Gravity

I gave my love an apple,

My love, she took a bite;

It was the finest apple

From the tree of sweet delight.

My love, no longer hungry

Tossed my apple in the air;

On the rotting ground it came from,

I'll find my apple there.

A Cold Wet Nose

( with apologies to Robert Burns)

O, my luve he has a coold wet nose,

He came to me in June.

O my luve has his own melodie

That's sweetly howled in tune.

As hoongry art thou, my bonnie lad,

So deep in luve am I,

And I will fill thy bowl, my dear,

Till the kibble bags gang dry.

Till the kibble bags gang dry, my dear,

We'll go walkin' in the soon!

And I will pitch thy toy, my dear,

And after it ye shall roon.

I'm off to work, my oonly luve,

And fare thee weel a while!

I really weel come home, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile!

As The Candle Burns Down

As the candle burns down,

So I am wrapped in my own heat

Slowly melting

For want of you.

As the candle burns down,

Only a night breeze can make it waver

Slowly melting

Like a dream of you.

But tonight,

As the candle burns down,

My eyes won't close.

My desire is too loud.

And your absence

Is the blue

At the heart of the yellow flame.

Friday Night In The Mangrove Swamp

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,

Stay tonight;

Rip my flesh 'til I am bones,

Feed my jones,

Then go home.

__________________________

It's My Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday dear Shay ayyyyyyyy

Happy Birthday to me!

Florence

From the church of Santa Felicita

A woman walks out from

Under an arched door,

Her heels echoing off the stones

On her way to something more

Rising within as she leaves

The church of Santa Felicita.

She walks on and looks up at the

Duomo, boldly reaching for Heaven

And though the smog and dust from below

Darken that dome, still it seems to

Reach stubbornly towards what it does not know

But can feel and yearn toward

And refuses to be denied.

She reaches the Arno, and sees the many

Bridges there like arms embracing a lover;

There are so many paths that she could take

Then, as the sun reflects off the river

And she wonders which choice to make,

At that moment a rose floats by in reflections

Inexplicable, beautiful, alive, like a tomorrow.

It Rains

It rains.

It's late, you feel like you've forgotten something,

The streets are strange

You don't speak the language...

It rains.

Did you think she was a statue, a painting

That you might catalog and store, musty and faithful?

One look, one touch at the base of her throat

Would have told you

Would have warned you

It rains.

Take a taxi,

Watch the liquid constellations come and go on the window glass

It's late, you're lost, you feel like you'd like to forget something...

See her eyes in the street lamps,

The meter clicks, you feel sick

And goodbye plays in your head like a song from an alleyway;

The words are nonsense

But the music is familiar as your heartbeat.

It plays on,

You dance this foreign night to its end and

It rains.

______________________________________

Fast Food

We fucked in your Hummer

In the Burger King lot.

Two orgasms you had

In the H2

In the Burger King lot.

I said,

"You sound so tuff when you cum"

There in the H2

In the Burger King lot.

You ran a finger under my nose,

And said, "Talk about having it your way!"

And we laughed like fools

In your H2

In the Burger King lot

(just a little bit south

of Heaven)

Gandhi Meets Hannibal Lecter

Gandhi meets Hannibal Lecter

Accidentally

At the Stop N Shop on Punjabi Road.

While considering a super jumbo coffee,

Lecter says

What's with you?

Wearing diapers

And those sissy glasses?

How can you go through life

Passively resisting

Like some prissy schoolgirl?

Don't you ever

Want to feel the passion and the power

Of blood squishing through your fingers just because you could?

Don't you ever

Just want to be bad?

Gandhi selects some sunflower seeds

And says,

My friend,

Don't you feel foolish

In that hockey mask

And straightjacket,

Wheeled in here

On a beerman's trolley

Like a dumb beast

Or a hellish baby?

Doesn't it ever bother you

Pretty counter girls calling the police

Instead of smiling?

And don't you realize

With every blade you twist

Just because you can,

You are really skewering your own heart

'Til it is scarred

And deformed

And as useless as a rotten potato?

You get away with nothing, suggests Gandhi.

I get away with everything, insists Lecter.

Go home and pray, advises Gandhi.

You'd look good on a plate, muses Lecter.

But at least we agree

(they say in oddly beautiful unison)

On the fava beans.

The Hill Is Closer To Heaven

The hill is closer to Heaven

But lonelier for that.

When I come to bed with you,

My head gets light;

I must remind myself to breathe

Just to look into your eyes.

The hill is closer to Heaven

But lonelier for that.

Hush, sweetheart,

Never mind...

I will be clouds

When I softly touch your cheek;

I will be the little goat who makes her home

Close against your side.

Dreams And Roses

Dear readers: I've written the following from a prompt on Poets Who Blog Interactive. The prompt was to choose any line from Leonard Cohen's song "I'm Your Man" and to make that the first line of a piece of otherwise original writing. Here is mine.

I've been running through these promises to you*
Like a field of pretty words we've grown by moonlight;
I've been moving through the dreams of the things you said to me--
Does it matter now that none of it turned out right?

Don't look at me that way
Don't promise that you'll stay
Just leave your key wrapped in the rose that time is bending;
Forgive the promises I've broken,
Leave the rest of it unspoken
Dreams and roses, moons and whispers all past mending.
___________________________________________________

*from "I'm Your Man" by Leonard Cohen
___________________________________________________

For Lovers Of Rivers

A girl falls in love with a river.

"I love your voice," says the girl,

"And the places you have been.

When I kiss you, I feel those places flow into me, too."

The girl falls in love in the summer,

When the river caresses her body in the most marvelous ways,

Singing low to her and holding her within itself.

The girl feels protected, even as she feels vulnerable to the river

In its vast reach, its depth, its agelessness.

It seems to her that the sun itself lives reflected in her lover's face

And so too, the stars in the night time.

In autumn, the river's touch turns bracing;

More so with the passage of time,

Until the girl takes to sitting on the bank,

Close by her lover's side--

Watching,

As even the trees shower gifts upon her love,

Trifles red and gold--

Which the river carries for a moment,

But never means to hold.

In winter, the girl shivers,

Her love still beautiful in stark black and white.

The river has nonetheless, and to her intense distress,

Grown impenetrable;

She searches its face with fingers numb and blue--

And the heartless river, so changed,

Gives her nothing in return except her own reflected face

Sad and abandoned,

Whispering, "River, I love you still,

Though you are cruel

And though my love no longer moves you."

A girl falls in love with a river,

With its face and the voice she hears--

By spring she is part of the river

Running high with a million tears.

_________________________________

Chokecherry Wine

You will heal as you sleep

in tangled dreams and deep

Chokecherry

with your tart tongue

Look at all the

shit you've done

You wrap your life in rubber bands

I'll kiss each of your bandaged hands

Chokecherry

Chokecherry mine.

Beauty

I stole beauty from another girl--

Ripped it right out of her hands

In a hail of cosmetics and hairspray,

Then ghosted away with it to my underground lair.

But when I tried to bash it open,

The lock wouldn't budge

And anyway, it wasn't my size.



I took it to my mother's house and dropped it dead center on her holiday table--

Shrieking, I raked my broken fingernails right down to the bone of love and hatred that props us together, and she

Embraced

The locked

Foreign

Beauty that I ripped off from some bitch on the bus,

And said, "Daughter,

At last!

Welcome home."

A Ghost Gives An Interview

A ghost gives an interview.

Of course I haunt, of course...(she mutters as crockery flies across the room and into the wall)

I cannot leave this house--

Can't go shopping,

Dancing,

Can't work my mojo on the guy at the sandwich shop, just to see if I've still got it

Plus, (she adds, as a terrible groan comes from no place, everyplace)

I've been wearing this same dress for 350 years.

Look, (she continues, as the temperature in the room drops precipitously)

I was just going about my life,

Doing the god-blessed mending or something,

And didn't even know I was dead--

Never knew!

If I had it to do over, (she concludes, as the lights suddenly go dark)

I'd sing at midnight, drunk as anything,

And kiss another woman in front of god and the world;

But,

Instead, I'm a ghost, giving an interview to you, dearie--

Dead,

And with no end in sight.

The New Math

Things are

simple

Now--

Where I lay my keys

Is where my keys will be.

simple

See?

And yet,

I can't hold a hand that isn't there--

No one says,

I love you, sweetheart

And if I'm happy

Or

Not happy,

Well...

Who would care?

No matter--

What is, is

And what's done is done.

simple

In a world where everything comes

In increments

Of one.

_____________________________

Veronica the Circus Queen

Reach out to me, my sweet

And deliver the blades that describe my silhouette.

Your perfect confidence does not diminish the chill at so many possibly fatal mistakes

The slender arm, the flash of light,

The perfect peace.

The Not Anastasia

Agnes Stumpf, of 326 Lexington Pkwy,

Turns out not to be

The Grand Duchess Anastasia

After all.

She can almost feel

The hand of the Divine

Withdraw

Like a sponsor from some

Tanking tv show.

And yet,

(she thinks)

I could still be

Elvis's love child;

I could still hit

The megamillions lottery jackpot payday.

Thus buoyed,

Hope rises again

Like millions of tiny scrubbing bubbles

Within the unfortunately not royal heart

Of Agnes Stumpf.

______________________________________