in four large cities, out of work,
waits in the darkened underpass.
In sanctuary, out of reach,
he stares at the fading light outside:
the rain beginning: hears the tide
that drums along the empty beach.
When drops first fell at six o’clock,
the bathers left. The last car’s gone.
Sun’s final rays reflect upon
the streaking rain, the rambling dock.
He takes an object from his coat
and holds it tightly in his hand
(eyes on the stretch of endless sand) .
And then, in darkness, cuts his throat.
Not hastily, for there is so much wind,So many eager smilers to be killed,Obstructions one might overlook in haste:The ruined structures cluttering the past,A little at a time and slow is best,Crawling as though through endless corridors,Remembering always there are many doorsThat open to admit the captured guestOnce only.Yet in spite of loss and guiltAnd…
“I baited bears and prayed. The QueenGrew inky on Boethius. BetweenThe angels and the animals we lived and died.The sun, the King, and my own being blazed as one.I spoke occasionally to God.”2.“I circumcise my son and laudThe covenant. The massacres go on.And now, plunder, expulsion. Poisoned fountains drownThe Synagogue. Blood stains the font;The staff…
Count the wound-up places where we went aground.As an entertainment, zero. Hero horror. Try the lineOf incestuous relations, hearty friendship, or the cultOf the ectoplasmic navel and the ravishments of guilt.Page two was delightful. And the margins were wide;One was tempted by the imagery of bloody wrists,Your hysterogetic spasms and italicized reproofs.You may well supplant…
Said the spider to the fly.I think not, said the fly.I think not, sang the chorus.I think not, said a strangerWho mysteriously happened by.Will they beat me and treat me the way they did here,In the place where we’re going?Asked the spider of the fly.It is likely, said the fly.Very likely, sang the chorus.Extremely likely,…
The scholar, closing his book as the midnight clock strikes, is hollowand old:The pilot’s relief on landing is no release.These perfect and private things, walling us in, have imperfect andpublic endings–Water and wind and flight, remembered words and the act of loveAre but interruptions. And the world, like a beast, impatient andquick,Waits only for those…
She waits behind the bolted door,Her withered face in thirty pieces,While blood runs thin, and memory,An idiot without a name,Recalls the snows of eighty years,The daughter whose death was unexplained,Darkness, blue veins, and broken leases.Grandmother waits behind the door(Sight dims beyond the curtain folds)With her toothless smile and enuresis.Over the river and through the woodsTo…
