, years after his death, most of the
paper pads were yet boxed, wrapped and stored
in the cellars of the National Gallery, unapprecia-
ted and ignored.

The 363 drawings, however, were not forgotten.

T. tells us that after a time the trustees of the mu-
seam agreed to sell the drawings, as space was need-
ed for other acquisitions. The lot fell into the hands
of a one Draco Delo Quinn, an auctioneer for the
London trade firm, Smyth and BB Wheatly, and
who had in the summer of 1857 auctioned off Lady
Jan Chittenton's entire collection of Andocides' 'pe-
nis pottery,' -- a name Lady Jan gave herself to the
hundreds of household pots thrown by the Greek
potter who invented the 'red-figure-at point' tech-
nique, a skill envied by all other potters of the time
(6th Century BC).

One such pot-work went on display in the gardens
of a country house outside Berlin, T. reports, shows
Heracles and Apollo struggling over the possession
of a Delphic tripod. Both men are erect, pricks 'at the
point' dabbed red, in Andocides unmistakable style.

The background is black.

T.'s detective work has uncovered other 'penis pots,'
either on sale or in private collections; and oddly
here's the frame for his new book-- those art lovers
who have collected Andocides have aslo collected
Turner's pudenda drawings.

T.'s research follows the trail of 'pricks' depicted on
pots' and Turner's pundenda drawings-- who bought
them at the auction? who sold them after? who bought
for others? who sold? who kept? who donated? -- and
where are they now?

T. accounts for the whereabouts of 349 female puden-
da drawings made by Joseph Turner, and has found
the owners of 767 pots depicting 'red-pointing' pricks.

T. does not mention the androgynous 'pricks' who run
Gazebo, nor the sweet and tiny innocent pudenda of
giggly girls enrolled in Catholic colleges-- those tasty
morsels from good homes.

##
dt
p

A green and gold meadow, nature not having decided wheth-
er she ought be late summer or mid autumn and having scat-
tered tulip leaves atop a brook most fair and cool, I found one
fine day and thereupon the bank lay a most beautiful girl
asleep

(as I guessed she was)

clad only in a vest of such see-through linen that it scarce
in any measure veiled the cherry of her breasts-- and below
her waist nought but an apron most in a whisp, light texture;
and likewise dressed, at her feet, there slept two girls and a
boy-- her slaves,

(as I guessed),

for no sooner did I catch this sight, than the Princess

( as I guessed she was)

turned in her sleep

(as I again guessed she was)

to her back, cried out words I had never heard, and spread
her legs

(as I guessed she did).

I really don't know anything about this lovely scene be-
cause I was in a barn tending to a sick horse thousands of
miles away.
**
A green and gold meadow, nature having decided that she
is late summer and having scattered tulip leavesatop a brook
most fair and cool, I found one fine day and thereupon the
bank lay a most beautiful girl asleep

(as I knew she was because I yelled words I didn't know I
knew right in her right ear)

clad only in a vest of such seethrough linen that it scarce
in any measure veiled the cherry of her breasts-- and be-
low her waist nought but an apron most in a whisp, light
texture; and likewise dressed, at her feet, there slept two
girls and a boy-- her slaves

(as I knew they were because their faces had been brand-
ed XXX with a red-hot iron)

for no sooner did I catch this sight than the Princess

( as I knew she was because she wore a little crown stud-
ded with diamonds. I knew they were diamonds because
I had worn something similiar when I was the girl Prin-
cess of Karlsbad)

turned in her sleep, cried out words I had never heard

(again I knew she was asleep for when she spread her legs
I dropped my lips to that most delicious place and she stir-
red only slightly and sighed ........ )

I do know everything about this lovely scene because I
was in my den watching it on a XXX dvd-- but that's all
I know because the electricity went out-- right at that
last moment mentioned above.

##
dt
palinirus　
　

viral intentions

I caressed my lover's throat,
during spasms of ecstasy,
whispering these words:

I sail through the seas
in our ship of feces;
the world is our disease.

I am done with you.

snowflakes and acceptance

I looked up into the sky
through the trees,
stripped of their leaves,
because
that's the way
winter has always been.

Death existed before me.

I lit my cigar
and drank my beer --
with the knowledge
that
I don't give a shit.

Lift

9 passengers
5 of them
victims

"I told her
to shut the
fuck up. Her
mouth was only
good for one thing
and it needed to be
plugged while doing it."

3 of the 4 now
red faced, suppressing
laughter. They can't believe
I say these things.

Floor 2. One person steps off.
Hah! I know they work on the 4th floor.
They opted for the stairs.

Doors.

"So that's when I punched her in the stomach.
You know, I'm due in court next week."

Floor 3 and 3of 4 leave; it's my stop, but I stay.

Doors

I back up to a corner of 3. I'm not aware of personal 
space. Don't care.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a bottle of something
obviously prescription, shake 2 white rattled-around pills
into my palm. Throw them in my mouth and and...chew slowly

Doors

Floor 4. This is a different agency. The remaining 4 get off, 1
has one more flight to go but opts for the stairs. I might see him 

on the way back down when I take the stairs on 5.

I wonder
how a passer-by
acts when
there isn't
an opposite
side
of
the
street

I want to step back and away from the
silliness of my last two entries here at
the Gaslight Hotel-- and post some-
thing that is so meaningful to me and
something that identifies much of my
mostly wasted time here on earth.

"None of us can help the things life has
done to us. They're done before you
realize it, and once they're done they
make you do other things until at last
everything comes between you and
what you'd like to be, and you've lost
your true self forever."

-- Mary Tyrone, O’Neill’s
Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Fuck you, old man.

We sat on your porch,
you, me, and your Lord,
discussing transgressions:
compulsions, desires, and needs.

They were never a taboo to you;
thus, you had become
her personal shame --
a memory of grandpa.

Part Two-- My Secret Life
　
For having such confidence on stage read-
ing my poetry, I am awfully confused off of it.

But who wouldn't be confident wearing a
palepink shirt and tight linen tannish pants,
highboots with bright yellow buckles, a black
velvet jacket and a long red scarf?

--- being the star of the Montmartre district.

Now my secret life is full of question marks.

This isn’t like having to decide for a girl who
comes in the drug store whether I should
make her soda with vanilla or strawberry
ice cream, or whether I had jerked off too
many times in the back storeroom for Mis-
ter Bern not to notice.

If I give all of this up, I can’t press the re-
wind button. Do I tempt Fate by leaving
Paris and going to Montreal? Do I suffer
the consequences of not knowing better,
and well, the lady known as V?

Yet, here, there are critics who find flaws
in everyone I do-- and that’s their job. Oh,
these are people who come to the show and
later write in their columns how I had made
a nice hip snap during an octave but was en-
tirely flat dull reciting a poem based on a
aunt's love for her nephew--

and then they bring up the fear that my ass
will not retain it's lovely shape for long with
all the sweets brought back to my dressing
room after my show; that I will soon have
to disguise a bubble butt by discarding my
tight tannish linen pants for a more loose
and fluffy pair.

I wouldn't have that in Montreal.

One mention that my ass was getting bigger
and here comes a momentum that takes on
a life of its own, and all of a sudden, a great
performer can go from being sensational to
being just another brick in the wall, just one
more stage poet with a fat ass.

That wouldn't happen in Montreal.

I think if I leave Paris I will teach other up
and coming stage poets just begining their
careers a valuable lesson-- don’t make all the
critics start to question you, or they will pounce.
If you’re in their good graces, you have to take
advan-tage of the small window of opportunity--
by honing your poetry skills and by offering
blow jobs.

That wouldn't happen in Montreal

Right now I'm leaning toward that Canadian
city and giving up poetry altogether and giv-
ing up all this fruity stage performing.

But can I find Veronique?

##
p

pulse-taking ( this may be a found poem )

Dear Gas-Lighters,

I am taking a collective pulse. Are you interested in relocating to a
new venue? Some of us might be a little bruised from Poetsphere.
We're mostly seasoned guests at Online Poetry Hotels, but would
you like to take a leap of faith and try once again?

I could set something up at the drop of a hat. This is the blue-print I had in mind.

A Demo Forum
Go back to MadMooseForum.com

We'll be few, but we may grow. Dissension will appear as it always
does, but will you pack a small valise and make this jump with me?

Gaslight, as such, remains, and perhaps it is all we need.
What do you say?

I will definitely require a technical troubleshooter to assist me and
a couple of co -admins to manage the space. Do you think it's
worth the effort?

veronique/bandit/champagne_shoes

Breakfast of Losers

Perhaps it has always been the
starkness of being between us,
cocooned stasis
away and between the measured
beats that pound life out of
red licorice-kissed lips.

Fall we did into oatmeal puddled
existence, and there we languish
where the only shared thoughts
are of milk,butter
and sometimes guns.

How I long for another

hot creamy cereal
to stir my disposition
up to something
more than tepid.

My Secret Life

I was born Donald Taylor. After I was born my uncle
added 'Cloyde.' That was my middle name. Although
I was Donald Cloyde Taylor, everyone called me by
the girl name 'Courtney.' My mother said I was called
that because I was so good looking in a girl's way as a
boy.

I left home in 1959 to work in Bern's drug store about
two blocks down the street from our trailer park, where
our trailer was parked in Row 7 Lot 9.

Following my dog's death, which I head about while
jerking sodas at the drug store ice cream counter, I
was deeply saddened-- so I went back to the store-
room in back and jerked off in a newspaper classified
section.

Mid-way diown page two of the classifieds I saw the
words 'WANTED-- call 544-7333' spelled out in ink
interspaced with my 'spendings,' which at the time
was beautifully colored a frosty white.

WANTED? for what?

I jotted down the phone number and threw the news-
paper away, that part that was the classified section,
stricky. I neded to find employment with more of a
future thn just jerking sodas. I would retain the other
jerking even if I found a girlfriend.

Wanted-- for what? And then I lost interest.

After I saved sufficient money to buy a ticket, I bought
a ticket and took a sail to France. Excited, I found my
way to the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, where I hung
out in working-class bistros. There, I finally was given
an opportunity to show the poetical talent I didn't know
I had.

Although poor by birth, I soon adopted the earthy lan-
guage of my haunts and turned it into poems that told
of the delights of the rich..I began performing at cafe-
poetry readings and developed a style that came from
my beautiful looks as a boy back in my home town.

In fact, several men wanted to take me home with them
and read poetry aloud while they made love, but I was
uncomfortable with that, so I courteously said no.

Then I signed a contract to appear at the Film Noir club.
I dressed in a pale pink shirt and tight linen tannish pants
which really showed off my ass and that long and thick
thing I played with back when I jerked sodas at the drug
store-- in the back storeroom.
**
I might mention here why what I did was called soda jerk-
ing-- a soda jerk fills a top-heavy, etched flowerly glass
with vanilla ice cream, Then the soda jerk takesit over to
and under the carbonated faucet. He or she 'jerks"the
handle down. Fluid fills around the ice cream making that
fizzy sound that is the mark of an ice cream soda.
**
I also wore high boots with bright yellow buckles, a black
velvet jacket and a long red scarf, I used the stage name
Tide Huranunti, and I soon became the star of the Mont-
martre district--

and when a lady called only 'Veronique'started coming
around to see my show I fell in love.

Then she moved to Canada, but she remained my best
friend-- the best I ever had.

(End part one)
##
dt

Sunlight

Regardless
of how dim
the house is,
or how warm
the temperature,

if even
the narrowest
band of sunlight
makes its way
through a window,

my dogs
will find it,
and lie down in it.

I like that
about them.

the shoemaker and his tools

by night, a poet:
haiku striker,
tagger with a foreign totem.

his hands are stained
saddle-blazing brown,
the colour of a bareback rider
when new in town
.

a void

delirium
and the swirling attrocities
of my insipid memories
tantalize the moment
when i disemboweled myself
in the parking lot
outside the pharmacy
where i often purchased
my anti-depressants
and M&Ms

If Only She Knew

He asked her mother,

How’s she doing?

And is told, She’s fine,

doing quite well for herself actually.

He said,

That’s good. I never did believe

all those things they used to say.

But he believed them -

he helped create them,

once his children were in bed;

fulfilling bored marriage fantasies

with their submissive, barely a teen, babysitter,

who was confused more than willing,

and yet didn’t quite know

how to say no.

He told his cousin, told his friends

(some wanted in just as badly as him),

yet his wife never seemed to see.

She was off to work, or out with friends,

not realizing or maybe not wanting to

recognize that he only worked late

so the kids would need a sitter,

who ultimately would sit for him.

He would bring her

on father and children outings,

under the guise of helping with the kids.

Yet in the dark of the car,

or in the movie theater, his hand would clasp hers,

or brush across her chest, before moving slowly

up between her legs.

Sometimes they’d smoke,

or drink in his house,

while the children were fast asleep.

His grizzled face would scratch

her soft thighs, and she’d pretend

to be more out of it than she really was;

disengaging from what once felt like flattery,

but mostly now made her feel

like a little girl gone bad who no one

would think much of, if she told.

Years later

her mother has this odd conversation,

and said, I don’t quite know

what he meant by that but you know,

I never really liked it

when you were around him anyway.

He and his wife were just a couple of bums.