Circumference

 

 

There was a peak in the lock of that explosion

when circumference was shattered--nor you nor I

survived, were in the wreckage--atomized, dispersed,

blown back to singularity; no now, no then. Before--

the numbing mother of joy's exquisite pain 

unhinged mind's rule, law; love's must, should, its ought.

There was only maw and the slip of skin, microbial--

sublimity's usurping power--you moving to all me, 

I to all you, the cock's cascade, in a suck of fierce desire,

my body's fish leaping to swim that boiling water. After--

whatever we thought, was not: there was still pain, still me, still you.

 

 

 

Again

 

 

 

There's always joy in the morning
The sun the window the now
The first breath the rising
The bird song the green
The toast the coffee the spoon
The first buzz of language
The world all fresh and forgiven
The day, again, brand new


 

Wild Nights  with Emily

We're tired of Anglo-Saxon stuffiness and Christian rectitude.

It's time for Emily Dickinson and me to wild the night in luxury.

We're sipping Tequila and dancing the Samba in a tropic bar.

She's hembra, I'm macho and Cheecho pats the bongs.

We’re three steps in two beats, forwarding, mirroring and then reverse.

She undoes her hair. She smiles. We’re both caught up: we’re hot.

Get out of the way, Billy Collins: we’re going to moor.

This bronco’s not riding a swan tonight.

 

 

 

On Bob Coming Through

 

After they had scared him with dying,
after they had scalped out his kishkas,
after they had blown up his scrotum to the full size of Cleveland,
after the nurses, the interns and all the curious people of the world
had lined up to stick him, to bleed him and to fondle his pupik,
he knew that basically he had come through,
that the reaper did not have dominion,
and when they wheeled him out of his bed
and out to the hospital curb, he knew he had come home to love--
and then when the wind brushed the trees 
and the birds sang in their leaves
and the sun shone long and bright down the way,
his eyes felt the weight of the rain.

 

 

 

Go Forth & Multiply

 

 

Like it or not, wanted or not, 
every species feels compelled
to replicate its kind.

Florida’s pesky tassle flower, Emilia fosbergii,
straggles the landscape everywhere, 
common, undesired and vexing to the eye.

From the garden’s weeding yesterday
I saved some purple tassel flowerets 
and set them in a jar,
their tufted headdresses 
spoking from their stems, seducing, 
as asked of any butterfly or bee, 
and begging for my care.

But safe in perfidy and silence,
they dropped their camouflage last night
and morphed to downy seed heads 
rigged up and twirled to fly.

Astonished and betrayed, 
I watch this winded morning
as they leap their tilting flower crafts
and parachute their germen--
brazen, wantonly and free--
across the frowning lawns.
 

 

 

Damaged Goods

 

Where’s the return counter
for the broken and the wounded parts
the shards of the heart the soul 
the self’s soiled pieces?

 

 

Kabbed

 

 

Out of rule or out of fire,
eventually,
from the clasp of their desire:
we came,
and for awhile,
fleshed with their flesh
and built with their bone,
we were joyed
to their deepest pleasure
as one loves his own breath
or her own self.

Their arms were our barricade.
They kept us from the edge:
We did not fall.

Their eyes moved us through fog.
Their voice led us through shadow.
We were safe from the serpent's tooth
and the wolf's mouth could not find us

Their grip upheld our willing hands
and loved us down the years
until our length at last discharged them
and firm, frail or happy from the course,
they walked us to the portal of our own house
and stood silent as we crossed it.

Remembering the wear of your shoe
and the hug of your arm,
from the back of that weathered door today,
O Abba, O Eema:
receive this love and celebration,
this honor for you.