I
If my days were a broken vase with all the bits scrambled on the floor,
I’d make a start - set aside the blue
skies, identify the bland skin, teeth, eyes, glass
on the sand like sea shells, a night in the cells, 
the long walk home.

The street’s lined with shit but in my dream
everyone’s on it. The emotion is…
excessive. I’m mastered 
by it, recognise my soul
mate, kindred

spirit. The police officer, however,
doesn’t, & I’m dissed, un
dressed, arrested. But he doesn’t know me, 
so it isn’t his fault.

II         
I set it aside, as an aberration, 
not up there with post-modern torture, 
bad nevertheless. At

9 I knelt on the bedroom floor, forlorn,
smiling for the camera
was there. The sun
had cast shadow, framed
the light & I shone by the window.

You told me I was beautiful
& I wish you hadn’t;

I’m dumb-
fucked now, when I think about it.

III
But I lay this aside for the bird song 
that stills the bare trees of winter;

you in the morning, pale
after love, yes; &
crushed; the freesia 

ossified between the pages 
of your book: a man in love 
with his solitude – 

ladies, gentlemen…
Giuseppe di Lampedusa!

I’m bewildered by the 
multitudinous fragments: 
shards from a cup        hurled 15
ff-fucking years ago.

I can’t say it without my,
chest contracting;                stench of 
                                carpet, non 
                                compos
                                mentis; Mentholatum, non capisco
niente.                         Gynolium. Bathroom. You make me
sick, but it’s not your fault-it’s-my-fault-
really. For being – what did you fucking call me – a Vulgar 
Latinate? Interesting &, this too

I set aside
in the 2 dollar basket                 to rummage thru
when I’m almost
broke.

*

Here’s the day when I wept at a funeral & said nothing because
what can you say.

I don’t care for the lovable scoundrel & all that
sort of thing. The sentiment
is false. Not worth uttering, 
the respect. I hate 
in the dead
what I hate in the living & I don’t forget
just because you’re burnt.

2
The bees are humming, or thrumming – whichever sounds more
menacing; plucking the fruits of my flower. 
Unheard melodies are sweeter. I’ve been
your honey since the sixties. Give it to me
still, tho I’m Rubenesque & 
always hungry. 
                Milk goes to the skin
of my thigh, my indolent
posture. Slide your finger. 
Mother. Gentleman
caller.

3
I Remember a day so distant
like it’s Ancient Rome.

        I’m in 
the hall. The sun 
strikes the hard 
institutional 
floor; 
        & I walk toward, 
like the dead,
the light

& then there’s
nothing after that.

II
I remember nothing, howls 
over the mountain; & when the sun 
rose… flocks roll with the season; 
cattle bow, slowly.

Drift. Become, 
into. How lips
form, the tongue curls 
the word. What you mean.

When you talk. Talk
slow-
ly, like

we’re alone in the room
& the world 

stops. 

*

Resumes. 

It’s difficult.
Hard. Every second
Hour

beat 
the bass - Master/Slave – 
drum.                                    & in
the interim hit
the high
hat cymbal.

III
Pain is good if you deal with it, under-
stand how it happens. 

But no sod knows nothing about it
except for scientists & they don’t know shit;

the metaphysic. The 
Rock ‘n’ Roller  
                        whips

Sisyphus still; chains the
Hero &,
rapes him.

Calls him names.

Bends Him [sic] to his [sic]
will. I discover this
as the Son shafts the crack 
thru the stained-glass window, 

& when it’s over, there’s
resonance.