Graham Catt Like a Heatwave Things Got Weird In America At Night Kicking Heads Waiting for Tomorrow

Umbrella

Like a Heatwave
Fight the Power, Public Enemy 1989

another scorcher bakes the Brooklyn streets
the morning sun crawls across cracked pavement
children play in the shadows, lovers stay in bed
while the “Mayor” drinks his first beer at eleven

a patrol car slinks by, the white eyes within
avoid the doorway where, only two nights ago
Jimmy D was gunned down with police bullets
- folks agree he was a troublemaker, but didn’t deserve to die

Sal DeVito nervously sweeps the barbershop stoop
business is slow - he blames the heat, not the killing
but watches Jimmy’s gang until it swaggers out of sight
- Sal wipes the sweat from his brow, the city simmers


Things Got Weird In America
Kicking Against The Pricks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 1986

heading out of Berlin, Nick unable to sleep or stay awake
shaking in the back of the van, his body in pieces
a big score in Amsterdam kept us shit-faced all the way to Paris
- we hid from the world behind windows plastered with porn

got to Montmartre minutes before the gig, just in time for violence
people slashed with knives, the carpets and curtains turned red
a pack of feminists chased our van brandishing broken bottles
we escaped to London, recovered in Iceland, but things got weird in America

on our first night in New York, Nick and I went to score in Alphabet City
where drugs were exchanged in buckets lowered from the darkness above
I waited hours for Nick in Needle Park, but he’d been picked up by the cops spent the night in the cells, a black man screaming the blues in his ear


At Night
A Forest, The Cure 1980

sneaking out after midnight
across streets draped in mist
to talk music in an alleyway lit
by the flicker of a cigarette lighter

our moods wrapped in black
fists stuffed in duffel coats
with ghost-breath, numb-nose
we admire our reflections in puddles

listen to the percussion of water
the echo of melancholy guitar
taking the longest road home
we walk in the rain on purpose


Kicking Heads
The Birthday Party, London 1982

Nick is on his back, limbs flailing
the devil in his throat, his tongue on fire
Nick stalks the stage, pale and gaunt
his sharpened boots kicking heads

Pew grinds the bass with his pelvis
Harvey wields drumsticks like weapons
Howard lurks at the edge of a cigarette
wreathed in the smoke of screeching guitars

Nick sings of guns and blades and bullets
he’s a prophet, a poet, a figure of fun
Nick growls, Nick howls, Nick grabs a fistful of hair
and with finger jabs: pow pow pow pow pow


Waiting For Tomorrow
Soul Mining, The The 1983

he untangles himself from sleep around noon
flicks on the tv, and sifts through his plans for the day
contemplates a start on the hit novel/screenplay
he’s been talking about for the last eight years

and whether or not he should apply for that office job
but instead, reads an old newspaper from cover to cover
- the world’s words leave a dark smudge on his conscience
and he sighs, pulls back the curtains, squints into the sun

in procrastination’s bottom drawer he finds an old diary
spends the afternoon trawling through yesterday’s scrawl
until shadows stretch across his memories, and the clock begins to yawn
he shrugs off another day, watching his dreams gather dust in the fading light
 

Streetlamp and Tree

Sanjay Trehan P Series

P Series
(in ten parts)

one
perplexity:

there she was
alighting from the packed bus
dressed in a summery white frilly girly top
the kind that hangs loose and yet accentuates
the contours never mind the modest slip
he looked at her furtively
there was sunshine in her eyes
she looks pretty he thought

in the recreation room while they were playing
dumb charade
he is good at playing dumb
she comes and sits next to him
there wasn't any other place she says apologetically
he smiles a knowing smile
she needn't explain he tells her
as the post lunch session unfolds he plays a little
game of his own his eyes steal a glance at her sitting
sideways and he pretends
he ain't looking at all

a lazy afternoon gives way
to a breezy evening and it's time to chill
at cocktails he is keen she sheds her abstemious ways
and maybe just maybe gives in to the alluring charm
of a vodka with tonic
why was he keen to get her high?
how would shedding her barriers help?

it was 1 am and the night was till young
she had eaten her dinner and was waiting for him
though of course she wouldn't admit to it
in her gentle manner she did join him for a bite
a dash of rice and dal nothing fancy
it did make him feel wanted in a strange sort of way

and then it was the majestic central garden
a canopy of stars on a full moon night
and an army of obstinate mosquitoes to while away
the remaining hours
the night was enticing and the wind was getting chilly
and though they had company he was acutely aware
of her presence she was wrapped in a makeshift quilt
her head peeping out like heightened consciousness
he did steal a few glances at her
and when they were done at 3 am
she told him casually almost nonchalantly
though it was more loaded than casual
that he should never challenge her to hang on late again
she could do it if she was free to do so

he goes back to his room
the resort wears an indifferent look
at this ungodly hour
rings up the reception for the mosquito coil
and goes to bed with thoughts of her
he wonders what the hell is happening
why is there this strange heaviness between the two of them
when the silence was fraught with so much
unspoken tenderness
and why within this tenderness lie grains of lust
that can't be sifted

earlier in the evening at the party he had been told
she missed his complimenting her on her looks
he pretended not to react
what was he to do?

next day she spurns his offer to be her guide
in a romantic tale of hollywoodian love
that almost began from a personal lavatory
a maid meets a messiah and the gods smiled
this time he is hurt
and while he is hurt he wonders why the hell is he hurt?

while the whole preamble has become a trifle
incomprehensible the postscript is more grounded
flirtation enjoyment titillation lust neglect hurt
soft undertones hard inner breaths
not the candlelight variant
just the blistering tension that connects
the two flaming ends of fire

and just when he wants to chat her up
maybe do reflection interpretation and analysis
she feels tired all of a sudden
women will remain women cliché apart
and before he could bat
his eyelids she picks her bags and disappears

he tries to get her on the mobile
she listens to the ring and disconnects
he tries repeatedly
the phone has obviously been switched off
now he is puzzled thoughtful disoriented

maybe beating the keys furiously
may help make sense
of the last two days

two
predictable:

today she seems to have come back
to her normal effervescent self
'i get moody when i am tired' she tells him
thank heavens it was only the mood he thinks
though he knows she is hiding the truth
she is an ordinary girl and there is nothing extraordinary about him

just two people trying to wrestle with the swell
of emotions that tease human resolve
not an entirely sad state to be in
there is this energy that flows between them
he knows there is no future in this relationship
she is modest and too moral to give in
funny a thin line separates love and lust
a wedge that makes two quarrelsome neighbours
peacefully coexist
she is an ordinary girl and there is nothing extraordinary about him

when he had inadvertently peered down her cleavage
he was surprised to see pristine purity
not just a maiden's security shield but the kind that banishes
accidental thoughts from a man's puerile heart
it's not that she is perfect who is anyway
her hair is an overgrown mess
and her body odour is not something
that he particularly likes
and look at him?
having let himself go he is bloated like a overfed baboon
constantly battling his compulsions
she is an ordinary girl and there is nothing extraordinary about him

this is the story of you and me
just that they are lucky to be living it
it's going to wane though
honeymooning always looks rosy
from the rear-view mirror
and let it be said as a matter-of-fact
not with a bang not with a whine
but unnoticed unsung
like the lost hero
of a lost cause
she is an ordinary girl and there is nothing extraordinary about him

three
prevarication:

her mood swings definitely can't be explained
by her menstrual cycle

of late she is behaving as if she is struck by the Cupid
at once sad at once despondent at once elated
a word from him and there she goes
from despair to delight
as if her mood thermometer
is controlled by the way he talks with her
his piercing looks unnerve her
she shifts uncomfortably tries to impart a forced casualness
changes the subject but his glare is fixed and unrelenting
he wonders what she sees in him
the way to a woman's heart is known only to a woman

her feelings are more in response to her own insecurities
why would a perfectly happy okay not so perfectly happy
but does that explain it
woman in her late twenties desperate for private space
with her husband fall
for a rotund balding married man in his early forties
who has nothing to offer her
not even hope
or maybe he is reading too much
into her intemperate behaviour
her eclectic expansive mood swings
the droop in her spirits the sway in her steps
the way to a woman's heart is known only to a woman

her mood swings still can't be explained by
her menstrual cycle

he thinks she is in love with him

four
perversion:

what's this strange capricornian attitude
of the practical man
unruffled by emotions untouched by upheavals
here she is going all weak in the knees
grappling with unfamiliar thoughts
stepping into unknown territory
trying to comprehend the sheer complexity
of a situation that has come upon her
trying to live it down
trying to tell herself that all is well with her world
that she is still safely ensconced
in the comfortable terrain
of well-sorted feelings

and he tells her serenely
almost with a clinical detachment
almost ruthlessly maybe patronisingly
that he knows why she is upset
it is all understandable
and she will come out stronger
at the end of it

what's he doing
revelling in her confusion
and not sharing it
a pervert a sadist a hedonist
inflicting pain
then sitting back and enjoying
it all

judge him harshly if you must
but he thinks of himself as a crafter of emotions
working with the tools at his command
chiselling a moving sculpture
an evocative word picture
out of his experience

crafting but a mere poem


five
phantom:

she is a woman unfulfilled
her marriage is a façade
a cover-up for waning senses
the libido is no more a problem
is a problem
after five years of sharing the same bed
she is unconsummated
like a virgin
a 'paying guest' who pays only by her freedom
there is nothing flighty about her spirit
not the heady innocence of the youth
the abandon of the cherished
she is wilting
like out of season autumn leaves
so what does she do?
she looks for a refuge a gas mask
a phantom of her making
she clings to him
she knows there is no hope
there is none given
clutching at the straws
for the time being
and time must be endured
a source of sustenance
the protector of her sanity

there is an interesting side to this story
maybe he is deluding himself into believing
he knows not what she thinks
he knows not what he thinks
he does find her engaging though
her collar bones give him goose pimples
but is he so insecure that he needs
a distraught woman on the brink
to fall for him
he is loved and treasured
his transgressions have been forgiven
is that not enough?

do men have a vanity gene
are they programmed to be polygamous
or do his voids need to be filled

a mere poem is too insignificant
to unravel the DNA
or understand history


six
possession:

she is pinning a lot of hopes on the new car
she thinks she will be able to hang on
stretch her life
expand her reach satiate her need
to be touched
she wants to buy a car to break free

he feels it's a mobility-in-the-mind issue
however it would certainly help
if the body is free from the tedium
of strangers living under a roof
he understands her needs
he remembers his mother
didn't have this luxury
packed suitcases were often shoved
under the bed
and trips to her parental home postponed
for no reason but for the perverse delight
of an unloved man
good at heart
totally oblivious to the damage
he was causing his kin

like unruly thoughts playing mind games
the traffic on the streets is chaotic
apathetic indifferent
so he worries for her
will she drive carefully break free
from her shackles
the centuries of conditioning
her own limitations
her fragile frame

once you are comfortable with driving
it becomes your second nature
you drive and you are not even aware
of the hand eye feet brain coordination
when she breaks free
he prays she bonds her body
with her soul
and let an uprising of flowers burst
onto her scorched skin


seven
power:

it ultimately boils down to authority
she is oppressed by her man
and here he is dominating her
watching her every move
sniffing her breath feeling her corns
just because he has power over her
it's all about occupation
of a province in mind
of bodies with a swelling expanse
is he misusing his hold over her
theirs is an unequal relationship
power is an antidote to parity
men are such effete creatures
they need to dominate
he loves to dominate
maybe their bond is that of an oppressor
and the oppressed
and the freedom she seeks
a sadomasochistic illusion
she is enthralled
because she is not ignored

he wants to rule her body
he wants to brand her soul
he cares because she lets him control her

he knows it's not right
and just
but in an unequal war
would you expect justice?

maybe just maybe he is being a trifle
too harsh on himself
 

eight
play:

is it just a game he is playing
recreation of the senses
festival of the minor frenzies
a wild thought but don't
just neatly fold and tuck it away
in a forgotten cupboard
is he playing with fire
indulging in an ego play
the theatre of the id
what if she took him seriously
gets seriously impacted
or shall i say emotionally strung
and then he shrugs his hands
and says as a matter of fact
'the deal is off'
there is no tomorrow
in such relationships

could it just be a desire
to feel the razor's edge
would you call it play
or is there a perverse streak in it
the whole thing is kinda confusing
like life

or maybe just maybe it is but
a grand simulation
a gigantic creative platform
that megalomaniac sub-consciousness
that stages an atypical sitcom
and fulfills his inner urge to be creative
at any cost

just a space that refuses to fill up
how would you ever know?


nine
perdition:

"Him the Almighty Power
Hurl'd headlong . . .
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell"
John Milton

the road to hell is paved with good intentions
it couldn't be true in his case
he never had good intentions to begin with
all he was doing was to work his way up
to her charmed inner circle
her private space shaped like a V
v for vermin incorrigible bedbugs
v for vertex the flash point
the antonym for base
v for verse
dear reader do read between the lines
he talks abstractedly sometimes animatedly
about philosophy
'hang on there?it will pass'
but he desires her
there is something about her vulnerability
oh yes v for vulnerability
that attracts him
like swooping eagles to dead meat
he is at once tender at once Tarzan
he suspects now she can spot his game
thank heaven's she's not egging him on
she never did
it was all in his mind

the road to hell is paved with good intentions
it couldn't be true in his case
he never had good intentions to begin with
 

ten
ploy:

now that the long night is over
and the protracted march is coming
to a slow and grinding halt
a definitive full stop
lemme let you in on a secret
it was all a ploy
an edifice of emotion
designed to deceive
a sleight of words
an artifice of accidental overtures
to harness his somnolent muse
his poetry
that hedonistic mercurial intemperate alter ego
needed a fixation
an object of obsession
to let loose his creative horses
in hibernation after appassionata
a dry spell after a downpour

maybe it worked
maybe it was all in vain
only you can tell

but can you ever tell
 

Ruth Mark Buttons. Night Noises. Voices from the past. Undercover. The day of the flat pack.

Spigot

Buttons.

Looking out on a damp day
grey skies broken only intermittently
with jagged light, the birds
sing incessantly, backdrop music
to the human reading inside.

I sit here looking out
looking in, wondering why
if you look at my father the wrong way
catch him with the wrong words,
barbs in the gullet -
wonder why it's so easy to say the wrong thing,
play the wrong hand. Tip toe
through glass shards, watch
the invisible pieces, the ones
you can't see, feel even with
your probing fingertips through
the knotty carpet, rubbing
my identity over missed toe-clippings
grit picked up from the road
somewhere - out there.

"It's not a hotel" he barbs
bristling like any irate hedgehog
spines jabbing all over the place.
We recoil, I placate
pacify the situation, make the
right noises. Yet now, I sit
angry that yet again he's
snapped at Max, another Christmas,
another culture clash. Still,
it's taken me 35 years and counting
and I have yet to learn
how not to press
my father's buttons.


Night Noises

Across the road in the uppermost glass cube
a blue column of whispering light dances
vertical between the potted plants
cream paintwork a backdrop.

All around televisions reflect their eerie light
projecting other lives, superimposed, layered
like so many cardboard sheets onto our lives
and his upstairs, a thin ceiling away.

I can hear his perpetual cough, a hack
from the diaphragm, can almost smell the
beer on his breath, feel the crunch of the sharp
bottle lids under my slippered feet.

Music, tinny echoes course from the carpet
a cranked up box, movie from yesteryear perhaps
rolling beside the faux-mahogany
as the grandfather clock marks time in whumps.

Gehum, gehum, the noise twitches my nerve ends
draws the knot between my eyes tighter
a fist of tension, throbbing, the blood
keeping its own time.

A walky-talky bursts out of nowhere
robot voices drift disemboweled hither-thither
finally landing on our windowsill
cops like giant eagles out on the prowl.

The radiator clicks, heat pulsing through pipes
it too has its own sweet rhythm
yet through all this cacophony
a stillness descends like a blessing.


Voices from the past.

They echo in the stillness
of the small hours, sleeping
time when she lies rigid
flat on her back in bed,
feels the sweat cold
on her skin, wonders
if the ghosts will ever leave
her, if she'll ever experience
peace, escapism, denial -
nothing works, no matter how
'good' she is they still visit
except now she has no
alcohol with which to drown them
flush them out, numb her brain.


Undercover

Do I think that if I grow
my fringe to cover my eyes
it will be good enough cover
to hide behind?
At times the world is too much
for me to suffer, I want
to curl up fetus-like, thumb in mouth
and avoid, avoid at all costs.
Denial made manifest in
a swathe of hair, touches of grey
here and there, eyes getting
more deep-set with the years.
Hair that serves as a prop, a
stage curtain where all the
interesting things happen
not in public view but behind
the thick velvet, where no-one
can touch the core. Safe then.


The Day of the Flat Pack.

Wood flakes scatter like dandruff
on the carpet while she forces
a screw home, and another;
building the frame, watching
as the hull takes shape,
becomes 'something', transforms
after a few hours, sweat
muscles screaming, into
something of use, something
recognizable. Of course,
it doesn't just stop there -
there are bulbs to plant,
both inside and outside
ones with roots, tubers, others
covered with glass wasp-traps.
Everything is filthy, dusty, while
blood, sweat, frustration and
finally resignation fills the air.
Her heart closes once more, she is
so frustrated she can feel
the blood in her arms
her fingers tingle, heart
pounds, teeth begin to grind
and there is nowhere to escape to,
to disappear, to calm down.
Just another day at the
mother-in-law's, when enough
is never enough, when she bleeds us
dry emotionally at every turn
works us like donkeys, uses
her tongue for a whip.
 

Living Room

Jack Donahue Upon Rushing Through the Museum of Natural History

UPON RUSHING THROUGH THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

It’s natural to want to take it all in,
roller blading by on the wings of cultural breezes
that God knows will someday pay off in conversation.
Surely, just to say we’ve been here should be enough.

Whole and entire histories flash before our eyes,
and the anthropological influences exerted upon us
by Indian settlements, corn plantings, and contour map chartings
are pinned upon our memories like a Friday night grocery list.

It’s too much of a burden to stop, to be weighed down
by all that monolithic mammoth stuff
and tales of crustacean creatures;
we’ll never know how they all got here
or where they all went
but we saw the bones and drawings.
Proof is there if we need it.

We better hurry, it’s almost five o’clock
and there are whole and entire histories
of marine life on the next floor.
We won’t have time to explore
the exhibit on photosynthesis
and we lost the chance
to adventure back here next week
since fall foliage will be at its peak.

Let us hurry.
Over beef soup and bloody marys
we can warm our atavistic bones;
exchange intimate notes
and test our knowledge of knowledge.

Sometimes, cultural things stay with us for years,
really create an impression,
occasionally makes us stand upright and tall,
heads and shoulders above anyone
who tries to be our peer.
 

Paul Thompson Pecking Order The Stupidest Thing The Bike The Boxer and the Bailiff

Apartment

Pecking order

It’s hard to look down your nose at a waiter -
literally - he: up there, trained pride with his towel
draped like he’s got self-harm to hide. You: child’s view.
One plate on the wrist is worth two in the hand, but something
else whirrs around; the cogs, the cogs. Let it be logged
that “waiter” is one letter away from being “writer”. A fighter.

These are the specials: waiters have power. They decide
what’s off the menu; if spit or manshit is on it; and if
you want it, Gringo, just tell that body-lingo of yours to cater
for disdain; or the waiter that you’ll “be his customer tonight”.
Most waiters are equity-card chasers; can do a good saint
and the patience thereof. A lost play by Chekov: Restraint.

And now, to finish, coffees. After eight, the mints. No more
hints re: the connection between this and what keeps the
world ticking over. The meal is done. The muse is over.
Just to say, the daddy of the prison didn’t get there with
eye contact, facing up, tips from assertiveness courses,

after that dispute about what to watch – Manchester City
versus Only Fools and Horses – a much fancied pretender
lost. There was only one contender. He who walked away
and only returned with a ball in a sock or a blade in a nail
when the other’s back was turned. Didn’t see it coming.
 

The stupidest thing

The stupidest thing I ever did
was trying to cook an egg
on a Greek flagstone.

You see, I overheard a poolsider:
“You could fry an egg on these flagstones.”
I thought, “Sounds like a challenge.”

I thought, if we squeeze that sun for all its worth,
like the drunk wringing the bar towel damp-dry,
no more killing folks for important stuff
like oil.

It was only a theory.

The egg tussled its way out,
on my smoothed-out splash of olive fat,
its molecules a crowd dispersing,
adopting more space than anticipated.

I fancied myself Jamie Oliver, winking at the sun,
my producer; addressing it as “mate”, saying –
when the moment took me - “choice” and “pukka”.
I even sprinkled a few fresh herbs, like he does,
hands high, a wizard brewing spell potion.

The fat family from Halifax were intrigued
albeit bemused.

Five hours later. In my mouth, the bacteria,
day-long revellers in the sunshine, swayed
giddily; then down an underpass to a dingy club for

five all-nighters. All-dayers. Hedonistic, smiley,

ie. my residue holiday saw the inside of a
hospitable Corfu hospital screwed to drip,
drip, drips. My Karen’s bedside manner was

sympathetic – nurses. Never off duty. Though
she did use words like “mental collapse”
And “nobhead”.

She said, there’s a time and place for trailblazing
and this was neither.


The bike

(based on various child murders in the UK)

I am a bike on the floor;
that’s all I am. Injured,
dazed and convinced my
chain – indeed nothing -
will ever be the same.

This is not a metaphor.
I am a bike, that’s all;
That’s why I can’t call
for help. I can still see
him getting small – and

her, my owner, reeling,
an eel in his arms. She
is nine. It’s Boxing day.
Yesterday, she was made
up by me, and make-up.

Yes, I can see, and feel,
but not talk. Ring a bell?
Ding ding. I am a bike.
Useless at such a time:
A good sad photo. Fine.

One day out of wrapping,
Here we go again: Now
it’s transparent, plastic
as the boy in blue-mood
(young, clocking overtime).

I don’t think anything will
ever be the same. Blame
not me, the smallest Raleigh
around, the low turn-out –
it’s a drizzly day. Hear it

on the street, in the pub,
read it in the paper or
see on TV how – I am
a bike, and even I know –
things’ll never be the same.


The boxer and the bailiff

The boxer, the Champ
battered black skin
blue
having defended his belts
does not go to sycophantic champagnathons
to be paparazzied on daybreak, a cliché on each arm,
untied bow-tie, pressing his nostril, sniffing, snivelling
round gangsters.

The boxer goes home
to his lover
for cuddling, soothing cream, steaks not to be spat out,
earbuds up the nose, nape-in-other’s-groin DVD watching.

The bailiff, the hard case,
the bald colossus
the big bad ex-bouncer
won’t sniff out trouble in boozers after
jogging with televisions, told how much he must love his job,
asked if he was happy now, sleeping habits enquired about.

The bailiff goes home
to his lover
whom he dotes on; loves the big bones of;
for whom he cooks, borrows repossessed vids, becomes
a human cushion.

The boxer and the bailiff
have been intimate
for some time.

William John Watkins Junkie Talking to Himself What Amazes is Not The Heart Too Has Its Pressures Wakening Hospital Admission Form The Nun in Charge of Your Mouth The Koala Bear Why I Bite You Late at Night Some Days I'm Angry Without Reason

View of the Park

Junkie Talking to Himself
I have discovered I believe
where that one flat side
on the rock of your habit
came from,
the flat side that,
no matter how hard
you roll the habit in a new direction,
always slams flat down
in the same old place.

It came from coming down so hard
so often
on unbreakable me
that bent the close-packed atoms
of your sanity
so out of shape.


What Amazes is Not
What amazes is not
the truth of it,
but the sudden way it comes,
sharpened to a vampire-hunter's point,
stabbed between the eyes
& hammered in
by firm kicks
with the bottom of the heel
like a stake of ice.
The same always --
"You are a dead man,
we just haven't processed you yet."
I die at Owl Creek bridge every time
I hear your two year/five year plan,
what you are going to do with your life
when your tour is up.
I know for certain you mention
me and Arizona in the same breath,
and I am too willfully numb
to hear the creaking
of that same giant trap
being spread
into position.


The Heart Too Has Its Pressures
The steam lines in my neck are about to blow;
when the right side hisses red mist from its pinholes,
the left soaks its brittle white wrapping
looking for an outlet.
And vice versa.
Some mechanism keeps trying to shift the overload to save both.
But the pipes have more construction flaws than a nuclear plant,
and the boiler is old and running out of control.
They are minutes from rupture and the ultimate meltdown,
and I can feel the knocks rattle their way up
past the collarbone, banging away
like rock & roll love songs.


Wakening
Five thirty and the birds are out,
eternal optimists that where there's light,
there's dawn. Starting Hosannas early
to coax the sun up
one
more
time.
Can it be fifteen years? Viet Nam just a place
we had advisors
to keep the natives from shooting the brass by accident.
Fifteen years since the sun came up on the farm
180 degrees of pink and red
at the top of the hill
glowing forever,
and I was crazy as usual
my brain being microwaved
by CIA men hidden in cows,
I could read Revelations
in passing clouds,
and turn the water
of the wading pool
into a whirlpool
for my boys to risk
Death & Destruction in
on their way to manhood.
Now they are lifeguards,
bearded men with tattoos and anecdotes.
But we are still turning,
whirl upon whirl,
in that endless summer sun.


Hospital Admission Form
I spent the day reading my epitaph,
standing at the foot
of angrave
deep as a filing cabinet

all the spaces there
waiting to be filled in,
the human tragedy
reduced to a series of blanks,
and not one
with even a recognition
that the world is full of pain
and it was actual, live people
who did the recorded suffering.


The Nun in Charge of Your Mouth
The nun in charge of your mouth
(who can do without it)
is not in charge of your hands
(which flutter to your thighs in sleep),
nor the curl of your feet,
or the rising of hairs,
your strongman's erection nipples,
your gasping breath,
your blood
pooling & rising
rushing and diffusing
like the spread of crested waves
glazing the sand.

Her convent mentality
( the longer I don't have it,
the easier it is without it)
does not cover the flex of your thighs,
the spasm of your hips,
the owlcry
windsigh
of your voice.

Your hunger alone
is taller and stronger
than the nun in charge of your mouth.


The Koala Bear
The Koala Bear has four inch claws
that only men seem to notice.
He is Winnie the Pooh
covering for Mr. Hyde.

She is somebody's daughter,
delicate as a glass stork,
soft as wood pulp.

She believes he is a teddy bear;
she dreams of cuddling him close.

He dreams
of digging and digging
in the soft belly of affection.

She dreams of his fur
brushing her nipples,
his soft eyes.

He dreams of hollowing her out like a tree,
of sitting inside her where it is always warm.

Women who have picked one up and lived
warn her,
"You can hug him tight, from behind,
feel the rub
of his tail on your pubic crest.
But NEVER, no matter how cute,
let him turn in close
where his claws can work,
digging you out,
going inside to find
where you live and die."

She laughs,
and dreams about the tickle of his fur,
the nuzzle of his warm, wet nose.

He dreams of blood and tissue
flying like stuffing.

When she picks him up
(all wrong, all wrong!)
he hums to himself,
"And how, you wonder, do Koala bears mate?
You will find too late, --
to the death! to the death!"
He clings to her like a child.

Mothers who have been to his part of the zoo
feel their scars go tight
as the smiles wives give to mistresses.

Fathers watch with awful fascination
the canrs he has for hands.


Why I bite You Late at Night
Why do I bite you late at night
the way the fire crushed to embers
on the verge of ash
flares out
to singe the trusting hand held close,

the way the old dog lying in his pain
brittle in his bones, his breath
all illness and decay,
snaps puppyquick
the too consoling hand,

the way the temper ridden child
or serial killer strikes
out of some wrong the victim never did.

Why, why, why
why do I bite you late at night?


Some Days I'm Angry Without Reason
There are so many mad men in my blood,
so many bloody warriors in my bones.

Sometimes I wonder if this rage rolls in
from old times lived in other lives,
or if I'm only last in a long line
of angry men some creed made mad,
or some philosophy or politics,
some cause, injustice, insult, who knows what
since such a little flame makes some men flare,
and did they pass it down to me,
one twisted helix at a time, along
with stockiness, broad shoulders, and testosterone
and the excesses those combined create.

Is it a throwback to some Viking's fury
crying to Woden for a second chance to die
more glorious and bloody than the first,
mad that one death isn't death enough
to gain Valhalla's glory,
double doomed and glad
to go down in the Gotterdamerung.

Is it the echo of some Welshman's cry
rushing to the frontier axe in hand
to stop the Romans with a wall of dead.

Or some cold Puritan raging against sin
and papistry,
calling down a flood of friendly fire
on his own head,
glad to be martyred
in the second fall of Babylon.

There are so many mad men in my blood,
so many bloody warriors in my bones,
who passed their genes on and went off to die
enraged that what there was would never be enough
to make that frenzy none of them could name
burn low enough to make a life more heat than flame.

There are so many mad men in my blood,
so many bloody warriors in my bones.
 

Weeds

Thomas Fink Tigress Tux. Partition: The Eyeful's Plainclothes Cheese Pulleying Family: The Worst Frost. Tater Morgue. You

Tigress Tux. Partition:

flab. A bouncer's certain lucrative
hypocrite teeth. Stolid
dent fiat. Slum moves out, abetting
casual evolving into
pre-fade empire. Vampire
after chili-

nosed dowager primping 

for bar nuns. Through punted hall, scratchmouth turntable sizes fickle
knees' fat tetanus salute. Cartoon pendulum stirring 
flirtward clients'
flat coquette stew. My flask accomplice spills
gored pearl. Election docks at cask paunched rumor. Intimate
tirade somebody must squeegee. 

The Eyeful's Plainclothes

                        vertebra is a
            thicket, aperitif. The vulture
                                    of expertise dices. There
                        was a projectile for the
superintendent and issue. From this a pod
                                    itches and to this
                                                retrofits. Prophecy may
                        command parachute. To the
                                    hotflash instead of the hypertext. We
            narrow trophy thirsts and can then tally.
Among our more vertical stats of mimicry. That I may
                                    re-echo: the montage
                        to mystique. Wallet stiffens. You must
                                                bed an ill-advised
            manana agent. An absolution
blown, as a mandrill by thrombosis.
                        Beyond which threat could
                                                not procreate thrift.

Cheese Pulleying Family:
 

polish. Purple?
Relic ache alert:
a finger poking out of
plaster. Fiction's fusion
engine fusses over each
object exposed, angling cellular capacity,
as counterpoint athletes
pile emotive rose challenges across a
crime forest. Outside prose (ambition's plangently 

classic chains),

a feather--critical against
nostril. Location craze can't
count root. Oblique eels fake out
narrative octopus nominating
commission. Crackling
paradox respectfully pukes
a folded crossroads. Check
cancelled. Fluke? For
nonce, as ever.

            -- for Joseph Lease

The Worst Frost. Tater Morgue. You

             wink
                        too tight. Dog
                                                husk,
                                                            fey slices
                                                of
                        sizzled ladder. Television ligament hapless.
            Moor-
hand conked witless
            by
                        hive-assed moose. This is
                                    a naked hotel. Drone to soul:
                                                the slum crust, uninsured, can
                                    deed cistern. Trust
                        moo.
            Canned dawn
                                    to paste
on shanty amber blemish.