Mud-larking 153

If he lights upon the mossy stone
this grey fragment of sky as if to kiss
his beak will pry and feet will comb
our feathered dandy seeks not to hide in mist
but still, in wet amongst the muck he strives
hopping about reflecting the gold rings of his eyes

 clay pipes, broken patent bottles
blue inkwells and brass buttons
the dull conspiracy of rubbish turned
 to secret doors to the naked life
 of those gone by
       and were we to tell
the secrets that we could sell
  I push history up hill
      and the birds will not even notice
 unless a little splash or swirl
            brings the present out
            of the past

   We watched for
       the sun and he did not
           forge a mighty wheel
 To the Medford and Thames
       over all and to the Tiber with him
       like a forgetful emperor
                sleeping on
             a park bench
                                     -- Reynard Crigg

via albioni

I went to see a monument
went to see aunt Margaret

whose house was next to a cornfield
  with a white porch full of pinwheels

She knew just what to do, her heart was true
We went to the bright white, city
    by a lake, which was actually the sea

  Margaret is part of the secret world
  one of parties behind hidden doors
          puddles on the bricks
 and ivy falling down the brows of houses

        I saw her with a man so handsome
            you could swear he was a statue
         so lovely you could swoon
                     with an aquiline nose so
             straight and true you
                   could carve a statue
                 with it

            I saw it all on that floor covered
                with the candid glacial glare of
                        sheets thrown on cushions
                 what a pagan show, mysterious,
                     suffused with incense and
                          the leafy smell of spoons
                                 and candles

              I had to climb up the fire escape to
                 get to our room
standing on the balcony,
          the city was making love to me
                 I have a pocket full
                        of miracles
           kiss me kiss me kiss me

Travelogue

a beautiful Russian woman
with kind eyes and strong hands
 grabs me before i slip on
  dirty ice
and asks me if i am lost
  i want to say
that this feels like home and
      she is my first friend


            later, i am drinking in a narrow
bar, the linoleum and zinc
         are making love to the TV
with a football match
       nobody really cares about
          Dinamo still sucks even
on a brand new screen they look
             like last year
We're just here
        and i drink what everybody else does
          they still know i don't belong


  I have one pan and some tumblers,
           someone left a pot in the
     cupboard, which i plan to annex and
           add to my growing empire
There are 3 plates, and now i laugh at
         my ambition but secretly
 hope that i will need even more
         
     There are yellow lights
that make the snow look like sewage
          trees are fighting back from
inside their black metal cages

  I know the language
can read the signs and
      feel aware, but
not included while i know
       that these belonging to others
              is the only warmth
                   that matters here.

shithouse

Looking at you


i can't see myself
looking down at myself
going into you and out
of you
see the ceiling fan light
 eclipsed by you and
 your warmth against
my chin and nose
pushing down as if to break
me, your hands holding back the
wall,
there is a sound a woman makes
like she's throwing away
a heavy object
  but over and over
with wild air

cannot work you into
 a setting where you
  back your sweating
        ass up to me
 and toss your hair for
   me to grab
like poetry or moonlight

or even the delicate frottage of morning
          wood against your
      panties and all

no, not you
I want to hold you in
       like breath
and let you out in
 a great silver bubble
     on its way to the surface
           warmer and stronger
while I choke on the bottom
         my love for you
makes me want to open up my skull
             with pretty sparks and
                 wet smoke.

The peacock and the bear

The buildings are square and make me think of
cartoons that loop in airport lobbies the magic hour of glass and
the slick show o.  Best not to breathe in all of this
at once giant robots crushed into the snow of mirror flakes and water, heavy water
the stars are cold , the sound they should make is like one of pills being dropped onto the surface of the dance floor long  after the last remnants of party
and beer mud have scraped away.  led solemnly into the trial of people who do not want it thus.
  I cannot kiss you, you slip between my hands, if you did not i
could not suck the sour taste of your being alive. being three dimensional is a crime
having ever cried out in pain or loss or confused joy is a crime
the grease of human love and wanting are crimes that
should be avenged just out of sight and with absolute wrenching violence
  beneath these buildings and under the whorish lights there is no room
  for doubt, for the breathless space of waiting to be kissed
of staring at the thorns of being wanted
 no the circle of lights and beyond it the river in her
            concrete coffin are free of rust and weeping
my avatar is silenced
and there is no way to learn this lesson again.

August

This job is heat and fire

No one understands your soul

Restraint is a constant
constraint.

Do  I really offend,
or expand?
Country roads, those signs, that house,
I limit it out?
or loose the idea so I can fit?
It's not too big, too small
where does the feeling fit in plastic and grit and
here's how
I'll curve your dents,cover your bridge and high your
laws.
Even the softness of my skin doesn't negate.
It carves the truth to meet it.
  so obscene, think how she sits
barren and bare in light.  Be real today, Love is
boundless and an exercise
No spaces in between hold me
She lays you out for ground work, Grace
All she doesn't know is in her eye. You looked hard.
Togetherness is gel and life and hope.
Togetherness is here, and yes you know,
I wrote this on the way Home.
                                      -Katee Myers

Odysseus and his suitcase

  Will you dream it into being
 this object that you
          desire so
whose name you do not know?


When he closed his eyes, he
could see anything, chain
link fences, whitewashed stone walls
 picket fences, and clotheslines
 full of clouds and rainbows

There was a red plastic bucket
with a green tin shovel for

 the sand
which had stopped being fun and started b
 to reproach him as he walked past it, not looking
 at the ugly
ocean or the beach that
wanted to poke his eyes


  he no longer felt like
the seagulls were his friends
at first they were
   indifferent to his plight,
now they
 dive bombed his shadow
         and hated on him
like rusty nails
      though he could not
ever
  talk to animals he
felt sure he could
    recognize the most
 wretched bird curses
          and promises
 to
 murder.


 Here he was at the end
   of the world
the perfect blonde children
       gone home for
                classes
their older selves
       of child rearing age
  gone too
        having   precisely arranged
the recycling,
         beer bottles on one side
     wine, more graceful and better-dressed
            on the other,
like a middle school dance
          with vodka bottles in
               between (spinster chaperones ?)

  He wants to
             drag his cow
of a suitcase by
      a rope, over
            the sand , road, sidewalk
to his cool, dark home
       while mom and
 the man she married take too
        long to pack the car.