or unedited excerpts from the long feared publication of the book of psalms entitled…
“Scars of Womb Envy and Other Poems…of Hope and Despair”
_______________________
I was there at the scourging
and remember the Crown of an Iron Age
pressed upon the brow.
There…bound in leather
in robes…moist with agony
they reminded the defeated lover
what a slut and good fuck…the virgin is.
I know…I’ve heard the argument before:
the world knows nothing of him
therefore he knows nothing…of the Earth
or the obscenity of crusades.
For that reason I understand this crucifixion:
it is Lucifer he wages war with
and follows…and leads each fallen angel
from the prisons of hell…against the thrown of heaven.
After all let’s not pretend the father…is innocent of evil
for it was not born in the garden
not that kind…of hatred.
And even demons have their plan
in protecting martyrs
from your un-scarred body.
So do not tell me of blasphemy
not when the pure of heart have known…
mutilation and despair…
and a deity so unmoved by prayer…it is frightening.
Now, let the ashes of my corpse terrorize you…
in spite of him…in spite of her…
in spite of the crimes of a forsaken messiah…
I have chosen sides and swear…
I remain forever at war…with your God!
________________________
The Abortion
On the day you kept the rabbi from celebrating the bris
and the priest from performing the christening
the angels ceased to dance.
Now I give you these truths as evidence of my agony:
The womb is not so miraculous
as the lost mind…that gave birth
to the infants laughter.
The tabernacle is not so sacred
as the heart…that conceived
the fetal yearnings.
And nine full moons is not as long
as each day…I dream the child into life
and forever from my embrace.
My heartache will not heal; your innocence will not return.
For I have this scar you left as a memory…of your love.
_____________________________
I remember as a child…
the woods…
and even…
farther away
where the rainbow…
promised to touch the earth…
and the side of a hill
and the birds who lived there.
We picked blueberries then
and swept a path through the green jungle
vowing to never reveal
the secrets…
we’ve now forgotten.
_______________________
It’s easier to talk in the third person
to tell you what I know about him.
He was upset…with you
…with the empty bed
…and with himself.
That is why he left
the phone off the hook
to warn you
…of his anger
…and his wounded vanity
…and his phobia of phones.
And that is the most important thing I can tell you.
He is not proud
…he can not abandon his hatred
…even for the wrong reasons.
If you knew him better
you’d understand
why
at 11:00 p.m.
he wanted to call…
to torment you…
with the love…
of his tormented heart.
But the man is no fool.
He was wise enough to know
he did not want to know
…it was already too late.
_____________________
For Stephen…who doesn’t want to know me
You don’t really know this but had I pressed the matter
I could have easily slept with your wife.
It wasn’t easy not to
for me
she smelled more of the earth than of raw vegetables
she was well trained in Jewish lore
she knew everything about Rodan’s mistresses and
she loved Michelangelo.
This is a warning: Don’t let her out of your sight.
I can tell you from past experience
some wives
…are easy to misplace.
_______________________
I never saw you in Tina min Square
or St. Peters-burg
or in the other prisons
in Washington D.C.
I never saw you inhaling
tear gas in Paris
or in flames in Saigon
and in a hundred thousand
other cities and times
I never caught you…stealing
because you were hungry
or naked
or hunted
or wanted to share
a lost mind.
So do not tell me of love or freedom
and how to wage war
and especially do not tell me
how to protect children.
Halfway between the Pentagon and the clinic
my suicide note began
far earlier
on the road to Dachau
or was it Syracuse
or Front St.
that reminds me…I have no family.
I am only here to warn you
the last of the hippies
…is still alive.
_______________________
Lucifer, I could have loved you…
more once…when you wore the tiara…at the Cyber Cafe.
But now you have the coveted crown…of loneliness to wear
so wear it…wear it well…it becomes you.
Because hell is empty and Satan is gone…leaving you only…
a thousand dollar phone bill and a wardrobe of chastity belts…
each one colder than the last.
And where is Satan? Satan is lost…and in a lonelier place still.
Satan is in the nakedness of Limbo…and in the terror of wondering…with hopelessness…
if he is the Antichrist…or the messiah…
or only in the agony of knowing…he is loosing his mind forever…again.
And you want to go there with him…but you can’t
because you can’t hear his heart scream:
When can I come home…from the war against hate?
And can I ever come home…from the war against love?
So how did you think I would cum…and my kisses taste
when you took the phone from the hook and changed your address in a night?
Did you expect me to rest…in peace…on the laurels…
of yesterdays…dead poems?
And where were you…when Nature’s arms opened up
and a forsaken man cried out:
I have no scars. I can’t walk on water. I can’t change water into wine.
I can’t be him.
And I wonder…are you jealous of her now…when she whispered then:
That’s the way it’s suppose to be.
Because you have long legs and beauty and your breasts and thighs…
are willing to be touched.
But is Venus still in heaven? Because Cupid is gone too…
leaving her only…the dream of New York and holding hands…
in Harlem.
And sometimes I too forget…what ever happened…
to the beauty of phone sex…
and the beauty…I never knew in Spokane
who no doubt is already in the arms of another…
trading in golden locks
for a more virginal phone number
than the one she lured me in with.
After all…wasn’t the music of my poetry…as good and angry
as Patchable and Marilyn Manson
or didn’t you like the conversations…
and being welcomed to Limbo, my love…
and the war against war…
where I’m still not sure…you were ever as nude…
“…as the young and the hopeless.”
______________________
The Pretty Prostitute
Like Magdalene before her and the angels after her
she was aging…and on the other side…of expensive.
We collided, during a sick age…in a sick place;
I, with my delusions of grandeur…and she, with stories of torture.
There were wives there then…who argued in favor of damnation
for the whores of the day…and the whores of the night.
My whore was silent… so I argued…in favor of lovers.
It was useless…so to spite them…we shared cigarettes…and coffee
and holding hands…and an embrace…
but a price was never agreed upon
…for love…or dinner…or a picnic in the sun…and then she was gone.
Afterwords…by way of the streets…I found the address she gave me
and was invited…into her asylum.
So we talked again and embraced…and then in only moments…
I too was gone.
I heard that day by means of the sick age and the sick place…
she found my flowers and candy and music…unimpressive…
so they ceased.
Later on…I came back to our meeting place…as I often do…
for days or weeks or months or even longer
only to discover…she was already there waiting for me.
She discovered…I hadn’t changed…but I had by way of money…
more stories now..of torture and pain.
She had the unfortunate type of misery…
that did not like…that much company.
I remember…by morning this time
we were no longer holding hands
and by coffee…we were no longer talking
and even my coins had stopped impressing her.
What I do not remember…was why…
she did not argue…when I said good-by
and made the cruel suggestion…that she have a good life.
It was a long time later…at a new meeting place
where my long lost whore discovered…
I was still waiting for her this time and when I heard her say,
“You’ve changed.” I realized…she hadn’t.
She was still beautiful.
As for whether she was diseased…
there are cures for some kinds of crimes
but there is no cure…
for never knowing…if I was only…a one night stand.
_______________________
For Barbara and Susanne
THE ABORTIONS
There was a child…and then a season later…another
Who died at a very early age…victims of child abuse.
Even my love for you was not enough to save them.
And because of this…
the rainbow never again held a promise
…the sunset lost all it’s beauty…
and the magic of the full moon…was destroyed.
You must understand–for me there is no consolation
…no penance–with enough pain
…no atheism–with enough emptiness
…no cathedral–with a God strong enough
to burn from my heart the memory of their innocence.
___________________
I confess…I am the son of Joan of Arc
And for proof…you who have only faith
are lost…
while I have as a legacy…
the honor to wear her armor
and to be heir to her courage
to hear a choir of angels
singing…the end of hope.
But because I am her child
I have seen
in the maiden’s eyes
the end of despair
born by the tears and incense
…of burning flesh.
So in the emptiness of this arena we share
let it now be revealed to you…why
I have the privilege…to carry
a shield of voices…sighing in the summer breeze.
It is because I have for a weapon…a woman’s sacred longing
to see her tempered sword…sheathed on the field of battle
in the enemies war…against the olive branch.
And that is the reason…I can not be bribed
by the argument of forgiveness
in the hallucinations of your court
that strives to inflict upon reality…
a voice in time…for tyranny.
So do not tell me about the sins of humility
it is pride that keeps me from being tempted
…with the politics of salvation
and the dreams of the heretics Church
still drunk on sacrificial wine…and blessing the starving child
with damnation…for the theft of bread
consecrated to feed the poor.
For these and all my other crimes
I have chosen the rainbow…to blame
…for allowing me to remember…
the deluge and the thunder…
that is only an echo of the screams
of the excommunicated mother
who has beckoned me to warn you:
It is her favorite son who is incurably ill
with an insatiable desire…
for revenge…for each day
an army of physicians…deepens the wound
left by the surgeon’s scalpel.
This is not an omen…this isn’t even a vow…
it is only a prayer that was answered…in the beginning
when I was embraced…by a woman clothed in flames.
And she knows the truth of this punishment.
There is nothing wrong with her children.
They are alive and well
…in a world
…that is raving mad!
__________________
This suicide note began before…or was it after…
I remember playing there…
beneath your neck
above your navel
underneath your leaves
amidst the sound of the bay…
Where we lived…in a bed…of paranoia
and poverty
and money…from stolen music
and enjoying sacraments…from any priest…who happened along the way.
The nights lasted forever then…and sometimes the work in the fields…
and the factories lasted…even longer.
This suicide note began after…or was it before…
I remember playing there
beneath your navel
above your thighs
underneath your leaves
only to raise my head from the scent of your sea
to answer the request from the next room…
for sugar…for coffee…for tea…
or another stolen bottle…of expensive wine.
It was easy pretending then…until our final words
as long as we forgot every morning…
we had stopped talking…the night before.
After all…perhaps it does not matter…whether we lied to one another
because I know…even the courageous…have their moment of terror
…in the face of truth.
For in time…I found phone calls are sharper than the voices…
leading to razor blades…
which is the only proof…I need to know…the scars of your absence
still haunts me.
That is the reason I lied
so you would believe…this obscene truth:
the surest way…to the only heaven with you I knew
was through the pavement of hell
fashioned by the hate of the prisons I came from.
But by now…my softness would love companionship…
even in the arms of a lessor woman…
who also does not care…about such profanities.
Perhaps I am only clinging…to not having enough cruelty left
to buy more innocence…with the bones…of more children
…who would be buried here.
Because now it is already time for the vigil to the end of our story together…
I was there one night…agony and passion came…and died in your arms.
So forgive me…this is the only wedding gift and blessing
I have left for you both:
Of all the beautiful and ugly angels…
I have known and loved and hated…
you were every God I ever dreamed of…and more.
_____________________________
is this punk.
if you have no scars, no perforated cheeks,
if you are not broken
you are [part of] the problem.
it’s true.
anyone who sees the world
as it is
cannot be asked to be an optimist
besides
this is not a contest among voyeurs.
no…this is frightening.
________________________________
Years later waiting for the bus to Syracuse
at 12:29 in the afternoon
in the Parlor City…I sit drinking
trying to remember…which key fits dreams
and why…the key to Rodin’s gate is so hard to turn.
The waitress is tired…and it is only mid-day…somewhere
the grass was greener then…
I had youth on my side and you…bu my side
years ago
before so many experimental drugs
before so many prisons
before so many hospitals
before this
and before that
when the world was younger…and I…in your arms
believed love could never be broken.
I underestimated the enemy then…and now…
each ethnic race…as always…has the desire
to leave as a legacy for their children…more hate
than they inherited…from their parents.
For even the small card shop is controlled by the party…
of cameras on the wall, lies…
and the football hero…who is skin searched daily
for every weapon…except cruelty to animals and torturing the weak.
I confess…I did…and still do play there…in the totalitarian state…
and have given arguing…
with every different security force…
and the psychiatrist who believes in national secrets
and surgical bombing
as a way of aborting…psychotics.
All poetry and art aside…it is politics I save my fondest hate for…
because it keeps me from the angels I save my fondest love for…
and remember Syracuse?
It is only five miles away now…and on the other side of the gate
a car salesman awaits…who never stops assuring my heart…
you never think of me.
_________________________________
I met you at the top pf the hill
at Oak’s Inn, in the bar, in March, sometime in the Year of Our Lord.
Not knowing what to do…I used my most romantic line
and asked you…your name.
And you answered with a smile:
Much younger, more beautiful than you
and unfaithful to you…only last Monday night.
From there…the conversation deteriorated…into flirting…
or at least so I thought…because I remember…
you arguing…in favor of forgetting…
the names of more lovers, than I at your age…
remember having.
And I…not to be outdone…arguing I had more…wine than you.
Which looking back…leaves me unsure if you were laughing
with me…or at my age.
But I stopped laughing when you mentioned him and his love for corpses…
so to be polite I never mentioned a woman’s love…for eunuchs.
After all it was a celebration…not a marriage…of horror stories.
So I tried to discuss the religious practices of the young…
fertility rites, the end of love, smokers rights, death and the other burning issues
….the war will protect us against..
After all the policies of the governments of the world
are a flawless proof that poverty and age
an unwelcome means of transportation…to a woman’s bed.
As for accepting my phone number…this is the only truth I am leaving you…with.
Do not concern yourself with such trivia
I am sure such mistakes will be outlawed by science
and the one true political party of wealth, perfection
and nightmares…very soon.
______________________________
For Bracee
Your flesh was not so hard to endure…
as the love of some women.
But my memory is not so short
I’ve forgotten kneeling before you…
or the others you sold me to.
That is why I was never sure
you understood this:
Scars and tears last forever.
Slavery is only half as long.
However, that was my excuse for telling the truth.
The white boy you had did not lie.
He was a virgin. And maybe that is the reason
he was not there
on the night of your execution…of another crucifixion.
There were other things in store for him
than being a victim…of the rape
in your version…of a new passion play.
So for you it should come as no surprise that during your trial
there was a revolutionary loosing his mind
in the green house for his role
in the rebellion at the Bastille.
That is were the rumor reached me that you wanted to kill a man
just to know…how it feels.
So now you know. Now I want to know.
Is it any difference afterwords…washing the blood off of your hands?
Because your tenderness no longer impresses me.
Because I remember years later…I found your heart…still beating…
in a love letter…addressed to me
and the pain among the lines did not look so hard to endure…
as the wounds you inspired…with the soft fist of hatred.
Do not mistake the blessings I gave for hope…I have none.
I am just writing this to let you know…I remember my promises.
I have found the lock and have only left…to find the key.
______________________________
The Durty Book Store’s Place In Eden’s Revenge
I confess to you…and to setting lust free
…and to standing
as I did at Mid-Night Mass
…half lost
…half there
…and all alone
in the darkness of this confessional.
It is obvious I am cumming
…to witness the holy Acts
…transform the human bodies
…involved in…the passion play.
Therefore trust me when I tell you
during the sacrifice
…their positions
…have changed.
I am not lying.
I have stopped
kneeling…as a child
because I took my time
standing…as a man
who stumbled and fell.
Still
it is comforting
to know:
I am not among the holy
host of spectators
a priest’s absolution
could save…from understanding…this mystery.
So let’s not pretend…the agony of lost innocence.
I am not looking for fig leaves…not here.
I am looking for childhood’s place…in the agony of guilt.
And what the shepherd girl has to do with the animals
…and the Lamb
…and the others…in the manger…which maybe why…
I have no secrets to keep from the world…nor any that are kept from me.
And that is why…after all this time…the scar of vengeance…may still be mine.
Because I have come that far
to know
that look
betrays
the flesh
of your faithful wife.
Only you will understand
…I will never tell
and
you will never know…the Fires of Eden
I found
beneath her leaves.
_______________________
For Karen
Even as Amy Mann and Radio Head battle to be plagiarized
in the warmth of the cold garage
a war rages on…somewhere…in my manic schemes…and dreams
of the heat of your distant arms…still falling…victim
to my admittedly dieing ego’s…charms.
Desperately! Desperately! Desperately!
You are almost all I think of…saving…if that is what you want
from being among the ranks of the freaks
who were ever embraced…by him.
Because…once upon a time…a long long time ago
I told you a story to who ever you were then on another forgotten…drunken nite
my greatest crime…is knowing
like Samson knew….when his G-d led him
by means of the sewers of blindness…to bring down the Temple walls
my greatest sin…is not hating…enough
to trust anyone…with my darkest and most unimportant secret.
So…sew…sew…sew away…back on the farm, lover?
Desperately! Desperately! Desperately!
It is almost all I could think of…loosing…my heart if that is what you never wanted
as long as it will keep you forever…from being among the ranks…of the freaks
who suspected they could ever fall in love…with a leper.
Come on and let me save you…if that is all you want
and as long as it will help keep my spells…forever…from parting your thighs
like Moses once did with his magic…to the Sea.
Because you are all I think of…saving
if it will…keep you forever in my heart…and me from touching again
just another professional…in the business relationship of being
for me alone…just another woman…who is… an untouchable,
After all it is a cheaper and crueler and lonelier payback of revenge
than letting a man you will never know…wound you with tears
for all that he owes thee…for what my durty diseased mind
Desperately! Desperately! Desperately!
wanted to do to your perfect body for nothing…but thanks…for cigarettes…and the beers.
Now it’s your turn to save my soul…from you
Desperately! Desperately! Desperately!
wanting to do anything as payment…to learn…how to fall in love…with me.
_______________________
Pornographic Note
As I watched you go alone and away…from me
on that horrible day I learned
I would never see your eyes.
I felt more powerful than Samson
when the eyes of my soul…were blinded
by some silent blessing telling me
to go alone and away…from you
on a chilly afternoon…at the end of the Sabbath…
on the nite of the seventh day…under a dark gray sky of aloneness
and there to await the parting of clouds…giving birth…to a floor of galaxies so high above me.
Swirling, swirling…swirling
to reveal in all their majestic glory and majesty
what I imagined to be…but the beatific tip…of your soul, my beloved…
Or is all that beauty I so desperately desperately desperately
wanted to find in you…nothing more…than the beauty…that is forever…with in me?
________________________
The Stories of the Streets are Mine…
Sunday Night
His mother would not return. Every Sunday night she left him and his brother here at this house, and each time he knew she would not return. His younger brother was the only one he really had for a companion, but the little one was too young to understand this. He was only just beginning to talk, and at times, despite his love, the older brother hated the younger one.
This house they would stay at for a week was not theirs, and it was already overpopulated by too many children. These other children belonged here. It was their home. He and the little boy with him were intruders here, and they competed with the others for food and water and, even more importantly…laughter.
The other children, the ones who belonged in this house, hated him and his brother. The others were good at teasing. They were good at lying and blaming him for doing things he did not do. But sometimes they were affectionate and almost kind to him. It was then that he almost forgot about his mother who would never return.
On Sundays he always cried the hardest right after he discovered she had left him again. Sometimes the people here would put him in the closet until he stopped whining. But some tears always feel because Sundays were always the hardest to endure because he had to begin all over again to win the hearts of the others and it was not an easy task to do. The other children were older than him, They all bossed him around all the time and if he did not move quickly enough, if he did not mind well enough, they would find new methods of torturing him until they were satisfied with his tears.
His mother was already gone and this evening he sensed more tension in the air than was usual even for a Sunday night. The other children were sneering, and he began to cry. The mother of the other children began to yell and then scream, and then she too was gone. It was then that they came at him. They were all laughing.
They were debating weather they should spank him or put him in the closet this time. They decided to ask him what they should do. He tried to go to the lesser of his fears…the darkness of the closet.
At fourteen, I was the oldest. One of my sisters handed me the belt. All of us took turns beating the two intruders until they said they were sorry, for what…we never knew. Before my mother returned, I let the sobbing brothers out of the closet…and gave them a hug.
_______________________
“The wall, he decided, will always be there”
He awoke, or at least it seemed he did, for he could not tell if he had been dreaming or if he were dreaming now. He pushed the woolen, scratchy blanket away from his body. There were no sheets, and his skin stuck to the plastic mattress that smelled of others sweat and urine. After prying his flesh from the tenacious bedding, he managed to sit up. He was more tired than he had remembered. He was still dirty and thirsty and his eyes hurt as they squinted in the dim hazy light. He drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. For long moments, he sat that way fearing punishment for doing anything that might be wrong.
Eventually, however, his eyes grew accustomed to the shadowy light and he began to see things. Across from him he could see a wall. He wondered how long the wall had been there. The question struck him as absurd. The wall he decided would always be there. In this confusion, he meditated on the hardness before him until a thought of beauty entered his mind and the nakedness upset him. “There are no pictures…it has no pictures hanging from it.” Lacking the courage, or cowardice, to look away he continued staring blankly until his sight improved still further and he found something within the wall that excited him. “I forgot…about…color…I can see the color now!” He tried to give the color a name. “Dirty…” he thought. “Filth.” he said out loud. “It is a filthy color.” he whispered silently to himself.
Quickly, the excitement left him and he began to grow tired of looking at the wall, even the color began to bore him. The boredom gave him a sense of courage and he became bold. He decided to explore. Cautiously he moved his eyes to the right where he saw…a corner, Then the head began to turn to follow the lead of the eyes. They continued past the corner until they gazed upon something he recognized.
He hated what he saw, the familiar object that hid in the shadows…the thing that kept him here. He glared at it, but the closed and bolted door remained unmoved. It was then that he turned back to the wall he had grown to know and the boredom…he had grown to love.
What the critiques are saying about…anything.
“Well I’m still an embryo…with a long, long way to go…until I make my brother understand.” Helen Ready
“Three months into the womb I was already beginning to record memories.” Salvador Dali
“The only man with energy, yes the revolution’s pride…he trained a hundred women just to kill an unborn child.” Leonard Cohen
