men... not men

no, I wouldn't

get involved with me

I wouldn't

would you if you could

if you had a deathwish

I would

perhaps in a lifetime

of a million lifetimes

were you a man

I would

but would you

if you could

if you might

...

die?

a Vulcan responds

When future's child recalls
that Earthen hum --
Come, he says,
to the Contrivances, come,
that we may
reflect on its magnificences.

If our luck is out,
then so thus
inconvenienced,
yet not before
I and eye have
all that is to be
experienced.

A Borg Drone writes a poem

When the silent, scented prey
Upon the sullen hill advances,
The stagnant, sodden clay
Upon the Foothill dances,

A Clone upon the clay
In this fair scene then glances,
And sees in it the stay
Of fantastic coincidences.

- a poem by the Binary Adjunct of Unimatrix Forty Two
"It is futile to resist this pull towards individuality, Captain."

white man's burden

veinless.........slender........
....and white......in the headlights
of the car
stalled at a red light
your hands flutter
....like bloodless butterflies
in the Indian Summer

as you animatedly
hold forth
on
.....racisme
..............environment
..fuel shortage

the....s
..........m
............o
...........g
rises
palely loitering
in the vicinity of the auto-bound

Time Trapeze (1987)

(found this in an old exercise book)

Time, future, existence have all blended
into a yawning black hole
waiting to engulf me if
I so much as slipped on the tightrope
of sanity and faith
that I have trod thus far.
At times a freezing wind of uncertainty
Brushes past, leaving me
oscillating dangerously
People who enter my life use the stone bridge
a distance away - unreachable for me now -
and do not seem to fear this chasm.
Or else,
perhaps, it is not there.

agent orange

the yellow-green Orange
has grown distinctly
plumper and more grosse
since I first placed it on my plate.
Misshapen,
absurdly named,
it sits patiently
waiting to be peeled and devoured
before it grows more gross.

school dinner

the soup is but dishwater with red paint
the bread but porous tile
we suffer those who serve us, their aprons stained
with their leaking impecunious smiles

an excerpt

Where the moon on the wane
'pon a Dark Peak of the plain
Marks the way to T'ghain,
The peak shall split clean in two.

If the snake pass its shoulders
The crescent axe of boulders
Makes the day fall colder
And neath green turns to blue.

- translated from the Book of the Green Isle
Annals of the Sunai clan of Ondits

(from the Fantasy novel I'm working on.)

Cornelius asks for favour, wilt give it him?

Man assimilating and outpouring
images tinged with dreams.
I assimilate a few to put aside
for moments of scorching self-pity.
Meanwhile, sleep and coffee,
the never-reconciled two,
are all I wake for
and that you listen uninterrupting
all I ask for.
How further to degenerate?
Can I help feeling
I was destined for things higher?
Why, then, do I stay?
Frozen by a blizzard-like indifference
I tell myself better days will come.
Pipe dreams are these,
fed through senses
to a chafing soul.
The unseen, unquiet throng
seated outside the circle of light
is stirring, restless.
You know they do not listen.
You read on

catullus divine

There is, basically,
this one difference between
lower and higher forms of intelligent life
no curiosity to low curiosity
against an almost savage hunger for knowledge
those who dig out a space in their heads
with a question mark
a lacunae for information to fit into
and those who are forever sated.

As for me, love,
I am hungry, yes,
but morbidly lazy
no hunting for me.
Information?
Absolutely glutted, darling
absolutely glutted.
As someone who, like,
translates Rilke on the run,
I could prove how the word “angst”
could not have had
in Catullus’ time
even a glimmer
of its present meaning
Its, like, absolutely
post-Schopenhauer, you know.

But, I do have this
huge hole in my brain,
like, dug it out with a
fat, post-lapsarian question mark…
...ah, ha ha!

bite me

"Bite me," I commanded
He looked up, startled,
and he ran.
Left lying, I reflected,
"Tch tch... he's no man."

So I ventured forth
and caught a Rake
and caught him hard as I can.
"Marry me," I commanded.
He turned, frightened,
and he ran.
Oh how I laughed and said
"Tch tch... he's no man."

Tall he was and handsome.
He saw me and he pounced
as was his plan.
"Love me," he commanded,
I was terribly put out
And so I ran,
and ran, far away from that man.

Pumblechook

Pumblechook
I trembled and shook
as your podgy hands strayed
whiskey breath, gold teeth
diamond buttons, unsubtle smile
these defy
the fine
clothes you wear
body like a truck but beautiful
to me
Pumblechook
is that pocketbook
in your satin waistcoat
come closer still
so I can kill
you
Pumblechook
feel the blade
its thrust
a pause
then you just
tremble and shake
Pumblechook
and die

death dealer

the maiden is now a mother
life giver
death dealer
breaking out of the cage
of her mistakes
her body
her life
her lifeless body
throw down your swords
you are outnumbered
every woman a mother
every unspoken word
a double-edged sword
the foetus in a test tube
stirs and cries feebly
feels its death nearing

posted via IM

death is the maiden

death calls the maiden
promises of a forgiving embrace
the cool oblivion
a painless forever after
darker than the black
black garden jardin noir
Artaud cries out in wonder
behold the woman in yellow
samurai sword aloft
promising death
and yet is death herself
in disguise

that Thing immortal

pizazz and pizza
pasta and panache
will I stuff my gaping, gawping mouth with
to force the silence out the alimentary way
so no words
mere words
may escape

then with coins and cunning
diabolical devilry and deadly deeds
will I shop and acquire
that which I do not require
lest I give or do or make
a Thing
of beauty
or even worse
something lasting
and these hands be caught casting
in a mold immortal
the Thing
that no mortal can make
nor material things eclipse

if only these hands
were free

me moanin' ol' soul

and I am old
very old
wearing the bottoms of my trousers rolled
the lid on my tin-headed soul
broken and cold
into which blows
the sad and lonely wind
moaning
oh cold, cold, old, old, old...

Tinsel Verse

glittering tinsel rubs off in my hands
as I write with this
my mortal pen
for my mortal thoughts
its brief destiny
to weave an immortal one
perhaps

in a small town in Asia

as the rich men’s children play
cricket with toy store bat and ball
the washerwoman’s son
all of six years old
wrestles with a garden hose
twice as thick as his arm

whoops of victory
wails of dismay
snatches of film songs
burst out from the throats of
the cricket-players

the washerwoman’s son
punctuates their cacophony
with animal-like groans
as he pulls the garden hose
around the park
an expression of bewilderment
on his face
he does not know
what makes him cry out
running down the lane
next to the park
where the rich men’s children play

~autumn~

Joy - you think you have found it.
But - you worry - will it last?
Like leaves on a tree,
that grow, glow,
and then…
fall.

But,
remember,
More will appear,
to take their place.
Much is yet to happen.

And
Autumn
never lasts
beyond winter.
And what is winter,
but a lonely snowflake
dragging its feet to spring.

Wordless Women

If it be like the music of the spheres,
Why does it not banish all our cares?
If it be what makes this Earth go round,
Why then gravity’s rainbow shall never be found.
For an immortal symphony does surround,
And seek to universally all confound,
Should a woman choose to cease her sound.
So I confess I had not the correct simile,
And will now, by your leave, expound
On why a woman, wordless, does astound.

I had but one simile that I now call a blunder
For wordless woman, which was silent thunder
But, alas, a mistake it was to so call her moment
Though different from mine, but far more insistent,
More distant and so more precious than words,
That no webmaker can weave nor lips draw forward.
That singular virtue which is not to speak one’s mind
That she must do, she must not speak, so as to find
That wisdom is best when of the silent kind.

(About 8 years ago, in response to the rather misogynistic lines
of a metaphysical poet ---- whose name escapes me, it has been so long
------ I wrote this short rebuttal. The offending lines were as follows:
“I have but one simile, and that’s a blunder
For wordless woman, which is silent thunder.”)

reap a reverie

the soil,
of your subconscious,
when dug up,
can yield many treasures,
many broken dreams,
which were embedded,
scattered,
as they fell.
to this,
add -
the loam of calm,
the minerals of solitude.
and so reap,
the rewards
of your reverie.

Ballad O' Th' Belligerent Scholar

Once in a cafecauchemar I saw
A vision, a scholar, I do not know
That beckoned and gesticulated so
It made me surface out o' my coffee cup.

There sat he, a book upon his face
Heart beating in particle accelerates
His eyes turned within him he sees
Head twisted a hundred and eighty degrees

His index finger upright issued forth
Terminological excreta, or rather “growth
Upon a scholar’s mind”. Thus opened wide
It accumulated what mine would not abide.

Bleary-eyed and shaking could I
Out of the corner of mine eyes espie
The words gush forth and solidify
Upon reams – mine were not half as high.

Then followed a night so desperate
As never I spent in such a hyper-state
Digging into dusty tomes ill-read
Mirroring my shadow comrade.

And I thought that day would never come
That my life would end with the rising sun
That the sand would wipe out my footprints
If I were to give up, get up and run.

So persisted I with an unsteady hand
While nicotine stained a quiet band
Across fading intimations of accolades
Barely real, retreating inwards.

In the East I could see
Through the porthole of perception
On imagination’s wine dark sea
Sun-leaked hyperboles of deception.

Thus did the day I thought would never come
Shatter my personas one by one
Till I could hide my pitiful Id no more
And rose to drag the carcase to the shore.

“Well then”, sizzled an acid-soaked voice
“Is the battle lost? Does the world rejoice?”
Turning my head a hundred and eighty degrees
I sought my shadow as a soul would its release.

There sat he still, formulae in hand,
A reflection, barely real, in the door pane
He sipped his test tube and began:
“Tell me, when you laugh – is there pain?”

“Does it seem the world will cease to be?
If not smothered by the wine dark sea?”
I began to fall into bits in reply
And my brains rolled past his inward eye.

“I see”, quoth he, though I did not,
“Know then – You!
That all your fancies are true!
And your head has begun to rot!”

Morphine Nights

The ceiling melts, swirls and trembles like jelly
A distant throb like a sleeping monster’s belly
Lurks at the edge of the darkened room
As the night uncurls in the hospital womb.

A rather large insect has entered the ward
It trembles with rage at being ignored
It shakes the dew off its foot-high wings
Its body is acrawl with noisome things.

Slowly it approaches my bed quite silent
When suddenly it is arrested by the scent
Of fumes lazily rising from my skin
- from the antibiotic wetsuit I’m in.

The insect is gone but what have we here?
Half the room has begun to disappear
And lies open instead to the sky and weather
A wild wide grassland gone mauve with heather.

But not quite empty nor as bleak as it seems
For now I notice it, it does fairly teem
With stumbling giant and shadowy beasts
Camouflaged in the clothes of the recently deceased.
All ponderously heading, lurching and staggering
In the direction where I lie immobile, shuddering…

(The above is as witnessed by yours truly,
after my spinal surgery, a year ago.)

W...h...i...t...e

White the noise the wheelchair makes
But in the nebulous time it takes
To rise and walk to seat and sit
I have already forgotten it.

White the chalky oval pill
When upon my lips it will
Anticipating forgotten bliss
Dissolve itself into a kiss.

White the sheets upon the bed
White the dressing upon my head
Now stained with a runnel of red
As I spilled when I should have bled.

But whiter far by leaps and bounds
As you could tell by how I sound
Is the light behind the blaze of pain
When it strikes, and then strikes again.

(a hospital poem, like "Morphine Nights"
does it reek of the surgery too?)

a song of the cotton fields

When you lean into the wind
And make it smell so sweet
When you look up at the Sky
It steal the color o’ yore eyes
But I be done watchin’ you, sister
I be done watchin’.

Love done long gone, sister
It done long gone

When I be walkin by
You aint holdin my hand
When I be talkin’ o’ us
You aint listening; don’ understand;
Well, I be done talkin’ you, sister,
I be done talkin’.

Love done long gone, sister
It done long gone.

When the cotton be bloomin’
Out upon the heath,
The fields be done with harvest
And all us brothers be drawin’ breath.
Then I be done waitin’ on you, sister,
I be done waitin’.

My love done long gone, sister
Love done long gone.