tangential fall
Squirrelly lines
that would have told a story
but got lost
somewhere along the way,
tangled
in someone else’s
loose ends.

villein
Comfortable inside a pleasant garden
bristling
at the wrongs done to me
yesterday.

I’ve set up
thick walls with a bossy surface
that repels the very notion
of hospitality;
get it –
stay away from me.

It’s my neighbors again
as the shadows begin to descend
up to old tricks,
windows open to the moonlight
leaving me
with glimpses of sparkling chandeliers,
ceilings painted in decadent colors;
I don’t know what they do in there
but I’ve had visions
of great balls,
unmentionable games,
love making –
in brilliant rooms
I’ll never see.

traffic obstruction
Bumped by pedestrians
honked at by cars
rammed by baby carriages
and delivery carts.

You curse at me,
I curse at you,
then we wave our hands
and move on.

nihil nimis
Dry in speech,
frugal,
pessimistic,
queer perhaps,
but disabused.

I hide my private life
like a miser;
I make my consumption
not conspicuous.

I govern outward display
by putting my austerity on the line,
simplicity,
economy of effect,
a sparse world prevails.

No, ma’am, I tell her,
you already gave me alms today
and I’ll beg
but only so much.

love stratified and strained ii
Is it the necessity
of a more precise definition
or
is it the possibility
of a more precise definition?

Thinkers bend
all their powers
to the task of expressing
a half-intuitive dichotomy.

Yet I knew you loved me from the beginning;
all the knots you tied yourself up in
were merely a means
of telling yourself
otherwise.

Perception starts
with imagination
but what you saw in me
was real
before you lost it
to the ghost.

love stratified and strained
Draw attention to specific basic terms
while avoiding both
their strict and novel connotations;
grant the exact significance
you attach to the term
but be careful
to make it less clear;
choose the distinction between
being and becoming,
action and actuality,
fundamental and diffused,
yes and no and maybe.

Out of the results
you will in fact obtain
that single atom of clarity;
cover it up carefully
leaving it beyond her grasp –
that abstract feeling,
distinct and certain
which you are too afraid to tell her;
the one that would have saved you
on those lonely nights
when your heart beats alone
and all you can hear
are the fading echoes
of the empty words
you choose to hide behind.

pause
A butterfly lands on a rose
and rests itself gently,
rainbow wings that enfold all the world
drip into your dreams.

You move toward the light
but too slowly
so that time freezes
and leaves your there
in front of that butterfly
forever
and a day or two more.

nobody comes here anymore
A massive vaulted hall
full of marble golems
murmuring in gravelly voices;
stone sliding against stone
echoing off the walls;
an off-key song
to some forgotten god
of long, long ago.

bring me a dowery
Give me all that you’ve got
down the last copper
and even what’s left over
pile it all out front
and then burn it all away
until the flaming fingers
catch the rosy dawn;
only then will I take you
and only then
will you be sure.