dying poem

he found out
from the doctor
one day

that little yellow balls
throughout his
abdomen were
eating him alive.

he had to tell
his lover.

his lover asked
- what are we going
to do?

he, the one with
numbered days
took out a book
also yellow
dirty and worn
that he had been
reading.

- i have to
finish this book
i can't go
off to the...
...
without knowing
how things
end
without knowing
how things
end.

oh and if you
should ever love
another person
after me, know
that i can see
you and everything
you do.

you will have to
stop loving me.
but i will never
stop
loving you.

time; or, the black moth

i was waiting for my
lover at the subway stop,
kind of in a tunnel.
and believe me when i say
this - the wind was being
cute. it would pick up
so ferociously, (almost like
a joke) so hard, i could
not ignore it and i had
to acknowledge it with
a smile, a giggle even.

all was well and as
it should have been.

until,
i noticed her, poised
like a blackish moth,
TIME, with pink ribbon
bows on her antennae,
atop my shoulder. i
could not ignore her
either, but she, with a
flap of her wings
hardly inspired smiles
or laughter.

clasped in her claws
was a long sheer
black scarf which danced
in turns like snake, like
smoke, like witches hair,
as she dove down towards
my feet.

and there she began to
bind me.

my ankles one my
knees one then my
testicles forced flat
between my thighs my
waist forced female
my ribs bend inward
my organs retreating
into each other the scarf
still rising like dark river
water up to my lips taking
last breath then last sight
the winks from her wings
then night.

outside the people
kept passing,
each one of them
a little age of man,
my lover not among them.

the three of us

the doors came closed
together, like trained
soldiers, silver and at
their peak

and then
there we were
the he and the i
and the me behind his eye
in the glass
the three of us

our arms
all six
belonged
to our grandfathers
the chimpanzees
the apes
dangling loose and
hairy down from the hand rails

and here is one way where
the he and the i
and the other one, behind
differed
my brain still belonged to them
was ancient
was grunts and huffs
was beating chests
was snorts
was bananas

the he was like the
sleek doors
calm and on course

and then the other me
the one that only i could
see
well he was something else,
wasn't he?

not afraid

i put ketchup between us
red ketchup
instead of blood.

here is what you didn't say:
my chicken is better than your chicken.
here is what you did say:
your hair is sticky.

we are running out of blood,
i mean ketchup.

mcdonalds offers two kinds of chicken
in the nugget form:
the old kind, soft, veiny.
the new kind, crispy, stringy.

when i am with you
i wish i had more arms,
like four more.

do you notice that i eat the ketchup
more quickly?
are you letting me do that?
the ways you are sweet
go far beyond taste.
the ketchup is fancy, yes.
but if i try to fit you into that word, fancy?
the word explodes
becomes a feather,
a shoe,
nothing.

with four more hands
so i can hold all of you at once.

it was my idea,
let's stop spilling blood,
let's spill ketchup
instead.
much funnier.
much fancier.

there are dolphins

talk about boys like you might talk about dolphins
and by boys i mean men
and by men i mean manhood
and by dolphins i mean something you dream about
and wish to glimpse
but rarely do
rarely rarely do
but always find water in waves
currents being currents
nothing solid
only salt
with its sting making crust
on your lids
at the end of several months
of wasted mornings, wasted
lunches, wasted evenings
your body now curled into the shallow
white cup of the bathtub
bub
keep thinking of them dolphins
happily hidden for the moment then
dancing and humping
rising above the silly childish masses of waves
the dolphins
with their glorious promise
in flight revealed.

untitled

everything tends towards death

the babies in india
already
eaten taken
from their cribs by snakes.

a song begins
and is already on its way to silence
and then to memory

and then memory too
decays away
into nothing
the colors peeling off
white clouds in their wake.

my nails grow but must be clipped.

the burns on your fingertips, my love,
so tender now
so fresh so sweet
will harden and fade back into the
fossil they once were.

the god-given silver inside of me
in its twists and knots
will loosen
as will my bones from their sockets
my hairs from their hold on my head.

but

in the beautiful pretend of prayer
i imagine ourselves
constant as ghosts
big white banks of forever
full of everything that
wishes to continue.

adam's fib

i wish i had been the one to be adam
the beautiful white man
all of the best first things
the first man
the first white
the first beautiful

and also gotten of god's echo, of
his burp and fart

given dominion over all
the beasts
given scepter to christen,
to name this planet
and all the meat
that is in it

cause i don't like the way
"pork" sounds
and i don't like the word
"cow"
and poultry sounds like
an abbreviated direction
given to a vegetarian

and the beyond all the foods
stuffed into this zoo -
none of the words we've been
given are good enough,
are even close
to what they should be
they are too clean for me

they are too clean for you
remember: we came from mud
and a little shard of god's fingernail
that's why when you grunt
i understand you more
than when you say
"i prefer balthus," or
"i love you."

i think had i been adam
had i been the one to be adam
belched out so white upon the mud
i would have sponged up
some of that dirt
and squeezed it out from my tongue
as the animals marched by
with father watching from the sky

the monster

the monster

at night
or when he is alone

(actually they are the same thing
to him so the
two words
night and alone
are interchangeable)

at alone
atop his covers (covers are for babies)
his long and hairy legs
one like a restless
fireman hose
the other
like that of an earnest
depression-era synchronized swimmer
both paddle against coma

yes
his legs are exactly like that

his upper body is more
passive
his heart wishes to slow
as do his lungs
and especially his tongue

inside of his head is
exactly like his legs
exactly

in this alone
he imagines he owns everyone
in a terrible way
like jesus did/does
he wants everyone
when they make a sin or a mistake
an infidelity
to apologize to him
to kiss his palms
but he keeps this
well-hidden
nailed behind his eyelids

he whispers now
eyes open
to a face
outlined like a constellation
by the cracks in his ceiling

"i will mark you
like a glacier
marks the earth.
i will take my time
with you.
you'll think this
winter is a love,
until i've melted
and left you gorged,
dug out, carved up."

now that he has said this
he wants to laugh
but instead blinks hard
and wonders if he meant it

now he thinks of blueberries
or some other kind of small potent
black fruit and he likens
that to his love
(meaning what he might give out from his heart)
rolling one gently between his
thumb and index finger
icy

"what if i pop this,
let out its puss,
its fur?
what if i paint
the right sleeve of your
white shirt with it?
you will never get it out.
and that shirt may live
a longer life with you
than i,
but it will be
forever stained
with my love's
beady rind."

both speeches now hover
in his room
in the alone
like mobiles or balloons
or clouds tending toward
rain
above he and his
weaving legs

seeing these he thinks

"i am a mini-hitler.
ready with numbers.
a mini-hitler: not as
fat."

he scratches his left knee
and then he burps - earlier
he had some milk

"no. i cannot be hitler.
i am a human, i burp.
hitler was a monster.
and me, i am not
that."

these are the things he thinks when
he is night

which is ending
the morning coming on like a
fluorescent
with its hum like a metal comb across
his scalp

those legs
once leviathan
are now dehydrated eels on the
verge of death
one step past desperation
now soup
optionless

the hell of slow tuesday

i'm a muffin not a man.

...

i rub my faces up against the walls.

it's daylight, it's night
i rub my face against the wall.

...

i'm blinking, but nothing
changes.
i'm blinking.
i'm blinking.

...

all the other people are spiders.