Afterbirth (the voice of him)
So this is the new year.
The sun seems a bluer star
& our ground
ice rock.
Don’t sow. Hang on love,
while the car warms up.
Did you hear they demoted Pluto?
All the same, Welcome
to the same mess.
Lets burn the Christmas present wrap.
& drink the rest away.
Let the molting of gifts keep us warm.
Alprazolam (the voice of her)
blue rain
January-soft light
quiet sliding
the brush
of thighs
slowly now
slide into it
slide easy
like a shooting star’s fade
don't move baby
here,
I'll bring it to you
just stay wake’d
& gentle as your breath
don't bother with a smile— I know.
now is
far from here
We've blown the ghosts away,
my weathered stone.
Pompeii (her)
with my arms around this one &
our dog, curled at our feet—
I want hot ash
like quick dry cement
to slide through every nape
& wrinkle.
let someone else,
later on,
see my love.
Footage of the Great War on TV (him)
It is too late, it seems
for me
to fight in the war.
A personal wound is
always direct &
increasingly collateral.
What more can a soul be than serotonin.
Just to lie on soft sheets
swimming in the projected movie light
of poppy fields–
That ancient bloom is the last
certain, chambered round
saved just for me.
Honeymoon Crusade (him)
The First Crusade was victorious.
There were several later attempts
to regain that
success.
Even a bunch of orphan kids gathered pitchforks
& set forth—
vanished.
The first time I saw her
I thought I would need
a legion
with heavy shields
& long pikes
to win a strip
of her ground.
The first time was great
we were sore for days
& kept at it.
That did not happen
again.
Our victorious bodies
were grand in youth
& later
each alone together
we tired
& vanished
from the other:
Blunted weapons in the dust.
A short chapter in a book
of ancient history.
You can try to gulp fervor
but you only really get
that feeling
the first time.
Diazepam (him)
She’s blue as the Valium
she’s laid out
on the vanity.
She wants a dream
in any hue but blue.
So when she wakes up
& the sky’s gone from black to day,
She’ll at least have had that
respite.
& I did it all
to her.
Once, she thought of me
as something good
she could keep.
But I made her find out
that I’m the rushing black
water of a shallow twisted
river.
Back before then
we’d share a pillow
& I’d swim in her hair & she’d wake me up with her pretty
ring’d fingers
when blue-sky-white came through
the mini-blinds.
But I had to make of that bed
a coffin. Because I am a monkey
jerking off
& throwing shit.
& the old, blue, tee-shirt-soft sheets we shared for years
are now a black territory:
A soft eternal lining
that doesn’t fade up to blue or even a slow grey
when the sky enters the house
& lights some things up.