Lute

Lute

Dialogues With The Dead "let me go" she said without speaking under bright lights with a touch the rhythm of the words echoing in the way she walked away while he waited in the car with the dark windows and I am a little less than what I was

Kansas word aisle twisted entreat retreat island with waves breaking empty sea, oddly sensual embrace surcease calm, only a visage nothing more unnotengaged with nostrils flaring unbolted umbilical again twisted and hard to breathe, wasted a belt closed one more notch a fiddle and a sliding tune no not unengaged but blue, like the sky rattling the spy in the attic, or passion standing with the bloody knife they talk about, I do not know, Kansas.

The Wishing Well Why not something new, why not leave the hurt behind, and leave a wish within the well? Why not? Gathering my quill and paper I journeyed through the night, I braved the jagged ice, I traveled across the falling snow, and chanced the rivers flow, just to gain that pleasant well out of reach of wind and rain and snow I dropped my penny in, and watched it fall away a copper spark in the cold depths holding all my thoughts for you. Why not? why not drop a coin into those happy depths, why not send a wish across the heaving sea? why not leave the hurt behind, just to see what you might find. I am sitting under the arbor on the old stone bench, curled up with my pens and such, scribbling down my secret thoughts, waiting for you to come down the path in the breaking dawn, a long gown trailing in the dew, your hair pulled to the side because you knew I'd be here writing about you beside your misty well at home in the wistful dawn.

Not Quite you I know there are days when you aren't you but would I be unfaithful if I loved you anyway, even with your head down, and your glances full of fire, warning me, and would I be a sinner, If I didn't care that you weren't you today, being blue, and would you let me make you smile, although you were not you, Would you?

Waiting by the Phone Sometimes I wonder if Love came to us from Hell, all these trembling hands to hold, disconsolate, hands that need someone to hold, and then of course my own.

In Defense of Eve They blame the serpent, but the weapon in the apple was love, the day he came into the garden. There was no troth with Adam, and this was something more. A touch of Evil maybe, who now knows what causes the fire and to him she was the first in many ways. And what did she carry with her when he went away? Consider our failings. After the garden He lost her altogether when the angels came bringing a cool breeze beating from their wings, and then the children came, and Adam grew old imperfect flawed as we all are and should be. And where did the angels go? Having no will they went where God would have them go and that, I do not know.

Tirade Do I wish to look in the mirror and see that scheming face, the little plans always in ashes the eyes hidden by flashing lashes, the fountain drying up the high sheriff fast upon my heels? I dare not let the full force of my fury out, it would shatter me and have little effect upon the world without. A world divided a world of faith and half of it is evil the other half sick. Little worms crawl between my toes I spear them with my fingernail I worship from your thigh.

A Song For Jenny Gone A mist covers the wood, and it's finally true that Jenny's gone, just a brief stop along her way, a note or two in tiggers song, the hunny pot is empty, and there are other things a going wrong, now that Jenny's moved along I think she's taken Eeore's tale, we cannot find it anywhere, and tigger is bouncing away bounding here and there, I told him that she's gone, told him she's not here but he keeps bouncing keeps looking here and there, here is a simple song, for sweet Jenny gone, for sweet Jenny gone away, as tigger, as always, goes bounding goes bouncing, goes searching, away.

The Technoid Embalmed but not buried lights but no warmth. words but no touch reasons but no scent. the colorless machines are set at scream and constant is their flow, and conflict becomes their crashing gears gnashing together in poisonous fluid. Shut off they remain quietly in the corner, waiting without judgment squat & square with room to spare on either side: fallow, barren, You may speak into their silence but they will not understand, not being tuned to music. Do not open them, they are dangerous but as yet, not so dangerous as you.

The Accident When I wake, I would rather not think of this, how she was fifteen and with child, and how her drunken feller, in his fast car wrecked on the mountain road then left her cold and hurt in the twisted junk on the side of the road, and later in the cold night the family gathered at the hospital wondering what happened, and when morning came what remained was hauled away, and the cold rain cleaned the blood left upon the road Another sad song left upon the mountain, another place to visit, later, in the snow.

Cheap Shots Were you alone last night, or did someone hold you close? Was he someone you knew well, or was he new? Did you love him, or was he just warm? Did he taste you, or did you curl into a ball with anger, because he snored? Was he lovely and thoughtful, or were you just bored? Did you hate him with all your heart while you pulled him towards you? Hmmm?

Crayons in my toy box Perhaps I've seen too much of life gazing out my toy box and it could be that my innocence is just a pose, just a way to pluck the rose, could be. just a game I play when I feel myself alone, scratching on the walls with my crayons drawing sailing ships and nudes, am I too young to fall in love, everyone seems taller than me, and more wise, cause they're in an awful hurry as they push me to the side, something grunting in their mind. Silence is my pretty thing, I just watch them all go by, they've somewhere to go, I think; or someone on their mind. My crayons come in many colors, and if you want to play, I'll give you one. But not the blue it's my favorite.

Something erotic I have stared at you all week, you do not need those clothes with me. An empty promise, is all they are, almost as empty as me desiring you. You upset me and test me, but then, you know who you are, I am only guessing since for such a child you are very complicated, when all I want is to touch you, when you trust me.

The dryad These woods are dark, but I thought I knew my way, all I had to do was stay on the path. Now, I am an old tree rooted deeply in the ground singing a low sad dirge that only accompanies her aching song. Step quickly my friend cover your ears and do not peer too closely into these long black shadows stay close to the little light that remains, and do not stumble. Unless you'd care to be my friend, or an oak, or willow singing in the swirling wind, While she, in pale shift, pursues more cunning game in these woods I thought I knew.

Growing Up In America cold love in the blinking neon, cold, just too cold, someone arguing across the thin walls, the thunder of the traffic in the rain, the radio rehashing the past for a buck. The bar opens early for some, others have things to do, being important in their own mind, though the bed is unmade and breakfast half eaten, while the fear eats away It is too hard beating this laundry on this old worn rock slip away, slide. let me have something easy to do, while you have your say I'll pretend to be listening too, if I can, through the noise of the crowd, if someone I like better doesn't interrupt you, slip away. Don't bother being angry, there may be something new at the mall, go ahead slip away, I'm not the eloquent preacher or the handsome chauffer, chiding you as you wait for an elegant way to die. If you're fucking someone in the dark turn on the light, listen to the sounds, does it still feel good, or does it hurt? Sometimes that's all there is, hold on tight.

From Capua I am similar, but not the same. Catalos rages inside my head, and the summers aren't so hot, I do not winter by the sea, Calpurnia. The etchings were lovely and I hung them on the wall but all those lines do trouble me, since it really wasn't me he saw. When he withered away, we held a wake, and found black flowers which we knew he'd like. Most of those who came were too young to understand, but we read his verses anyway, though I was ashamed, and cried. the boys licked their lips and smiled at me, one was very pretty and I took him home with me. The garden is very nice, I spend my evenings there, reading, no, I never loved him, he was too intense, but now I see each word is red, and I cannot see him anymore.

For Several Ladies I Have Met. It was so simple long ago, when morning broke, before the knowledge came, before the chains that scarred your ankles, before the memories. before vanity made you right when everything was wrong, and you knew someone else would catch you and hurt you, and remember when you ran into the summer with that doll clutched tightly in your arm with nothing dancing in your mind but light and happiness, and now its gone, when you run towards home, and the foulness picking at the bones, decaying. the first taste drove you to distraction, but it was only the first lie that you told yourself, there would be many more as your reflection became more blurred, in your many mirrors. Now that you have many keys and carry a whip with a metal tip you feel a little safer, don't you? I found a doll the other day.

A Religious Matter the God in his pinafore said, "What! speak no more of me? of what than will you speak? and what will it matter, since it will only be noise digested by the wind." Unwind the bending cat sent spinning in the rampant wicked winter by the slouching whores and lounging pimps, taste the dirty snow melting on the forgotten garbage tossed upon the bed. Free the talking bird, and let it freeze in the endless winter you so well deserve in your righteousness, your so unholy virtue bagged and thrown upon your heaping cart, your vacuous love tied upon your Campbell's cans and dragged behind clanging in your wind. and the God said, further, changing clothes, his nudity abhorred, "I am just a simile, a metaphor, just another whore, so sweet in the changing light.

Just Another Jenny This fragile earth. These deep blue waters, that hot fire, that poisonous air, that soft hair just another jenny, just another fair. why did she turn those eyes toward me, what play unfolds back there, what burns within her? is it this? these dangerous words that I bleed, or am I just another trophy that she needs. Shall I tell her the truth, that she's just another ing�nue caressing the night, tempting me for words, but nothing more? Such beauty wounds me, just another jenny; nothing more.

The Confessional I am inscribed upon the tablet somewhere between ludicrous and Luxor, but I do not belong to anyone. The confessional always frightened me, those black depths were filled with demons, and the voices that I heard were soft but full of venom always pushing me down, And if in anger, I rose up and scalded them, What of it, in the end, I am only a word inscribed on a stone tablet, tear soaked in the cold rain on a hillside of some forgotten pain. I am in twain or of three, counseling myself in quiet chamber, disquiet, finally impatient since I must explain intellect, desire, and death all disappointing me. It is never finished and you are never here, though I have waited, while Death took things away. There.

Upon Finding A Lady In My Toy box she wants to play in the toy box, and forget those other things out there. tigger will be bouncing about happy that she's here, he's been lonely too, and I'll dance around the room with Pooh and get my castle out. We'll play with knights and ladies, I will slay all her dragons, and climb her pretty hair I'll wake her with a kiss I'll find the glass slipper we'll pretend that we're in love, and we'll journey to the Wood, and find Eeore's always missing tail. and I hope for just a little while the pain will fade from her eyes and she will make me smile, since we will be where the sparrows sing, and the world will have no sting.

2 Samuel, Chapter 11 David: In your presence I am diffident, soft and weak, the mantis whose head is hacked off and rolls away. Bathsheba: You want to make love to me, don't you? you want to dig your polished fingernails into my back and drag me inside, it is all of me you want, you will leave nothing behind for me to find if I return. David: I am always poised but detached, glancing sideways at you like a dog wanting to be scratched, and those sharp nails trace the angles of my face inviting me, the malice in your eyes ingesting me, bit by bit, and wasn't it always this way? Uriah: I saw you, Bathsheba slipping through the shadows of the square your light blue robe clinging to your still damp form, your hair wet. My wineskin was empty. my eyes were glazed, but I knew where you were bound. To Ermine & Leopard to wrap your pale skin to conceal your sin. It was too easy to catch his eye to drop your robe though the desert air was cool. The Preacher: I have told this tale well enough, nothing changes much, Vanity, except the color of the smoke swirling in your absent eyes.

A little Bit More About Peggy Peggy is pretty, but Savanah is prettier still, though old, at only four, and the world is awfully complicated especially Mom who's always saying no. I guess there's nothing much to say about those big eyes, looking at things, while Peggy does the dishes, except to find out why, just so Savanah knows, about Peggy being pretty, some little while ago.

At The Onset of Illness in the Republic King George will tax us once again with foreign war, with young men dead and widows full of woe. children lying in the street that do not breathe, shattered families and ruined lives, the legions far from home pelted with sticks and stones. and yes, evil men deposed and all their works gone with them, yes I know King George, but it doesn�t make me any happier. And now, cameras in the candelabra, and in the dark buildings just across the street; I�m afraid the TV's staring back at me what would old Ben think? I�m living in the edges of the dream, the empty corners with the dust I do the things I must, but not with any joy. It�s not because your mean, or anything at all to do with that; I�m everyman and not a man at all. I�m who they blame when they�re not right, I�m the piece that doesn�t fit, the jack of hearts but not the king. I am the reason the rules will not work, I am an American.

Appomattox Soon,I shall be old a knobbly thing all angles and slowly healing contusions. My eyes will be watery and weak, my hair wispy and white, from my pen, only bitterness shall flow. and here, as in before, I shall let them know that I was here watching the cattle in the fields, the cats lying with half shut eyes on the banister, stealing images from the endless bombardment of my memories just to let them know that I was here in the middle of it all dissecting them, and if I should be Peter and deny what of me then? what old man would you see shuffling from door to door, his wrinkled papers disordered in his small arthritic hands?

6/20/2003: On Painting Gertrude Stein a blessed beast a cow a sow a slouching silhouette a bitch a tramp a bitter disease a whore red too red and all too easy way she lies I cannot paint today this line is wrong and that leads off to infinity and only heralds harm, maybe tomorrow the light will be better and her memory not so fresh and warm. A bit of bread and wine the stench of her admirers has put me off a bit, the heavy tread of step upon her creaky stair annoys me. Those other daring fellows, the ones with flowing hair, they do not understand the shadows, do not look inside the chair they cannot see the form within or do not care they cannot feel the painted trollop or walk within the stare the mud is wrong the chair is keening like a trumpets blare the curtains glare. her makeup is too fair. A bit of bread and wine the stench of her admirers has put me off a bit, I cannot paint today.

The Poet in Near Hysteria Bewails his Fate the foul bitch is twisting me leave off I say I'd rather be that useless bit of clay if I could and you know I would I'd toss this all away for a bit of love and a warm fire to sit beside holy jumping Jesus Christ I cannot pay this fucking price.

On Poetry Competitions You idiots, how is one thought better than another? as if the dialectic were more worthy of the prize than the collective unconscious? All that bubbles up cannot be so easily expressed, and they are mostly children and you deceive them with your tests. you wanna shoot some pool? 8 ball 20 a rack? but not this, no not this.

Oracle I will do what I must but no more, even as her soft fingers trail about my ear-- the magic runes, the ancient seer they are not gone but sleeping beneath this thin veneer. Stagnant water over warm the bubbles rising to the top tell them she says how there are whispers around the oak, and messages left upon the dark and shaggy bark. Tell them what I did to you if you must how I emptied out your limping lust and sent you on your quest tell them that your grave was blest ere the wheel was even wound. tell them, if you must of doubt and fear tell them if you can how I will be the one that lays you on the holy bier and strikes the match and finally frees your wretched heart.

Contrasts/6.20.2003 A bit of dirt underneath her perfect nail someone talking on the phone she disapproves staring out the window at the rain something left undone she frets someone else to love she sighs inspecting the flawed nail with a frown She doesn�t want to explain it all again; she knows they�ll ask, lights a cigarette searching for a different word conceptual seems to fit; flicks the nail to dislodge the dirt, tosses her hair finds the nail in her teeth pulls it out and turns away, another city streaming past tries to remember the angles in their faces and the hurt Just a few more minutes, they say, she reaches for her glasses He rolls from his rumpled bed puts the coffee on rolls a cigarette someone fucking through the walls it annoys him tries to remember why and writes a line turns on the news and listens to the pot and the rain pattering outside staring blankly at the line gets up puts a sweater on rolls another one finds his cup in the disorder checks for dead flies and fills it up and waits then writes another line tries to recall the angles in her face and the hurt, just a few more years they say he reaches for his glasses.

One of Those Dudes on the Net said He Wanted only Modern Verse. I am still quick, although weary my roving days are done. I expect the worst and am never unrewarded. I neither boast nor shout, and anger is a slow infrequent fire. These are old familiar themes I repeat myself, I�ve already quoted damn near everyone, some more than once impersonated king and clown, painted clouds, made love with and without passion, was not loved, perhaps, but cherished, which will make it easier when they note my passage. I lied and stole, cheated, a little less than other men, I confess. I�ve ridden the wave as far as I could go. and now I must deal with these rejections once again Byron rages in the foyer, recalling me sublime rhyme. Cute. It wars with the rule of law, barbaric greed. Perhaps should be given some credence, the death of democracy and all. Corporate wars of legend, Gilligan, at the winding of the wheel. And Capitalism, a cartoon whore lounging on a lamppost, the binding of the guilds the great and holy temple of the American People, unholy dissent permitted only in dark holes. doomed, shortly. surely,... welcome to Metropolis we hope you have a pleasant stay. An essay then, covering hallowed ground Egyptian then but not so long ago, wrote, small things. about sin in Alexandria. Do we fail to coalesce, is there tension?

Further Complications On The Contemplation Of Literature Compose the very word is negation Hence the birth of the lie and Voice is the breath of magic And this its history: Bubbles popping at the edge of the stream Late evening steam rising from the water The dragonflies crossing in the fading silver sun, The frogs chirping invisibly, And in the mist; her eyes, and then they are gone Or never were as we go dicing with the lie Through dark city streets, ill-lit, towards his favorite den, She watches from the shadows, she�s been this way before. The place is filled with Sins lounging about, lots of cash And sleaze. Lyndon, Byron, the Marquis, Catalos they nod. What am I going to do, I can�t believe the things he says, Even if he told me the truth. She smiles, running her hand up Her naked thigh. Promises.

These Words these words do hop about falling down the well and popping out ringing like a bell dancing roundabout telling tales and being pretty all the day and singing too these words have much to do there is never any rest going marching to the nest with little birds or spilling from a children�s breast all slurred and pest and turns goes rushing down the stream these words tell every little thing and sad like falling down the well and proud telling everyone how they�re in love with you.

Forebodings Another tale, A strange insolvent tale, A tale from beneath the stair A tale of ghosts and goblins Of last thoughts before we sleep And portents in the air Of Death and Fortune lost Of dear and lovely faces And struggles that we�d thought we�d won And love for each and everyone. Such mists as these are better left alone; Not told on some bitter summers eve. Best wait for winter�s heavy chill When frost begins to clamber up the eave.

Noting her Absence Too many days have Passed I should admit that she is gone. I suppose in time to come there will be many who will dance upon her grave. And filed away under lost, broken flowers, both of us. the hardest thing we have to do is letting go.