- After Busy Summer
As autumn leaves are falling down, it's time to reap the fun we've sown,
Cash in on all indulgence blown due to business that was at hand.
Hey, drown that urge to work today! Let's rumble into town.
Big-lipped, hyper, with body-tone as autumn leaves are falling down.
It's time to reap the fun we've sown. Let's be the adjective and not the noun.
Ticking while the others groan, and dance a samba to their drone.
Let's don a restless cha-cha gown as autumn leaves are falling down.
It's time to reap the fun we've sown.
- alphabet song
A is for adventure.
B is for bauble.
C is for can and the questions it poses:
Can truth be found? Can we go to the bathroom? Can we set your hair on fire?
Yes you can, but you may not.
D is for dunce cap.
E is for egghead.
F is for that word that you can't say on Sunday.
- an explanation for that flock of crows
A thread of birds has settled outside your door.
Spring is coming, and you lean back,
Waiting for its root-juicy kiss. Politely, charmingly.
Once, during a summer, you came without shoes,
without any maps, and settled
Into my elbow while this hemisphere turned blue.
We were urban, unkind animals
and I never once thought of champagne.
- Coup de Grace
The lump in my breast is now growing visible. I keep sleeping and saving my money.
Bathing and being polite; it's the cruel hoax that I play on myself.
The lump in my chest is now invisible. I keep waking, becoming transparent.
Counting and recounting the stars, one of the jokes that I play with myself.
Brave up, come closer, and give me your number.
Give me your passion, your tempo, your zeal.
If you're good, I'll will you my charm and point to the sky where the night rubs its belly.
Look there when I leave for a trace of a glimmer, a soft lucid shimmer too lofty to see;
- desire
Do not ask: What is this here fire in our loins? Who put it there and why must we tend it?
Do not ask: If we ignore it, will it go away? The answers will be disappointing.
It's what keeps our bloods boiled; it's what keeps our glands oiling.
It's what keeps our virtues soiled; it's what keeps our hearts toiling.
All you can do is think cold-shower thoughts.
Shredded wheat in warm milk, Norway sleeping, the Dewey Decimal system.
Imagine a mule on a black satin bed, or an Eros, hung over, blindfolded, rolled up naked
And awaiting a penicillin shot. If all else fails, think of a statistician, whispering:
- downpour
Lightning bolt: mute, before the thunder. Like lovers are dumb before a kiss.
Out of chaos, skies emerge, wanting us to capture them. We're sick of snubbing the chill.
We are wet. We have no shame, it has us.
We wear the bones we're sure to die with. We hope that they remember pleasure.
We hear the ghost of our mothers' voices telling us to be flawless, to be very, very clever.
Our skin can't take the ache of the hunger for other skin. We crave it badly, hanker for it fiercely,
Think of it when we're bathing, dream of it when we're drunk.
I'm still waiting for proof that says it's safer outdoors than not.
- in bed with boys
When I was small and arthritic in my crib, I knew Spaniards wanted sleep,
While Americans merely needed it. Now, on warm summer days, boys nip at my neck,
Their hands too sweaty to hold and their backs wetting the bed.
Boys in bed, boys on the bed, their heads roaring on pillows
And their feet twitching in sleep.
I got boys who speak Latin in their dreams; boys whose faces land in books,
Who must be coaxed to the covers. I got European boys who like cold rooms
And those that like the bushes. I got boys who think they're famous,
- Little Dead Body Poem
How right you are dear Paul,
that we hear of famous people's deaths while on vacation.
Perhaps it's so their funerals are not too crowded,
with their loyal fans being out of town and all.
Those celebrities are pretty clever.
I've heard that someone's born every 8 second,
- no war bride
From somewhere back, a light keeps flashing:
A billboard asking me to sleep.
Downstairs, my neighbor is bathing. I hear him humming a polka. I hear him thinking about me:
"What does she do when I can't hear her marching?"
I'll never tell him I dream of the army.
I could've enlisted, been a sergeant by now.
Downing brown whiskey and cursing civilians.
If I were a soldier, I'd be sleeping by now, my helmet full of rumble and letters from Mother.
- One Night I Fell In Love
One night, I fell in love and I took a bus home, filled with mangy people
Who all looked mentally deprived, depraved, and they all smelled like nanny goats, but I didn't care
Because I had fallen in love and was dizzy with it.
I think it was cold, but I didn't care if I caught triple pneumonia, my lungs hardening
With so much scar tissue that I wouldn't be able to breathe. I couldn't breathe anyway.
I was holding my breath, I was so much in love, and I turned a lovely blue,
Although I don't know if it was from holding my breath or from being cold
Or being so very, very much in love.
- Please Respect Our Decadence
Everybody's dying
so we send them flowers.
After their funerals, we go out to dinner,
and then we try to forget about it.
We're all committing suicide,
and everybody points it out to us:
Is that a coffee you're drinking?
Is that a cigarette you're smoking?
- Somewhat Bleecker Street
Greenwich and Chungking and Johnny's got a girlfriend.
Dumb blonde in loose pants, too big to be Miss America. We wave hello.
It's here, even in the rain:
the heart, the heart, the simple spin,
The audacity of colors and heat bucking up from the sidewalks.
If you strut, if you wear pretty slippers, see how hard your feet can get.
Giraffe timidness shakes me up four flights and I don't feel like peeking in.
The lavish halo, innocence in parentheses,
- tonight
Tonight there is no moonlight; no fragrance, no rawness, no luck
And lovers retreat to the Ego motel.
At times, colored birds would leave their nests, go espionage hunting for something hard
Sex or [?] or [?]. But not tonight.
Yesterday, a deaf man stole a car, attracted by the garter hanging on the rearview.
Tonight, he sleeps in a normal bed, dreaming of empty beehives.
The compulsive are not leaping [?] naked into the lake.
There are no fresh bridges to jump from.
- too often
Too often, the thing goes thud and you like it moving away from you
Like the last glacier of the Ice Age, signaling something coming but you don't know what.
It doesn't really matter, you say anything is more party than this mess around your neck,
More kick in the gut than this pat on the rump.
Your image is covertly plotted. Pretend you're jaded to seem intriguing.
Don't twist an eyebrow, reveal no marvel, let the common thrill someone else.
You go to the ends of the earth to prove there is an edge.
You don't step over the limit but feign that you always do to seem smoother than you really are.
- Tractor Pull
This evening, upon waking, I saw a face saying, "I'm going to a tractor pull."
And I didn't understand. Outside, it was dusk enough to make things invisible,
And I heard a car swerve as it skinned the elbow of an ugly child.
It didn't make the news, though I did wonder how hard it would be for a tractor to skin anything,
No matter how impulsive it was on the open fields.
It was an hour before I fell asleep again and dreamed I was on a soggy bed,
While Mom ironed linen curtains in the other room, saying:
- True Romance At The World's Fair
A whispered remark changed a girl's life.
Make no mistake, there was a difference. She had a war job and mother-in-law trouble,
A jitterbug wedding, and an itch that started quick.
Dressed in the most attractive of rubber suits, posing as a girl, unmarried and unkissed,
She set out to answer questions: "How red is Hollywood?" and "What brings out the beast in men?"
By the seaside, by the bandstand, she sighs and says: "Too many blondes spoil the crowd,"
As sound systems loom over the city. Electric, anesthetic, and that mad shine is drilled into the moon
Which is masculine at night, but this ain't no musical romp, no screwball comedy.
- Tuesday Tastes Good
Slide me out of girl afternoon, feminine square of fur tooth and lulu skin
Make me monkey-nude with big car dent.
Give sound of free-running volcano. Pineapple eruption and solar thud.
There is front lawn utopia; scant dull earthworks miles near and
Unpleasant stay at home vacation.
Now the beat breaks down (x9), breaks down (x10). You've lost it!
Kidnap softens as planned, while newborns are lulled by eloquent drinking songs.
Pull out of it. Aggressive. Pull out of it. Aggressive.
- Waiting for Delmore
It's like brushing your teeth in public or being kissed in a dream by a stranger in white shoes.
I get so confused. Delmore's no longer in the shower, no longer on [??], no longer making a fuss.
Telephone calls come, asking if he is home. They hang up before I can answer.
I get so melancholy when I think of his good points:
How he knew what each piece of silverware was for;
How he could light a match using only one hand;
His talent of grinding his teeth in his sleep,
Clacking out a calypso rhythm that would send me tapping into the living room.
- What Rubs Up To You
It is silent. You see some kind of pretend debt caught up to you.
A universal language causing holes in sidewalks where flowers pop up.
It is not yet spring and already you're snide, although nothing old is looking up to you.
Talk to me about this bleached winter, all I know is that miserable fish are swimming
In the frosty lake and your lungs are very warm.
You've forgotten too many things. Barflies have gathered and are singing.
I have too many hearts when you're looking at me. Remember, pause, then go away.
You'll be happy, oh so happy, doing so.