Part Dream, Part Breakfast

Dildos were passing in the night and why not,
I thought. So I did. Gravity didn't defy me for once.
The marquee above said, Oh Ted, Oh Ted.
The rest was based on Tom, who so long as
he could keep wood on, was in. The kid
was, if you'll pardon the expression, An All American Male.
But he was out his fifteen hundred bucks today.
There was still no word on HIV.
Putting two straight guys together
equals a cardinal sin
minus their stud-performer status.
The actors get to ride in a van. Ski.
The navy sucked. Here people were nice.
A big Chinese meal
waited between scenes. Mastication.
The high school kids were like, "Word Up,"
but that doesn't relate to the Word, or HIV,
or does it? Unless you want it to.
You get to do lots of DBEs, or Double Entries
on the set. Even their parents had names like
Britney and Chelsea. And, Oh Ted, Oh Ted, Oh Ted.
 

 
Video Game

Tangible, irresistable ringlet
its redness wants to be squeezed.
Sparks fly in bouncy, Super-Hero Egoland.
Little Venus cocks a weapon from her hip:
"Don't you look at me."
She was born to tease.
Like land from water, her world split in two:
Those who were aching to look
and Those who looked through.
Surfing to life on the half-shell
from the Dead Sea, where fish can't live,
she was daddy's girl. Amphibian yet flipperless,
madwoman and fish.
Beautiful flashing fish.
Her father sacrificed his balls for her birth.
How to please his eyes?
Beneath her scales, a sadness in her writhes.
 

Spider Dances

Across the room, pinned on cork board
coming at me from my own echoless eyeless
scream, the "Oh mi god Oh no!"
in the discombobulated night. Giggle
like the creak of floorboard, I'm prowling
corridors of art up the sides.
Massive arachnid ancient, alive prickle,
spindle, grin, askew like the flea on a tightrope
circling in sightless dimension.
The gravity-keeper's secret. Are we getting warm with
String Theory? I can see the Swiss Alps glint in the
spider's sac of eggs. Pristine, not wanting to teach
me anything. Old Spider, new eggs, glimmering
basket of babes, each spindly with ten legs.
I can live with this nightmare, this rambling
dichotomy on legs. You don't need more than
a spider framed on the wall. Beautiful ache of sex.
Have me. Undriven, pure, singing.
All Those Hours I Stood In Front of the Bandstand
I'm afraid of what you don't give.
Afraid I'll starve ragged for love.

When you and I hiked from Grindelwald
up that wild Swiss valley between two alps
you said you'd bring lunch.
The sack bulged.
You opened it and saxophone
reeds spilled out.
I could not eat
and I was afraid.
 

Drama Mist
(after a painting by Ken Dubin)

If a line. I searched. Effort
ate all my conclusions.
The ambivalence that
binds us also divides us.
Wings would take us closer to.
In the land beyond dark
horse or pretense,
fast cars recede.
 

Genesis
(after a painting by Ken Dubin)

Undriven layers of
blizzarding diamonds
underpin paradox.
An absence of irony.
You have no actual whereabouts.
Clock is a quaint relic.
Trust the pattern's dogma.

 
Culmination           
(after a painting by Ken Dubin)

Blue oblivion lifted.
Everything lay behind
veils, and the unstoppable
spiral, wound around
trails of tears. A calm mind.
Mother, are you there?
What we don't know,
lives us.


Both sides of thirty-eight walls

Ahab: "How can the prisoner reach outside
except by reaching through the wall?"

Wall of Resisting since my last goodbye. Wall
Creepy Wall of my Afflictions
Veiled Wall of my Not. Forgetting
Wall of my mirror's Forgetfulness
Joke. Ruby Wall
Temple Doctor's wall
Vaginal hole in the Steel wall
Rape. Wall Scream
Therapist's Mengele Wall
Scream. Wall of Hate
Consciously crumbled wall
Recovery. Wall of Regret
Victory wall of. Defeat
Foucault's Wall of Words
Moving finger. The Words-wall
Bones disappeared. The Stadium wall
High wall you won't forget. Wall
Graffiti wall behind the Prisoner
Blue stinging. Berlin Wall
Firing Squad wall. Bricks
Bleeding. No-wall
White wall Black
Weeping tell. Wall
Magic. Fear wall
Dreaming. Wall of Revision
Confession candy wall
Hollow wall. Since Built
Scorched wall walled Up
Stone. Wall walled
Wall absorbing. All our Names
Wall of the unnamed
Iberian. Wall of fame
wall of Styrofoam Vines
Conscious wall. You won't. Forget
Fire. Wall of Desire
Your own. Sweet wall
Singing wall you can't take with. You
Wall you can't return to. Inside the body. Wall
 
 
 
You Kiss Me                    

      for Glenn               

You kiss me, you kiss me, not we kiss,
but you kiss me. You kiss me, not softly or teasing
or feathery, but-but springing up from
the board into shock of cold-deep. Your
teeth kiss me and what's hardest in us
clashes and bangs, rolls together. You kiss
me and the little caverns yawn into
each other. You kiss me and our brows
press. You kiss me and kiss me and kiss me
and our tongues wrestle.
You pull my hair by the roots and kiss me.
You scratch to get into and under my skin and kiss me.
You kiss me like the hammer strikes the string. C-note.
You kiss me like the parakeet pecks at seed.
You kiss me like the pen scratches this page. You
kiss me like speech. You kiss me like an
adventure. You kiss me.
Like a blessing, like corn growing, like a hand going
into a purse, like a shutter clicking, like the key in the ignition.
You kiss me like the last Avant Garde, the I Ching
Emily Dickinson. You kiss like thin ice breaking
a handle turning, milk pouring into a cup
vacuum taking the dust, like every concrete
action and abstraction. You kiss me like the
phone ringing. You kiss me like pearl and stitch.
You kiss me like the cat's claw stretching.
You kiss me like Dark Arts. Like Charlie Parker eating
chicken before a gig, like surprise greetings
a pencil being sharpened, like an eye opening
a lung expanding, thumbs hooking
like the passive voice speaking
a leaf curling, paint chipping, fingers snapping, a slip showing
like a picture being framed, monks preparing to pray
like there's no risk. You kiss me with a head full
of memories of her and what the Old Fart said.
Litany of bitten-back tears.
You kiss me like it works but we don't know where
it's going. Like a check being cashed, like a fax
machine printing out a page, like the high
hat vibrating, like bellowing. I kiss you.
I kiss you like tomorrow was today. And you kiss me
and you kiss me and I kiss you and you
kiss me and I kiss you. I kiss you.
Kisskisskisskisskisskisskisskisskisskiss.Kiss.kiss.kiss.Kiss.Kisssssssssssss.kiss.kissssss.


In just Spring

through each pore
my           hands       scalp
my foot's sole               protected
cotton sock     leather boot
falling           and
     falling
on concrete     sometimes glitter     south
Seventh Avenue     Patchin
Place where     ee cummings               lived
across           my therapist
will soon     tell
me my          deep mistrust
my belief that all ______________grow
a _______      second tongue          of           evil
my "she's for me"     "she's against me"
my "what an asshole"          "He's           jealous"
my "fuck you"
my "don't-leave-me-I-hate-you"
Slowly
I ______________ Spring

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