picnic

i forgot to bring

sunglasses

so

i couldn't face the glittering lake

and sundrenched skies

indoors i thought i could avoid

bedazzlement

but

far brighter, bluer

and more scintillating

were

your eyes

8/31/98

(from Still in Violet After All These Years, 2000)

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yellow crescent moon

tumescent

over Crescent City,

waxing, like my wanting

more potential voodoo than a full moon could have conjured

crawls out of the spreading shadows on Orleans Street

like a monster cockroach from your worst apocalyptic dream

as sun sets over clean, suburban Metairie

where they have no idea what is happening here

saturated air, as close as personal history

carries ominous, mysterious portents

that inspire objectless anticipation

like an itch i can't quite reach --

unfulfilled old longings recollected suddenly;

desire long sublimated rising in me like a primal moan

i walk the cobbled cracked uneven sidewalks of the Vieux Carré

too tempestuous inside to sleep;

a crucial thing is missing, i am negatively charged

my shadow catches up with me, then reaches for the unknown

that's ahead

but aren't you afraid to go out walking there at night?

no; especially not tonight.

i am invulnerable, somehow:

i walk and others step aside to let me pass --

bleached blond gay in leather chaps and little else and

shoeshine boy on Bourbon Street

who'll bet a buck that he can tell me where I got my shoes

and whores of all kinds

understand that i'm not buying --

what i'm looking for is no thing that they've ever even had

to sell

and maybe isn't of their Earth

i want to see your forehead and your cheekbones pink

with sunburn and the neon of a beer sign;

your jaw and straight, strong nose

like burnished bronze in candleglow

your eyes darkened by passion, deep and black as interstellar space

glittering with constellations of reflected flame

and possibilities of travel to new,

unimaginable worlds

like any thing of quality

the journey just requires time

time with you is what i haven't had

time without you telescopes, distorts: i want it to be over

i want to start Time over now with you, expanding,

just until the universe we know will fill

a second-storey room-and-bath with balcony French doors thrown wide

to admit the heavy salty humid air,

laden with the fragrance of fresh-baked D'Or croissants

the clip-clop of the tired carriage horses on the paving bricks,

the murmuring of tourists much too self-absorbed to hear their driver telling them

that where I would lie touching you, this sanctuary thirty feet above them

was, once, long ago, a convent

i believe this passion is divine

as any that inspired this room's historical inhabitants

in the deepest reaches of their souls

being in this room alone feels wrong, discordant, incomplete; yet

i've no faith or reasonable hope

that i will find you here

that you will give me

Time

i stand before a storefront on Decatur Street

the sun has risen over herons, hermit crabs and egrets,

bayou grasses, damselflies and water striders

i have walked, but now am motionless and

contemplating severed snake and alligator heads, Mardi Gras masks,

colorful cheap trinkets, Catholic icons, mudbug t-shirts:

do ya eat da tails? do ya suck da heads?

don't be shy about extremes here

and i'm not

afraid to think, or say, or do

whatever it takes, either

to effect desired destinies

did Ruthie rollerskate behind me just then on the sidewalk?

did you just walk into Café DuMonde -- alone?

we perceive -- believe -- what we most want

and Love Potion Number Nine will work on you

if you can be persuaded

powders, potions, poultices and leathers, metal,

fur and feathers, wands and stones,

chalices and amulets -- the ju-ju of old cultures

and the newest: virtual cyberpunk playrooms,

batteried, electric and inflatable devices,

latex products in the shapes and colors of all fantasies

you can get them here

but that isn't how i want you

-- not compelled by magicks

of the supernatural or supermarket --

you will come to me

when you want me

so i won't stroll toward Café DuMonde now

if you won't tell me yes

right now

i will forego the answer

until later

you know i am staying at the convent -- alone

 7/21/97

(from Still in Violet After All These Years, 2000)

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LOVE POEM

this old ford van

the engine rumbles

the heater hums

the windshield splats with intermittent rain

cannonballing crackers

trade directions

jackjaw

drawl and twang

over white noise on the cb

the road tumbles open up ahead

between ribbed black flooded fields

like a worn-out grey wool bedroll getting ready

swollen creeks reflecting greyed-out sky

wind through bristling wet black undergrowth

like runnels of come through cunt hair

self-contained

my friend smokes

drives and prattles

i say yeah sure

nod when necessary

and daydream of balling you

11-26-85, 12-16-85, 4-22-89, 6/21/93, 7/8/93

(From ...And Tattooed, 1996)

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mercury poisoning

untrue to its nature,

mercury

remains steadfast on course,

this time: full speed astern.

almanac, ephemeris and common sense

all notwithstanding (they say it is moving forward now),

my whimsical controlling planet

mercury

affects adversely

all of my communication, travel, work.

forward motion is not possible:

i’m stuck on stupid

in errands and love, tasks and public relations;

i start and restart hanging computers,

play phone tag through overtime,

sit in gridlocked traffic (every route: lanes closed or detoured, Work Zone with a rough grooved surface or  the dreaded BUMPs --I cannot drive a straight line from my home to work),

wait for slow freight trains to pass, (unable to call out on a locked cell phone that just won’t unlock)

and listen all the while (through static on the radio)

to nothing but silence from you.

July 2000

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like Sunday morning

6 AM they hose last night off all the sidewalks

and the balconies: heads up!

i join you in the steamy shower

smelling Luzianne on I-10

quaffing chicory-laced coffee with sugar-dusted beignets

Cinnabon and Starbuck's on your morning breath

(you take mine away)

clear blue noonday sky

unfathomably deep

as your astute, attentive eyes

muffalettas at the fountain

gumbo, sausage, rice, red beans

pralines

an oyster po'boy, stained the red of McIlhenny's best

your horseshoe sandwich sauce

(its secret is Tabasco, too)

Sno-Balls from a cart on Poydras Street

attenuate the heat

we share Hawaiian Shave Ice at The Fair

drafts of ice cold Jax, in go-cups

strolling out on Bourbon Street

swigging longneck Bud Lights

from the cooler in your bass boat on the lake

gator hunters poling johnboats on the bayou

fetid swamp but also bougainvillea, azalea

your spicy bay rum aftershave

full moonrise on the Moonwalk

exotic, although tankers and banana boats,

oceangoing ships with winking colored lights

harbor in redolent Gulf air

the tang of salt

i taste on your flushed skin

crawfish etouffé burns on my lips

like your impassioned kiss

delicate at first, delicious, then

delivering a wallop i cannot forget

drops of brandy gleaming on your moustache

condensation shines on cobblestones in streetlight

overlaid with lacy grillwork's shadows

the sudden rasp of your unshaven chin

unexpected on my skin

where layers of lace have parted

at your insistence

neon, chasing marquee lights and action all night long

cool jazz, wailin' red hot blues and swingin' dixieland

cajun, Zydeco and Texas swing -- patois not only of language but of music, too

our secret favorite by The Commodores

a slow dance in your darkened room

Spanish moss embraces trees

your limbs entwine with mine in sleep

i miss you like i miss N'awlins, darlin', when i have to be away

you both whet and satisfy so many appetites

9/9/96, 9/13/96, 9/20/96, 10/15/96

(from Fade to Blue, 1997)

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how i want to be with you

i want to be

with you

as the sharp-shinned hawk,

poised on a lichen-jewelled deadfall

is with the fallow deer

who glides, cautious, into the same dell:

neither one the other's predator or prey

but, for a moment,

eyes locked in intense communion,

fellows in this perfect peaceful place,

free of fear and wanting nothing

i want to know, when our moments are no more,

that you were the one that i loved best,

because, though not untouched,

you came freely to me

and went away unharmed

12/17/84, 12-16-85, 11/20/92

(From ...And Tattooed, 1996)

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another poet (a cautionary tale)

spiraling into his smoky hazel eyes

ringed with the wrinkles of his forty-something years

that radiate when he smiles

wondering if his full brown lips

are soft

and kiss with as devastating effect as they enunciate well-selected words

leaning into the nimbus of his fragrance

not so much cosmetic as a

personal olfactory message

in a primordial language your hindbrain and your belly comprehend

Though you might lose yourself

in his timbral not-quite-Texas intonations

in the undulations of his long-fingered hands in the air

in your own response to his one accidental touch

barely breathing, so lack of oxygen

will

intensify your self-induced hallucination

and

eager beyond sense you

will

take the only appropriate action

You must not sleep with this man

he

will

have guns over under and beside his bed

his lanky hyperactive german shorthaired pointer bitch

will

wet you with her nose at five minute intervals all night

for taking her accustomed place beside him

his clock radio

will

awaken you with Rush Limbaugh not Bob Edwards

his kitchen

will

have no coffee pot

and finally he

will

write a poem about how

you

snore

(with thanks/apologies to J. and selected others)

12/9/95

(From ...And Tattooed, 1996)

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dr. heisenburg is on his way but not sure when he'll get here

the door you use to make your exit

opens onto my back yard

but could be a wormhole

to another universe

you are a distinguished visiting professor of

the physics of uncertainty

i can't

know

your speed, direction and location at the same time

or

your nature: are you solid or a trick of light and shadow?

i can't

calculate

the instant when you'll next be tangible to me

despite

accepted theory

i fear that you have

significant

existence while i can't observe you

if

there's no reality

until

the human mind creates it

why

can't i invent

a better one with you?

 3/8/97

(from Fade to Blue, 1997)

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in a pig's minds eye

there is no pig word for the concept

introspection

yet pigs think enough

for wariness to color

their compliance

with some sinister agenda

you’ve cooked up.

there is no pig word for

love

but sometimes the quality

of what you get from that pig

(with the right treats in your pocket)

outstrips anything

from any other source.

there is no pig word for

recycling

but that is the Essence

of Pig,

and no latter-day and well-intentioned yuppie

conservationist and hugger of trees

can come up with something better

than feeding it table scraps and waste

and yielding

meat

(The Other White Meat),

dinner for Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas,

for the Breadline supplicants

for families assembled in uneasy truce.

there is no pig word for the concept

sacrifice

because they do not ever think

that is the thing they do

for other species to continue

any more than you.

there is no worm word for recycling,

introspection, sacrifice,

or love.

9/21/00 (this poem is for Elvira, though she might not like it unequivocally; it takes a dark, unpleasant turn for someone foremost a companion animal, NOT “meat”)

Unpublished

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