Outside the Gates of the Tower of Babel

Prometheus Burns
flies by the gibbet:
Ravens hop in the cage.

One pecks his eye.
The next caws a reply
to a word he never said.

And when offended,
Mister Burns's skeletal remains
click a witticism

From a chip clipped
to his rotting brain.
The words all gone, he's naught but rags and chains.

Elevator

Alone, I press my cheek
to the wall's
brushed steel.

Is the cool, smooth expanse
now? Is it real?
I may be comatose

3,000 miles away --
Maryland or Virginia,
some strange state. I hope

Not, but wish to keep on
stringing this silver thread
the dead may follow home.

Take them, please,
and forgive these men:
I have seen

The white hot glare:
the furnaces of their souls.
They were cold

In their words to me,
but I can bear worse.
Boys will be boys --

Puppy dog tails and dark eyes
that glitter like ice.
I remember to you, oh God, the evil

on which they broke
attempts always to break me,
but finds me tempered instead.

And have they not loved,
and been loved? Your loving eyes
beheld the children to whom they read.

I pray you warm their beds
and receive them.
Thank you for their strength. Amen.

What The Voices Gave Me #6

She said I'd limited myself
to picking up the pieces.

But what shards! Cobalt
blue, iridescent and bold

Yellows that shone
from miles away in a boulder-

strewn desert hot with shame.
We do not apportion blame;

it does not solve
a problem unsolveable.

These little fragments
chipped off lives

from which to make new lives.
Mosaics cemented

on your mother's brick
patio, somewhere in a Texas

now jarring and alien
to you -- you, accustomed to

modest olive women in chador.
These girls back in the world

are brassy and loud.
They make you blush.

So I, your little faggot sidekick,
will show you something crafty:

a pattern guided by Allah, quietly
made of brilliant splinters in a shaded garden.

Our secrets will be ours,
between us and the heaven that awaits.

1999

We slow-danced at the Giraffe
on gleaming parquet floors
under gold-white chandeliers.
Captain and Tenille by the pool table
"Do that to me one more time"
before we hit the liquor store.

Amador

Essence of snow,
its cold ghost:
an endless rush
of vast whispers
tells the pines what we know.

Nettles and cones
black and damp underneath:
guilt for the wounds
a foe incurred
breaking himself on me.

A memory: blood and shit,
the liver and guts
of a two-point buck
steaming in a bucket
in a garage that sheltered my youth.

I have heard of a land
so thirsty, so hot with jealousy
the dead -- so many --
became husks of corn,
broken by men whose orders

Will never stop breaking them.
Silence reigns where they weigh
a man they don't know --
he speaks to them
past the chatter of crowds who hide him.

Angel of Death

"You warn people who are about to die!"
he told me as though I were an idiot.
I may be, bald and issuing a silent scream
across a Nerdrum bleakscape, a cape
of mangy fur draped over my exposed shoulder.

I gloat, however, too much to be that slave
who sat behind the General in his chariot
and issued mortal warnings to humility.
It is sin to take joy in puncturing another's hubris.
Yet it is folly not to find satisfaction in life's work...

Dr. Smith's Little Prick

Oh, the pain, the pain! I do exclaim. I punctured my pinky on a thorn from a carniverous space tree. No, you nincompoop, you ninny robot I do not want your ghastly probes among my innards, the way that cabana boy's was at the Gold Coast. Oh, he and young Tony Perkins in Silverlake. Oh, the pain, the marvelous pain!

How my back ails me. Oh William, my boy, dear boy thank you. How I needed this gin. Oh, ack, too much vermouth. Don't "sorry, Dr. Smith me." You! You would last minutes as Merv Griffin's houseboy. Penny, my dear, be a lamb and fetch a fan. This heat is dreadful and has dropped me into the darkest doldrums. Oh, my back, my poor aching back!