I like to watch
him woo them:
the women like
beautiful trees
in rows. His
voice has hands,
or his voice
is a tendril,
or a tongue,
it’s an ambient
kiss,
a climate exactly
right – to each
woman an air
made of kindness.
To each the kind
of love she
believes she under-
stands, this love
like lost
love. It is always
the same: already,
you see,
they miss him.
***
THE HEART STOPS
Epitaphic Notes for the Dead
I
Sorrow a trigger and
Only a thought Mike put down the gun
I take the ring and all I don’t know
I wear them
(for Mike Singleton)
II
Sad gray man rubble behind
A wall lonely thing can you shoot
Your way daddy out of this
(for Arthur Earl Jones)
III
And how’d it feel to fly
The ocean waving and finally
In your good brown damn virgin suit
Michael aside they missed you
(for Peter Linfante)
IV
Blonde life long as your belt shit-
Assed pump station her on the other side oh
John the wrong sun must have chased you
Down that window
(for John Wojtecki)
V
Wisht so hard the angels came
How doll is your black white
Red settling on them?
(for Myrt Moran)
VI
Ash and no going back I
Am bewildered by the lack of you damn heart
Stopping then stopping again in the end
(for Louise Argiroff)
***
DIRE SAPPHICS ON LOVE’S NATURE AND THE UNFORTUNATE DECLINE OF DELUSION
Trust me: no one ever is really so loved –
we’re all held accountable, yes me, yes you.
All of love is hopelessness, bother, trouble…
Loving another
means the mind is trapped, unresponsive, rapt. So
love accrues like debt and then sends its bill: too
costly. Face it: vanity counts its pennies.
Restlessness follows.