Cold Autumn Day

 

 

I.

this is
what
words
amount
to—
festivals
of ash,
collapsed
into urns,
held
up by
timid folk
for the
bold to
scatter.

 II.

Poems are train-wrecks
            that move— to stand
on tracks, to do so solidly, is
            suicide of a high order—
 
to die by force of wreckage—

 III.

On why it has to be that writing

comfortable garbage is the inevitable

byproduct of living comfortably, with

each fresh hell I wonder why the hooks

towards artful utterance are set this

way, & why I must become such an oyster

just to confer into a leaking bucket,

insecurely hung from abraded cables,

a blue droplet not even of blood but

of nectar, or wine, or whiskey— 

IV.

Times you get bored
with the process, but
 
worse are times when
words are little deaths,
 
wrung out like sheets,
draped over hangers,
 
out in a damp yard on
a cold autumn day, as
 
wind rises to pin them
to your hopeless breast.

Apparition Poem #1112

 

 

#1112

I.

“Fuck art let’s dance”

only we didn’t dance,

we fucked, and when

we fucked, it was like

dancing, and dancing

was like art, because

the climax was warm,

left us wanting more—

how can I know this

dancer from the dance?

Brain-brightening glance,

how tight the dance

was, and the sense that

pure peace forever was

where it had to end for

both of us, only your

version was me dead,

after I had permanently

died inside you like the

male spider always does—

II.

Pull me towards you—

woven color patterns

create waves beneath

us, tears buoy bodies

to a state beyond “one”

into meshed silk webs—

not every pull is gravitational—

as two spiders float upwards,

I say to you (as we multiply

beyond ourselves) “those

two are a bit much, their

sixteen legs making love”