TO MY FRIENDS

I wrote these words for you

on my Krishna-blue

IBM Selectric II

cf. Petrarch, Rima Sparse 189

MY BARGE is large but I forget

what people, items squat in cargo hull.

The brains are inaccessible, the skull

is poorly pitched against the salt and wet.

 

There are oars, and sails on sails, and yet

sans oranges, the crew is dull.

Drums, and the requisite seagull,

anchor them in music of regret.

 

The whole assembly’s now in danger:

cords creak, timbers bend, joints leak.

Weird hindrances. Signs impossible to read.

 

No captain I am to all stars a stranger.

The whole ship now begins to gibber and squeak.

Damn this ship! Fuck all ‘god’ and ‘speed’!

CONCENTRIC HORSES

Four concentric horses.

Two running, two curled up in clover,

dead or only sleeping in the clover.

They won't be separated out:

no unbroken mind

from anywhere may ride them.

They will have no secrets.

 

If we looked long enough at them

our secrets too

would soon become laughable.

 

Impossible flower of horses.

 Four Horses: Concentric Design, Persian, Early 17th Century

MAIMED: HE SEES FACES IN THE GLASS

 

I see faces of blood

faces of bone

faces of sphincter-like

aspect

horrible faces of stone

 

faces of meat

faces of crème brûlée

or of meringue

in advanced decay

 

angel-heads

with revolving faces

shifting melting

features rearranged

utterly

the eyes however

they maintain a constant stare

that has never changed

nor shall it ever change

MAIMED AN INTRODUCTION

 

Maimed? Well you are not alone

in hell let me

introduce you to your new

friends this is Shitfit and this is Dickless they

will be overseeing your problemo grande

SUPERVIELLE

Jules Supervielle does not wait 

    for inspiration

he brings his instruments

to rediscover those things and noises

abandoned in a moment of confusion.

Oceans of blood lap at his feet.

 

You cannot wait for inspiration 

especially if like Supervielle 

you have cardiac troubles

(as who, ultimately, does not)

you can’t wait for the earthquake

before grabbing your hat

or learning to box

because look: you’re already in the ring

with a monster,

a complete freak of nature.

Or is that merely a blur

in your most secret mirror? Some smudge

attesting to the departure

of her most obscure majesty?

 

I would like to learn that technique

to stay an ocean of blood

to speak with a siren, to question her

beyond her many refusals

though I know it is late

 

to be learning this art.