Aztec Kiss (2004)

A relic of the Aztec
empire’s throne of blood
is on display now at
the Guggenheim -- a skull
mask: Back half removed,
eyes fashioned from white
disks with huge black
balls for pupils and --
here’s the cruellest
part part -- long
flint knives for nose
and tongue: Those
blades reveal that
age’s eyes were
insatiable for that
red syrup of the
heart: Thier great
gods thirsted
for it like drunks
their hooch:
They also spell
the spillage of
that age, for blood
that is priests
and kings in
gold sunlight
slipped and fell
hard on, all the way
down their pyramids
to doom: Ghastly for
sure but the mask
is vivid, wildly florid,
brilliant at the altar
of that devastating
sun: Knives for certain
are for noon, that sharp
stilled hour when lust
and greed shriek like
the sun-horse’s balls
and the distance between
serrated blade and
pulsing terrified heart
is but one tock
of plunge: Far indeed
such vicious tropes
from those we worship
in this age: Thank
God that sharp
relic’s glow is deep
in a museum’s vault:
Yet not so far perhaps
if that image still clicks
like a switchblade into
sudden truth, those
sensory blades leaping off
the page and all the way
to here: That skull mask
is always trooping through
the day with wide dead
eyes alert as Doom for
the next exposed pulse--
openings in traffic,
a sale ripe for the
plundering in a caller’s
wavering voice: Pangs
of hunger lifting in my
mind the top from
a microwaved tub of
Cuban rice and
beans and chunks of
pork awash in tomatoes
and cilantro: The steely
rage I feel when
I hear our reelected
bubbleboy of a President
on the radio when he
says the word mandate:
When movement in
the corner of my eye
sharpens as I look out
my window at work
into a pretty girl jogging
by, sweaty cleavage and
thumping butt is
suddenly speared by
a bolt of lust that
flings tipped with
that blade, pinning
her against a wall
& tearing shorts
& panties down and
thrusting balls to walls
that skull mask’s pierce
of all the world’s fishes
leaping there: Inside this
nice guy who’s near 50
who writes and rides
toward Love there’s
just below a demon rider
with brash obsidian
snout and tongue of
adder’s fire: The cold
front now slicing
down the state belongs
to him: So I suspect
do your eyes, my blue
Fomorian, and all
that ripens in your
bustier of ice: Every
beloved hoods a knife
inside her sighs which
will not settle for
anything less than the
real mortal bloody
beating deal till death’s
black wombage swells
past full: Every poem
has the slosh and pour
and is lyric as the moon
but understand there’s
a darker porpoise snout
below, chipped and
whetted long ago
to kiss every shore
and keep plunging
through, from well-
hung tongue to
hell’s own bung,
nailing and cleaving
the heart of every
next ripe heart of song.