she probably is already in love with at least one person, and
I’m already in love with about fourteen on a regular basis, and
that keeps causing all kinds of problems because people who are
attracted to my style don’t like my ways—that sounded like
a pretentious folk singing prodigy’s idea of an early Dylan line,
but what I meant would never be explained right in a poem like this,
or one like Anne Waldman’s either though I like to read hers
because they make me want to write, and in my world that’s what
“great” writers are supposed to do—make everyone else, or
at least me, feel like I can write too, and then make me feel,
like I will, and then I do.
*
After dinner we’ll eat the cake Atticus made for my birthday
there’ll be some presents from some of the people in the house, and
maybe Annie will stop over, or Matthew might call from work, or we
might all go down to watch him make salads at
FOOD FOR THOUGHT,
and maybe eat some too, all along getting stoned on the house doobie,
which goes too fast these days but never fast enough, which is
about the way I feel on my birthday about my life, either that or
the way I’m easily satisfied but never feel I can get too much—
sometimes everything is enough, you know?
*
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME,
I THINK I JUST HEARD CHUCK COME IN, CAITLIN’S
ANGRY WITH ME AND THROWING A TANTRUM IN
HER ROOM, IT’S RAINING BUT I HEAR THE DISHES
BEING DONE FINALLY BY SOMEONE ELSE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
*
Resolution: No more guilt trips
from outside or inside
going either direction
—is everybody happy?
QUEEN JANE
for Suzanne Burgess
She comes out of the dark,
well, it’s never really “dark” . . .
She comes out of the near dark
her pale body moving like . . . what?
Like an old silent movie on the wall!
Oh! I love her pale body, me! who for
too long turned my head only for “dark”
and the near dark bodies. Now I turn
my whole body, my own pale body, to
greet hers coming toward me in the
near dark, and already my cells are
exploding like tiny rain drops
meeting the windshield of the Toyota
that carried my pale body back to Iowa
and hers.
TODAY WHAT IF EVERYTHING REVERSED
right eye vision blurred
left handed masturbation
grey streak over left temple
you aren’t on my mind at all
I’m on yours this morning
life does not go on until
we touch each other once more
my imagination works in this humidity
because this humidity is gone and DC is
dry, cool, constantly pleasant and not
the capital of anything but our smiles
the music comes out my ears
the kids remain quiet all day
I feel fresher around supper time
than I did at breakfast or lunch
on the streets this evening
we smile at each other with no fear
everyone is vulnerably nice
those of us who fall in love quickly
find those of us who fall in love
quickly
going to bed together demands no games
going to bed alone demands no loneliness
going to bed in groups demands no guilt
going to bed we dream of tomorrow
waking up we find everything reversed
FILE
luxury eyes
Touch me here!
tiny quick eruptions in limp wrists
limp coal colored hair to chew on
kiss me kiss me
o pretty people
I take off one damp Tuesday morning
wish me well
the dark shy wheat of my asshole
the giraffe tender soles of my pale feet
rock quarries between my fingers
laser beam holographs shining from my eyes
everything green & standing up as I pass by
There is a sign in the mountains for
LOVER, Pennsylvania
one of the first things a child learns
that sing & sign have the same letters
that evil is live spelled backwards
there is an eel in feel
& in between your lips I slip
wet & loving you
there is an our in your that frightens me
I turn around
What a gorgeous back seat!
stale Ritz crackers & a portable fridge
two bottles of champagne
stereo tape deck
wall to wall carpet & a
decorative Persian rug on top of that
patterned wall paper with embossed
velvety designs & antiqued dinner furniture
several classic photographs of
your lover, his fantasies, his mother, etc.
a canopy over the bed &
a sunken bathtub with lavender tile
we’re so tired of lavender
take my eyelids beautiful boy
I’ll never use them now
YOU WALK IN
my tongue curls
my house expands
your neck glows
your smile chews away my distraction
I can’t move my toes they want to dream so much
why don’t your clothes fit me with you in them?
what do you see in that
evacuated city I built
for us to live in behind your knees
can I call my friend Terry & ask him to tell you
how even the Bronx doesn’t feel as good as your
quiet movements in
o drive the car of your hair into my waking up alone no more
& let me park there for the Hollywood premiere of
“Hello, Goodby, I Love You”
9.13.73
kiss me—lay down with me—forget my fucked up
fantasies—theyre not with me tonight—just kiss me—
gently—touch my hair and eyelids—let me
put my lips against your shoulder—hip—temple—
life’s a need—let me need you for a few hours—
o Michael Buddy Bacall Bambi Penny beautiful boys &
ladies let me life you—you know—lots of slow
& serious energy—not too serious—that flows one way
but never gets there without you—just tonight—
just not alone right now when I’m here—all alone
again—tons of it—life—right here between us—
why not let it out—close our eyes and be
ourselves!—yeah too late now aint it—all the
tough young women I went to bed with back then—
I “went to bed” or beach or backseat with— I went
to eyes and thighs and pubic hair and soft skin with
I went to bed so many times lonely with—all
the people I’ve touched and held it all for just that
while with—all the empty holes where stars had been—
o lots of life here on this planet late at night—
I can hear the cop cars from here and not you—
(“I STAND . . .”)
for Karen Allen
I stand
“awe”
I, uh
Listen:
I am “small”
I mean inside my hands
I mean we talk this way
always “meaning”
Does John Ashbery ever say
O you make me dream
while I stand
that time beside you
walking away from
going back in my brain files
slow replay over and over
in “the street”
your house has a “porch”
mine had a “stoop” but
we called it a porch
because it had a roof goddamnit
like my mouth
and the tongue inside which
I am “small” and “in awe” of
your Lauren Bacall
and your my-niece
I have a daughter
without freckles like I had
like you have
like I might have been
without this smallness in my stomach
I never grow, you know
that’s why you placed your hand
with so much care because you knew
it would stay there for a long time
And I swear on your eyes
in which the games I learned
do me no good, I swear on your eyes
and the light that shines from them
that it has, and it will
like a tattoo that didn’t hurt
and only we can see
and it talks for me about “awe”
and the way I stand when I am beside you
We always said “I mean” when we meant
Do you believe me
IN AMERICA
for Olga Nola
I just called to say
you looked beautiful today
and yesterday
the way your smile walks away
from your life into mine
while your hands pause in flight
like a film of two birds
on their way to each other
when the camera stopped
the way I stopped
when I should have gone on
carrying your smile back to you
YOU ARE HERE
for Jeramie R.
in my stories youre colder
in my prose you sound cold
in my attempts at novel writing
you come across as less sincere
in my life you are the sun
in my memories you are the ocean that soothes me
in my heart you are the one
don’t read my fiction
don’t see yourself there
you are here
in my poems
where you would belong
if we belonged places
and I could determine your place
no
if that were the case
I’d have you in my building
where you could be in my arms in a minute
only I might see you going out
when I longed to have you in
and that would distress me
or if I saw others going to visit you
I’d worry
not that I wouldn’t want you loving others
sharing what you share with me with them
I’d worry that they’d make me seem ordinary
too ordinary for you
so that wouldn’t do
maybe I’d have you in my room
like the radio or my typewriter
only I can turn them on or off when I want to
but you might want to be on when I’d be off
or maybe I’d just get confused
about loving someone so close so much and soon
grow tired
o shit
where would you fit in my work or my thoughts
when I’d need to be alone
I was right
you belong in a poem tonight
A LITTLE LISZT FOR OLGA
Hair, yours, shiny and black
A record, romantic music
“Eres Tu” and it is you
It has been me and others
Growing up and then, growing up again
The clichés we frauds fall back on
The first time someone knocked us out
Almost getting high through the tunnel in your look
My lips on your hand and velvet wrist
Nothing on the walls but books
A head with no memories
We love to see too much and will
No matter who we love or who loves us
Those who see only vulnerability
An open wound for them to cauterize
The doctors they’d love to be
We see what is vulnerable glowing
Strength in a defense that needs no walls
Fences to keep others out that only keep others in
The faces of others’ fears
Our years—overused batteries
Make them full my heart
Thinking of that day
A crystal of something blue and pure
The perfect image in which you and me
A subtle detail made complete some idea
What it might be to love beyond all walls surrounding
Our unique attempt at touching
Like two hesitant, beautiful animals
Away from the humans at last
for Karen A.
It was a gorgeous day to wander around Georgetown.
I didn’t. I got up early, “wrote” a “book,”
listened to some “classical” music like Liszt and Couperin
Buchanan and Dylan, read about a marriage that
by not being a real marriage at all turned out to be
a beautiful true marriage—what has “true”
got to do with “real” anyway—like today,
what has today got to do with me and you
besides the way it makes me feel full
the way you can do, brings the good things
people say the country offers right here to the city
for a countryphobe like me, so I leave my music and words
and catch the street. Everyone’s out today!
Claudia! Ed! Terry! Henry! Ralph! I wish I was
as bright as the day, so after a while of being dazzled
I go home and take a shower with all the windows open
and I shave and jump around to the good sounds—
I remember to take the huge heart shaped box of candy,
I bought it for the kids, out of the bag and put it
somewhere where it won’t melt. I drink some milk
and eat some cheese, think about all the people
I should write a poem to for “Valentine’s Day,”
for “Washington’s Birthday,” for this wonderful weather
the world gives us despite our arrogance and
belligerence toward it, but I notice the time and
there is no time! Got to run, so I do,
in some new shoes that hurt my toes, but the rest of
my clothes feel fine, and I know I am, on the street again
paying homage to the sun with my grin. I feel like
Ted Berrigan walking with my head held high, jaunty
like Hollywood English types, and a little mischievous too,
thinking about how I can do something fun and funny for you
like the sun is doing for me as I strut. There’s
my car! I haven’t seen it in almost 24 hours
so I throw it a kiss because I’m not a good owner
but I love it and that seems to keep something going.
I get in ready to cruise these canals to your veranda
or something Eddie Arnold and ’30s Hollywood like that,
only the corner of my eye catches the bank clock and
surprise! (Spencer Tracy in A Man’s Castle with
Loretta Young I think, swimming nude!) It’s 4:15 PM!
I can’t believe it! I go into
Discount Books to look
for Terry to check. He’s not there but someone
I don’t know says “Hi Mike!” so I say “Hi. Do you know
what time it is?” and he looks at his watch and says
“Well, the government says it’s four twenty but
it’s really three twenty . . .” and some more words.
I don’t hear them thinking about you and ”true” and
“real” and wondering what he meant the “real” time
and what was “mine” . . . You should be there because
it’s almost 5:30 in my life, but in the bank’s and
the guy who knows my name it’s only 4:30 and somewhere
out in abstract city it’s “really” only 3:30. Maybe
that’s why it’s so warm. I back up, back home, back
to back Dylan charms me to the typewriter where
I write to you to kill the time and to say
“Wontchu be my valentine?”
DARK NIGHT
o let me “hi” how you doin baby
never come back front wise asses
so soft
say fade in nice and easy mister frantic
cool off your motor’s sides like
don’t know what everybody else knows
dare me one time be very “interesting”
I read a lot of history you know and go
delirious when left alone with it
like theology in the dirty book store movies
in the back room with all the beside you inside you
up on its hind legs begging but don’t ever beg
one time a very sexy lady come on down the
cruel to herself in all the familiar ways
stands up in the mirror recognizes
all we do in the o you got it
your own way cause it’s your bright lady
no one wants to take away from you now
nothing looks like it did does it
it’s the light does it
makes you want to push your face into
all my lips and the sides of my tongue running on
so displaced in the face of your body we don’t
ever want to sacrifice for only “possibilities”
PEAKING
I’m crazy right now.
I thought I was just “crazy about you” or
“crazy for you” but I’m really crazy now.
It’s 1:20PM, June 10th in the year 1974, or
if we remember years the way the Gypsies do
it is the year Candy Darling died of cancer
and I met you, love
I wanted it to be always something special.
All of a sudden it was so special I can’t work