Silver

And now I’m made to understand

The things her mother says

The warning signs I should have read

The things her “husband” says

“I love you, but I don’t like you.”

Unfinished poems I start

 

When first we met, her wit

Was wilytoe’d with heart

But here I think I realize

How sere a soul can be

The serpentongue was convincing

With compliments of me

 

Her politicking chirps were novel then

But hollow demagoguery

She butters up the credulous

The wayside salt spread out

They never knew the Waning building

The hearth with brittle grout

 

And I in my shimmering

When the rabble fell about

In lives short and worthless

They throw back their micks

Feeding at the bottom, feckless

Waiting, counting down the licks

 

The tasteless lust now for hemlock-laced honeydew

Which everywhere now sticks

My senses have adapted yet

And they have sense enough

When proffers her beseeching hand

To call her on that bluff

 

From “Telos”

Effigy XXXIV. As the Mosquito Sucks…

 

Cordial was the Amaranth

That did disrepresent my love

Or my love it, moreso

Repaid in kind and sum

With gilded faience to the last

And I, the fool e’er and anon,

Can only give voice to truth:

The lady is a bloody cunt

And then were that Mary juice

Providing ink to this pen

So little would it mean to:

But it’s alright, my love

Your left face knows not the right

And I knew not your sycophancy

Towards the others, impudent to mine

Gammon and spinnage is your language,

Entertainment for your Hookey larks

An out-and-outer to the end

And nothing good, so I’ve been told,

Is fading for to feign

Nothing good, so I now know,

Was ever torn asunder

And no one good would ever play

Booty with another person

Such the gloaming light

Pyhrric is the victory won:

Hardsold now at an inflated cost

The likes which make me shudder

Such a vain and idle weather-cock she is

Pivoting this way and that on her spindle

I’m amazed I should feel anything

To think I could have been uxorious!

Forgiving for a second in the face

Of that mindless Vituperator

But what of this swept across

My face, like so much plaster

Do not be fooled so easily:

It is out of sympathy to others

This new pallor of my face

And not from fear and loathing,

Not to hide this dread so apparent

I cannot veilglass mine eyes

To understand now what I learned ago

And good vision is a blessing

So help me, God, nothing real

Will ever disexist

That what we had is nothingness

And never could have been

It’s apt that all your birds were mocking

Your sweet nothings vanity,

Your ribbons wrapped of naught

It’s fitting this shame I mantel

When I yearned for to believe your word

Was more in substance than confetti

Or the percussive wedding rice

Calumnious friends! Calumnious friends!

A pox on thee for calumnious friends

All the more the fool am I

As you had along been in league

With those calumnious friends

That is why I burn you now

May your pestilence be at an end

For you yourself are my calumnious friend

Foolhardy! Now to think a book can affect

Your thoughts, but there it was

The gifts of books and bric-a-brac

My love the most munificent by far

I cannot be asked perfection, no-no

When I run through the belltower

And pull the chain thinking of you

The sound, loud now, now cleansing

Ein Mann zu sein in this, oh me

The bell chimes now, you hear?

Oh how well I knew thee

Nothing held on Earth below

Was borne to heaven’s door

And lies disguised as truth betold

Will never hold the last

My Ulyssean Kunty Kate

When you rathered side w/nonce

Knew thee better than I knew

When you instigated the goss

Slept with five, engaged with two

You gerrymandered the situation

And cut for the results

So that I was now the painter

And you the vanishing point

Hidden in the depths within

La pièce de résistance de ma vie

You stand before me now

Brilliantly opaque, but still lost

Unworthy of my dedication

For ‘twas pride and love that left

Desolation, perplexity in place

A cap of dunce and a scepter-stick

From folly to the fall and up

I am Prince of Fools to the boots

But I can roar about my Lot

And I can kick sand with the best

There will be a time, mark you,

To let stately reserve rest akimbo

And loose the hounds of hell

But lay back for now, falselove

They shall soon know of you

By the mark I have left

Lay and wait, my lying pissant

Take comfort in what you have:

Peace of mind and some time

And meanwhile I’ll take back mine:

Fuck off… in the nicest possible sense!

An Ideal Evening

Her home lies in the valley

Deep within the verdant hills

Where the wild things hold company

Present beneath a peaceful crescent moon

 

Hummingbirds flood the atmosphere

With melodies- not the jerky, faltering notes

Of the evening; but the serene, unhurried song

Of the night; a toad croaks bass counterpoint

 

She needs no telltale songs, robe unfurling,

To know her husband rides not the nine o’clock

But the orange blossom special, late, late on

Pathenogenesis, tender grays growing grayer

 

A mule sputters and brays in the distance

As she thinks of those passionate spring nights

In secret, beneath the pews of Sunday Mass

A beautiful hand, forefinger now touching

 

His love, both less and more than she could bear

She knew then and now he is a businessman

But her lonesome hand strokes iridescent petals

Producing nectar; she: reproachful, serene