Dragon Voyage (1)

DRAGON’S TAIL (2003)

For arrested drunks like me, there
Are only two ways to live -- The
One astride the dragon’s tail, the
Other always rowing here. When
I’m riding red I’m far afield
Burning cities, hearts, and sense to
Char, backwarding on the blade which
Slices off my own ass grabbing
All I cannot have. Off tail I’m
Pure drollery, the sea before dawn,
Nothing in my moves to catch the
Torching eye. Drunks climb on that wild
Thirst and never wake; their nightmare
Flies for life. Let them sear in soar.
My living’s calm though words here roar.


***

I have never heard any definition of the sea more impressive than that of a fisherman of the isle of Ulva whom I knew. “ She is like a woman of the old taleswhose beauty is dreadful,” he said, “and who breaks your heart at last whether she smiles or frowns. But she doesn’t care about that, or whether you are hurt or not. It’s beause she has no heart, being all a wild water.”

-- Fiona Macleod, from “Cuilidh Mhoire,” in The Winged Destiny

***


"He must be possessed by a devil," said Mohi.

Said Babbalanja, "Then he is only like all of us."
...

(Babbalanja:) "...says old Bardianna, ‘All men are possessed by devils; but as these devils are sent into men and kept in them for additional punishment, not garrisoning a fortress, but limboed in a bridewell, so it may be more just to say that the devils themselves are possessed by men, not men by them ..."

"... Devils are divers -- strong devils, and weak devils; knowing devils and silly devils; mad devils and mild devils; devils merely devils, devils themselves bedeviled, devils doubly bedeviled.

-- Melville, Mardi


***

“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him. “Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come dveil himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you.”

-- from “Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne

***

BIG SEA MUSIC (2002)

He dipped into his deep blue
pockets and brought out a handful
of foreign gold. The coins burned
in his palm like the suns of strange
countries. He had been among
mermaids and monks and winters
and whales such as I had scarcely
dreamed of...
-- Christopher Rush,
“The Woman and the Waves”

I played that big sea music
for a decade or so tethered
to an angry god: Walls
of water behind me leapt
and spat as I rode my
midnight blue guitar.

The world in that season
was wild with wastrel noise:
Snare-snaps and bass
thunder meshed in the squeal
and squall of humbucker
pickups as we aimed those
metal stallions of song
through a dank peripheries
where women trailed
infinity in their perfect,
young bodies.

I was pickled in that brine,
the same way booze distilled
in me drunk plunder: The homeless
waves of that music splashed
through me and pooled
into some inner, wild sea,
waters which seem
ever sillier the older I get.

I sit here my house quilted
into a quaint Florida town
with the beloved cat in the window
sniffing an approaching front.
Soon I head upstairs to
wake my sweet wife. Soon
the day’s payment begins.

Yet still I can feel that
full Atlantic moon
burning high above,
it’s blue aeries capsizing
this room, this poem.
All I can do now is write
that old music down,
shut the book, and push
off into the day where
no wild waters remain
though their savageries
leave a brutal stain.

***

ENERGIES (2000)

From “A Breviary of Guitars”


Late autumn 1983:
Ah squandered!
What oily
squeaky leaky
squawky rotgut
floozy flights of
frenzy I lost
on a bottle(s)
and a night(s):
What a raging
river of booze
I drank: What
sea did I ever
approach: Christ
when I read back
over the journals
of that time the
motions are like
Homeric pithies:
“After practice
we headed out”
a shorthand for
“ever more furious
excess” and the
prayerful “when will
it ever stop?”: O
the energies
provided out the
gates of excess:
Wish I had
a nipple for every
night I suckled
too much booze:
Fundamentally
I drank my
guitar into
its grave: The
partying was
always more primary
a motion than
the playing: The
lesser but more
immediate angel,
the easier flight:
O the energies
within “the fiery
drink of the black
mother” as the
Greeks called booze.
boon of slaves,
bane of empires:
But that’s just
one trope on
those energies which
dissolve all names:
My father told
me round that
time of an
encounter he’d had
at Iona — in a
half mad or half
dreaming or half
otherworldly state
in which he met a
huge ugly man
at some outer
& neglected corner
of the island: Terrible
& churlish, loathsome
though my father
only felt a great
love for the
monster: The
being’s name was
Thor & he was
a guardian energy
of the ancient island,
one of a council
of energies my
father invited
to come live
with him at his
Columcille: He
believes they
rooted in the
stone chapel &
stone belltower
& in the standing
stones: Surely
they inhabit the
titanic work that
went into building
Columcille: I’ve
never felt more
exhausted than
at the end of
a work day on
that property: Those
energies drink our
mortal blood &
enthusiasm like a
booze for angels:
The energies
demand it all:
Sleep is a sieve
which washes
blue physic
through mind
and body &
we wake ready
to harness the
plow again: Like
a Celtic
warrior killed in
battle & dropped
in Manannan’s
cauldron at
the bottom of
the sea to
rise again fever-
bright & ready
for the next
fray the next
day: Today it’s
Friday & I’m
beat from another
fierce week of
short sleep &
early rising &
long rows down
these pages &
then working
out furiously
in the gym
(the energies
demanding
gales & hammers
& hoofs outta
each workout)
& then fighting
the good war
for King Features
Weekly Service
battling the
new weekly
syndicate & bad
billings & staff
fucking off: &
Then coming
home to maintain
the marital dance
with Beth sans
sex: All duty
no booty: Have
I ever worked
a day harder?
The energies of
such a life
lived thusly
rage at 95
to 105 percent
of max, a static
anaerobic
ballstothewalls
pace which
sees no horizon,
no port: Energies
anneal their own
fire, their own
mode of life:
Through them I’ve
burnt up many
lives: Hard
years of long
days devoted to
fundamentalist
Jesus sales
& years of
monastic study
alone in a room
far west & years
of chasing a
dream of music
& years of AA
& therapy
& professional
work & finishing
college & writing
through to here
Such devotions
have the teeth
of compulsion,
discipline an
iron collar I
ratchet as
far down as I
can: Horsed
and goaded
by those burn
angels Force
(Bia) and
Necessity
(Anangke):
My father looks
old for his years,
his poor body has
taken a major
shellacking from
years in the
service of stone:
Nerve damage
in his neck
where a huge
stone hit him
falling off the
belltower & feet
numb & several
toes amputated
from years
of walking on
stone rows:
I’ve got ear
damage from
years of loud
music & liver
damage from
booze & speed
& a bum shoulder
from too much
swimming &
lifting & aerobics
all at the same
time & dim
eyes from all
the reading &
carpal damage
from all the
keyboarding
& a damaged
heart from
all the fires
of love: Lack
of sleep I’m
sure ebbs some
other vital fuse:
Not by providence
but victory
the energies
scream in
my deep inner
ear & the
dolphin swims
on & down:
Like Thor’s
hammer thrown
at an ever
distant mark
I have become
the work to
the utter detriment
of any other
life: Full time
husband, athlete,
worker, writer,
all in one: Yet
how much more
the energies
require: Not
more lines down
the page but
finer rages right
here: Not
more weight on
the press but
better form
& focus — nail
those muscles
in their clench:
Not more sex
but better loving:
Not more hours
at work but
another level of
the work
simultaneously
hurling better
& loftier & more
competitive
hammers: Ah
but why bitch:
Think of what
the energies demanded
of James that
January day
which seems too
long ago: How
his blood must
have raced to
head out to
the beach on
a fine day, cop
some rays, listen
to some jams,
drink some beers,
eye the pretties,
drive hard and
fast and harder
and faster &
even harder
faster till he
was plucked like
a fruit ripened
by the energies
which demanded
that he never
stop, never buckle
up: Think on
that then wonder
if your lot is
all that bad, pal:
They let you
survive all
those failed
guitars & women
you wrongly
nailed: How
many times they
could have tore
you from the branch
you so willingly
hung from:

***

STRINGS OF THE HARP (2002)

On this cold clear
April night I stand
with my father
in his ancient yard,
the moon at full blast
lathering these stones
with the black milk of
the sea’s hurled soul.
The bell tower is a pale
gem gleaming in
that lamp, faceted
with uncut faces
—seal-man, ogre,
dolphin, snake —
each adrift in that old
moon-music, singing
from some place
we surely dreamed
before we knew.
And high above
in the newest portal
a harp’s clef stretches
wind-strings taut
and burning with
that other fire,
like tongues of heated
heart, or sails of
starry soul.
And O how they
tremble inside
that April moon
as if to tune our
own wild nerves:
Together we
are strummed
by a cold wind
weaving through the
garden of the mind,
and sing on through
that beaming door
which opens on the final
room of our strange career—
a richly booming,
darkly gleaming shore.

***

GUY’S WALL (2002)


... Less than a billow of the sea
That at the last do no more roam,
Less than a wave, less than a wave,
This thing that hath no home,
This thing that hath no grave ...

— Fiona MacCleod, “In the Night”


Tonight I sit beneath
a naked mulberry tree
on the stone bench where
Guy’s ashes were interred
a quarter century ago.
Long chimes in that
tree knock their sad sweet
bones, while the moon
swings brilliant over all,
though coldly, prowing
across a raw spring night.
Sitting here is a vantage
on the productions
of myth and mystery,
not so much cynical
as peripheral, bluesy,
bittersweet. Age becalms
the spirit’s buoyant fire
as surely as death
inks a darker fluid
in the pen, a weight
which does not rise
so readily. I do not mean
to criticize the night:
rather, this seat befits
a threshold half in
wonder while the
other half’s cold
with rawer truths.
The bell tower and
standing stones are
all so beautiful, sheeted
as they are in such
blue-white silk-
lovely, yes, even
evanescent, engaged
in one of the oldest,
most fertile dances
the mind can imagine,
can hope, can dream ...

So why then carve a
poem from cold hollows,
brooding over the ashes
of a long-lost, scantily
remembered person I but
briefly called a friend?
Who will know this
bench serves also
as a crypt in
another 25 years?
Who will care? The stones
I sit on which cask
that dark oil
tell me nothing
of the man who once
sat up in the limbs
of this mulberry tree
as the rest of us progressed
below heading for the field,
sending down over us the deep
bass of our childhood God,
reminding—no, telling-us
to be good. The stones cannot
(or won’t) explain to me
why Guy died of cancer
before age 30, scant months
after his wife Judy gave birth
to Jennifer. Stones are honest
but most times mute:
And so I must scan
the edges of the far field
where the wood gets darker
and memories are faulty
but a certain truth
can only be found there ...

I knew Guy but a season
two years before he left us all.
He taught me a little about
tuning a piano. One day we
were up in someone’s hot
attic sweating under the hood
of an old upright. You have
to feel the pitch, Guy
told me. If you think about
whether the string you’ve
plucked is sharp or flat,
you’ll never get it tuned.
And then he showed
me how, weaving his tuning
hammer up and down
the loom of strings
like a sonorous Thor.
He couldn’t really explain
it-never enough for me
to learn—but he always got
it right. And when he
finished he played Billy Joel’s
“The Piano Man,” grandly,
rolling up and down the keys
with authority, harmonizing
the bent quiver of the piano
to the arrows of that song.

Guy had a frantic pulse
for life, for making everything
count. Some ambivalent
genius drove him to seek
the spirit’s moony suburbs
halfway between nirvana
and New Jersey. One night
we walked in the woods
over there smoking pot
and talking New Age
phantasmagoria.
He showed me a railway
tunnel which had
long collapsed. We
crept into that dark
until we came upon
a rubble pile. Anybody
home? He boomed to
the devas on the other side.
Surely we’d manifest
a potato god or the
queen of cherry bloom.
Instead there was a crash
of glass and a terrible,
ball-curdling shriek;
we hauled ass out of there
terrified and giggling,
the air behind us shredded
by the nails of whatever
was and was not back in there.
It really happened, though
I doubt tonight it could have.
Only Guy can concur with me,
and he is in the stone.

Guy argued long that summer
about whether the formal
event we were planning
should be called a party or a festival.
The distinction would decide
how much much booze
would be allowed, and when:
perhaps it was a silly point,
but Guy took it to the lists
as fiercely as he whirled
that tuning hammer. Maybe
he just wanted to win the
argument, but he seemed
struck by a certainty none of
us quite fathomed. I surely
didn’t know, just turned 21,
half of my father’s making,
half of a something far from home
which strummed its blue guitar.
Guy lost that argument,
at least in the first sense
of things; that hot midsummer
day was the first of many
festivals celebrated here
round and down the years.
We set a wood tripod in
the middle of the field and
laced it round with bright ribbons.
I played guitar and my buddy
Dave mandolin as revelers jigged
their best in clouds of gnats
beneath a feral, summer sun.
What else transpired? Why
does that day dim so fast
and what followed stay in
focus in this sere, cold light?
At dusk we drank May
wine with wild strawberries
up in the house, listening
to Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
It was all we thought a festival
should be and none of what
we knew, a culmination of
adjacent, airy enough dreams,
formalized into a dance
beneath the hottest,
brightest light of all. Over
the years the tripod was
replaced by standing stones,
and the festivals got bigger
and somehow sweeter:
equinoxes and solstices,
from Samhain to May Day
and back, attended by hundreds,
each devotee of a different
spectra of our faith:
neo-pagan, neo-Christian,
wiccan, vegan, Buddhist,
tattooist, biker, blancher,
blickerer, blueist, each
blaring their reformed
taboos, bedecked
in robes and wreaths and
and cha-cha-cha tutus.

This place has become
a capital of bucolic
whims whirling round
the eminently silent stone:
But you and I, Guy, we
were there for the first one,
peripheral to what my father made
but central to its darker twin.
For as good as all festivals go,
you had wanted more-
something closer to the
world’s more fecund crotch—
and madly, so did I. The day had
been too church-like, too blanched
in that too-bright summer sun.
Two glasses of May wine
couldn’t do the job:
Some other, redder impulse
was needed for our fire,
an ire which only could be found
long after the white one
went down. And so a
dissident faction of that festival
drove over to Guy’s house
to do the party part,
blasting Bruce Springsteen
on the stereo, pounding
shots of Rebel Yell with
our tall-necked Buds. As we
hooted and hammered
and blasted that party jive,
Guy’s brown eyes were like
ebonies of that other music
beyond the ribboned field,
burning, perhaps, with
the soul’s pagan fire.
Or maybe it was cancer.
Whatever Guy might say
of that night, or how
I might remember it,
tonight I believe I’d seen
my patient, my dark mentor.

For I wanted more.
And so later that night Guy
passed me to a crazed cousin
who lived in a house
on the Delaware. I don’t
remember much of what followed
except she was dark in some
folded-in, sad way, and
that her welcome had
to it a sort of ritual clench,
the birth-grapple of
the dark-hottest booze.
The next day as I made
my retreat — shrill trumpets
of a hangover blaring
in my brain pan —
I looked out a window
on the porch to see
black water flowing
almost under the house.
River house, river
witch, bestowing on
me a dark river’s blessing,
carrying me away
at the end of that summer
25 years ago. I was
not ready for the New Age,
not with the big night
music playing so loudly
in my ears. The party kept me
from the festivals for many
years; tonight, again, I
try to return, and end up
here in the borderlands.
I thank you, Guy,
wherever you are among
this night’s windy shades,
for teaching me about what’s
been tempered between the
two faces of the dance.
We yearn and burn,
our sight is split; the view
can kill us or bless us,
be coffin to our ecstasies
or currah us to shore. I’m
not sure you had a choice,
Guy, but I thank you for
making one possible for me,
your shade my trusty door ...

Yes my friend, tonight things
are good. Before me the pond
stares back at the moon with
its black mirror and the standing
stones choir pale homages
in the field. Up in the house my
father and the others are drinking
a Scotch before heading to the field
to celebrate Wesak, the Buddhist
festival of the high Taurus moon.
Tonight, only a few folks are here
— smaller even than the baker’s
dozen of New Age hopefuls
who tried with us to manifest
the sea from a glass of May wine
back in ‘78—but enough.
For wherever two or more
gather to plead human alms
from immensity, a least
a spark of it wilds through
into the mortal bone.
Soon, Guy, I must go and
join my ragged voice to
that prayer, but before
then I want to tell you a few
things, since it will be awhile
before I sit with you again.
I’ve heard your daughter is
now out of college and Judy
is happy in her way down
in Miami-No Jersey charms
for her! Second, my wife
and I emerge from our dark
hours slowly, perhaps toward
a happy enough future; my party
now at end, perhaps that
festival can begin. Her cat
Buster died last year but
appeared in a dream, saying,
I’m OK now, just wanted
to let you know I had
a good life but I won’t be
coming back again.
—Did you ever let your wife know?
—And finally, my father grouses
at 75 years old that he can’t stop
coming back, long after the day
five years ago he was so certain
he would die. In your time
I’m sure that time comes
soon, too very soon.

That’s about all. We don’t
hardly know how
to tell our stories, Guy,
much less brave an end.
I’m not sure how this poem
will get there. As I listen
to those chimes beating against
each other first calm then wild,
I know they’re all I really
have of you. I wish I
could see half of what I
dream is here, but I’m
grateful you and I
remain where we are, citizens
on either side of a stone wall.
As a cold wind blows indifferently
over us, I think of all the others
whose ashes are also buried here -
AIDS victims, earth mamas,
prodigal boys who couldn’t quite
get home, my dad’s dog Lancelot
beneath a small dolmen next
to the house. There are crypts
beneath the chapel floor
waiting for my father and Fred,
for Albertine who’s just entered hospice,
for the hopefully mixed ashes of
my brother and his wife.
There are plenty of memorials
on this land, too, heaps of stones
in the forest, feathers slung
from limbs, trees planted to
grow where we stopped,
like the weeping cherry
put in last week for a young
woman who killed herself.
So many dead limn this land
with you Guy, fading into the
moon-cast shadows of
oblivion, silent witnesses to
the horde of living who come
back every season to beat drums,
swing crystals, and troop the wood
in search of what, I suspect,
only ashes find by scattering.
Some day I’ll look into that
bell tower door searching
the space my father departed
through, sniffing for a trace
of Borkum Riff or Scotch whiskey,
straining my eyes for a glint
of his laughing blues.
I suspect I won’t see
anything but stones and field
and the wood’s black umbers,
all awash in and resonant with
this same old brilliant bonelight.
And I suspect I will say then
to him as I say to you tonight:
friend, fare thee well, the real world
is carved from your strange hallows.
Your music’s in my bones.
Play me a song Mister Piano Man,
grandly on the ivories
of those chimes.
Sing to me about the wild
betweens and how to love
the living wonder there. Voices
are now weaving in the bell
tower; the ceremony’s
begun. Will you play Buddha
for me tonight, old friend,
high up in that mulberry tree,
and you add your deep voice
to our still-human weave?
Will you bless us with
what you’ve earned
among the ancient stone?
And will you keep tuning
this heart of mine with
what’s strung between
the blood-root of this stone
and the dream which praises all?


***

SURVIVING ENERGIES (2000)

from “A Breviary of Guitars”

The energies call
and caul and cowl
and cull us
beyond our every
pale imagining:
Just when we
think we know
how to master
‘em, a different
flame rises up
to scorch us
in the ass,
hissing that
heaven is not
as commonly
supposed nor
hell as imagined:
Poison physic
returns to scotch
its maker: Hooch
unmade me for
sure, it drank
my rock ambitions
down to the
dregs: Sure it
kept me loose,
the eyes must
be lidded to
perceive the
thrall of dark
desires, equiporpoise
in winnowing
waves & parting
willing thighs:
You had to
be half-looped
to fly rather
than fall:
But a drink
never made me
a better guitar
player: And
neither did a
guitar make me
any better lover:
Th energies
are savage
cunning and
patient: When
my every ambition
wrecked out
on the alcoholic
reef there was
nothing to do
but put the
plug in the jug
& chuck my
guitar down into
the pit where
all my loves
were buried too:
Eight years of
AA rebuilding the
ruin of a life
or maybe starting
the first one
for the first time:
Jung’s formula
for beating the
bottle is simple:
spiritus contra
spiritus meaning
“it takes spirit
to counter spirits:”
The living you
see cannot endure
the full gale of
energies which
call us beyond:
Our survival
requires us to
harness ‘em with
oblique forces,
temperings,
balance,
ambiguity:
Rein in the
hot horses of
spiritus with the
cool slake
of spiritus:
Addition is
false veneration,
worship of
whatever we
wish our gods
promise: Cure
consists then
in surrendering
to the terrible
truth that our
gods are not
the way we think
they are at all:
Not that eternal
glow between
the second and third
Scotch: Not
a prolonged orgasm
water & wild
between her
perfect parted
thighs caressed
by venereal
ululations of
my name: Not
more passionate
singing over
some irredeemable
suburban abyss:
Try to drink
your fill of
these things believing
this time
it will all come
true: The energies
will batten
on these dreams
like maggots:
No: The only
hope in
surviving immortal
desire is to
sacrifice that
passionate singing
to another song,
another spirit:
change the
lucre, invert
the worlds: “It
was almost a girl /
who, stepping away
from / the single
harmony of song
and lyre, / appeared
to me through
her / diaphanous
form / and made
herself a bed
inside my ear”
sings Rilke in
Sonnets to
Orpheus 1.2:
Almost a girl:
Almost rock
and roll: Almost
a bottle:
Similitude
bears imp and
angel faces which
both lead us down
the primrose path
to hell: The song
wants me to
believe with all
my might that it’s
a girl, almost:
And it’s all
too human
to build
cathedrals round
the first part
of the phrase
& bury
the second:
Wallace Stevens
transcends the
old-time religion
when he writes,
“the poem must
resist the
intelligence /
almost successfully:”
“Almost” is the
vault where in
lie the dead’s
“final, forever
saved up, forever
hidden, unknown
to us, eternal
valid coins of
happiness” (Rilke
again, this time
his 5th Elegy):
Almost is the
dragon of
metaphor loosed
from the foundations
of certainty:
A threshold
which restrains
us from our
godlike addictive
falls: Allen
Greenspan criticized
the market’s
“irrational
exuberance” 2
years ago
which just
seemed to goad
the new market
mavens on: Stock
money is the
coke of the Oh
Ohs, promising
fantastic boundless
unstoppable returns:
Even last week
when there was
a whopping selloff
the investors
returned with
a vengeance
gaining it all back:
“Boundless
intemperance
in nature is
a tyranny”
(“Macbeth”) Ask
any addict:
Irrational
exuberance
is bull territory:
Alas! How hard
we’ll fall before
we accept that
money is almost
but never never
never ever enough:
Some day we’ll
hurl into the
pit our stock
options & margin
calls & Rolexes
& brokers: Clean
& sober & broke,
perhaps for the
rest of our lives
our generation:
Though at the
window we’ll
always see her
dancing so
beautiful & pure,
weaving gold round
her every curve
and curl:

***

WILD ENERGIES

... The right maps have no monsters.
Now the minds’ wandering elementals,
Ousted from their traveller-told

Unapproachable islands,
From their heavens and their burning underworld,
Wait dully at the traffic crossing,
Or lean over headlines, taking nothing in.

-- “Fourth of July,” Ted Hughes

A chalice used by the Iona abbey was broken and Columba had it taken by one of his monks to the Celtic sea-god Manannan, who magically restored the chalice by blowing on it. Manannan sends it back to Columba with a question: Will the sea-god achieve Christian immortality? “Alas,” replied the saint, “there is no forgiveness for a man who does such works as this!” The message is returned to Manannan, who breaks into an indignant lament: “Woe is me, Manannan mac Lir! For years I’ve healped the Catholics of Ireland, but I’ll do it no more, till they’re weak as water. I’ll go to the gray waves in the Highlands of Scotland.”


Wild energies flee
approaching light
too conscious of itself,
too missionized by God.
When Manannan
left Iona the day
turned too sunny,
the sea smoothed
to brilliant glass.
Men saw themselves
in that water
and no one else.
History began its
holy fifth age
with no one to
blame but ourselves.
Patrick smiled
in his grave: No
worm battened on
his bone. The
sea-god was
swallowed by the
Book of Kells;
mere splashes
of cerulean ink.
Sometimes my
hazel eyes turn
that blue-gray
and all I hear then
is the mash of
waves, a laughter
in the roar of
surf, Highland airs
whistling keen
within the feral
octaves of the
wind. His home’s
below, where all
my terrors and
delights batten
on the daily fuse.
I hear him when
no word can
suffice and the
page yawns down
below the last
impotent line.
At my wits’ end
he begins, sweeping
far, the ocean fist
inside this well’s
obfuscate mist.


***

TALK DIRTY TO ME (2004)

Talk dirty to me barks the sea
As I amble down the naked
Shoreline of a prayer. Shake it,
Shake it like a horny Pope down
Under. Angelic apes stand in
The wash stroking huge erections
& mouthing every name of God.
When old men enter puberty
It’s a rude uproar: Our lust is
Brown-eye ugly to those oiled girls
Sunning for young kings & hard hooved
Rings of fire. I’ve stopped caring for
Good press -- It’s time now to get down.
Watch me lower my shorts down to
This ankling tide -- I’ve seas to screw!

***

TAIL (2004)

High and lower god, you both have
Tails: No wonder ass is both my
Cup and curse, the gnomon of dark
Doors & arch foolery. The drunk
Has shit for brains, getting high on
Lows, his first thought hot for the worst
Rub-a-dub ding-dong diddly-dunk.
Ass chants its own high mass, just turned
Upside down: True in the fishy
Funkiest derange, chasing each
Salty dog from tail to sea to
tell all again. O give me the
Purest baptism of all, my sweet,
Nail me deep to all I cannot say:
Soar this song’s end -- O walk away!



***


MILKING THE MONKEY (2004)

How to milk blue shadows without
Falling into them? That’s the rub and goad
Of every surfer’s curl. To plow
The naked secret in its rude
Rawest silk without noosing in
Those hot imps of more. Indulgence
Bred the worst of times, yet drydock
Was somehow its worse father, a
Desert sun of cracked bone welling
Sand as from a clock’s wound. No: there
Has to be a different poise
Between wild and world, a night-like
Nougat for the tongue which can ride
Between white shores the bluest brogue.
May this page milk my ape and rogue.