* * *

In the days of famous want

the people acted cruel and sweet

the music was boring and insightful

and if one found oneself in a well

the others would pull you from that well.

That is how it was. The countryside

unintelligible in its evaporation

and the people, their faces, full

and with nothing to do. One would

lie with the beloved and cheerless

and await the passing over

of smoke, such clouds, and

the endeavors of the day

would be discussed, the

anecdotal annunciations would

fill the spoons which earlier

had been filled with the humble

presentation of intangible thought(drugs).

We had been left. We had poured ribbons

in each other’s bags. We had collapsed

beside each other’s beds – the

calla lily floats above the table,

about the hands of certain people,

a glow. With you there in such

historic towns, I’m brought down.

We, at all times, have learned

to dance and to throw. We have

made gallant our enigmatic ways,

and when our teeth part or

when our lips open, we are doing

what we are born to do – our

bodies so unimportant amidst

the bodies of others, our memories

so well painted, our futures

so full of expensive shirts.

And the uncomfortableness

of watching someone’s hand

cover the body of someone else.

It is history and it is money

and it is the ugly hats the women

you’re always with want to wear,

it is the unacceptable swagger

of the iced, threading their way

through our life, and it is

the bridge, how you climb

atop it now and the waters

below you doing their stupid

repetitive thing, and the air

emptied of its sound, and the

shallow acts of others, and the fly

and the grass you will never see,

the constant emptying.

Carl once wrote the most horrible

poem, and I pinned it to my wall

and where is it now?

I empty myself of wit and begin,

and before long, a tow truck,

a snow storm, the thought of him

going to California to make

other people miserable, the

thought again, the thought of

the sea, the unbecoming ways

of everyone, and other moments,

your red pants, your cradled purse,

the next man who will leave

his lover for you.