You strike a figure of love, a seductive dancer
in every personals ad of myself.
You strike the white plaster of our manse on Woodbine,
back in Warren, in my Christmas shopping.
You strike a collection of barbed wire on the hallway
in your wedding announcement.
You strike a pitch-chilling mood, and utter "damn!"
in my parking lot shortly before sunrise.
~*~
XXVIII
When the air beclouds what we keep unspoken,
you continue to seek my approval
where there will be no blessing.
When the air brings me out of anesthesia,
you promise me a marriage-supper of pure delight.
When the air secludes a sunny spot
beside a crystalline mountain stream,
you have done what you've done,
and I can do nothing to change that.
When the air covers strawberries in chocolate,
you burn bridges behind you.
When the air places her fingers on my lips,
you travel to London.
When the air leads me up an old church steeple,
you find yourself needing money.
~*~
XXIX
A Hero has been submerged in that nether
world. A Sorceress demands a cigarette — at
least a light. A Hero appears quite out of
character or place. A Sorceress keeps coming
back at her victim, sometimes just for a new
address or telephone number, as if there's
some power in just knowing where you live.
A Hero has been buried alive or even denied.
What else can he do but go away? A Sorceress
is never faithful to anyone. Just "Beep," checking
up to see only if you are around or might be
with someone else. A Hero will obtain good mileage,
contrary any wrenching I feel in my heart.
~*~
XXX
It was a mistake to flirt so openly
that started much earlier than she admits.
It was a mistake to want some other possession
you intended to escape or else marry.
It was a mistake to desire such an independent woman
that kept me from predicting our tangled plot-line.
It was a mistake to declare myself happily married
that prevents me from acknowledging any root of divorce.
It was a mistake to view youth as potential,
not delusion, that rolls with thunder.
It was a mistake to scream across the parking lot
to her window that I always adored you.
~*~
XXXI
When it rains broken
promises, you alter
your expectations. When
it rains because a brunette
is sultry, your overtures go largely
unheeded. When it rains each
one's shortcoming, the idol
of questing takes shape. When it
rains Medusa's serpents, they wear
their pelts long. When it rains months
after a fraternity party, your fancies
run contrary to fashion. When it
rains furtive kisses in that treetop,
you run far ahead, inciting gossip.
~*~
XXXII
With a ring of clear night, I entered
a corral of lions. Within a ring of electric blue
tunnel, I stood straight out from a framed
engraving of your face. In a ring of landlocked
muddy woodlands, I combated your mirage where
no troops would desert me. With a ring of your
resolute nipple, my heart tingled. With
your ringing broken promise set amid ripples
from an enormously forbidding inner tube, I admitted
basic problems allocating scarce goods and services.
With a ring of baby oil smeared in sunlight, Chinese
dragons wriggled from our flesh into summer water.
At last we were ringed by spice factory
peppers and cinnamon
modulating Chesapeake Bay
shrubs and flowers.
~*~
XXXIII
You brought a half slip to my paper
wasp nest. You brought a divorce
complicated by my former assistant
to my garden path back to the body. You
brought such giddy anxiety to my waiting
at the train station. You brought a cycle
of criticism to my Academy of St. Martin
in the wallpaper. You brought a chill
to my unplugged Saturday nights,
another of the boys you were going through
while my horseman farmer raced
across ruined mosaic all the while
you demanded I be happy.
~*~
XXXIV
As I happen in your life, you begin to comprehend
I'm a maturing apparition. You're contrary
bearings. I'm steadfast mourning. You reconsider
talent. I'm so many lost causes. You're Baltimore's
perfumed night in ancient contexts. I'm hostilities
originating in beauty. You're almost a taxi ride
home from the airport. I'm a sentry statue flanked
by thistles on my town common. When we engage,
you're more expressive than any boom box.
~*~
XXXV
Please don't panic after you've had me.
Only male frogs will sing.
Please don't sing folksongs in a lovely deep voice.
We are blown grain by grain toward ignition.
Please don't grin huge as a pumpkin.
I once believed our compassion was absolute and original.
Please don't switch roles over the years.
We are trekking in opposite directions.
Please don't scream into my answering machine.
My lovers have taken me soaring around the sun.
~*~
XXXVI
facing their wedding ceremony
I finger my last shredded
romance facing details
that would split us I finger
two portraits our cousin put out
at yard sale facing open fire
I finger half of my life since
adolescence facing a pool of Mozart
and Monet I finger a sweetheart
who possesses endless expertise I
lack in domesticity and social
grace facing the burden my devotion
placed upon you I finger crumbs
from her table facing an embroidery
of such violent fantasies I finger
a worn chart of varied landscapes
~*~
XXXVII
your face invariably
has distressed me your face
has always seemed too long
your face is from Ohio as much
as anywhere your face could be sailing
from Galilee your face enfolds
a great mystery your face requires
as much care as a small child
~*~
XXXVIII
come to times between lovers
where you could put up garden produce
tend your orchard come to places
students prowl the night coming where my
ex-lovers who have been painters, musicians
and actresses practice in their studio where
you never find gratitude even after
pain comes to the hotshot nexus
so close to my origin where you aren't one
I remember coming to a touchstone
in the silt of infancy where a mirror image
d
oes not complete the whole hereafter
encircling that mystique of skirts and frills where
I sought an archetype that would be you
~*~
XXXIX
I labored under false expectations
beside the water all my effort mapping
became an obstinacy rousing up
into a simmer by water short-
circuit sparks into electrical fire
beside the water she languished waiting
for my field notes beside the water a redhead
still has effortless pageantry
as precise as a verbal holograph of place
beside the water I hoped you would save me
~*~
XL
by water I sought a deal and
gold stars by water a debutante
strips my command by water I
am tormented by a line voicing
physical enticements by water
I have always had dynamics backward
by water armies and nations prepare
to restage the previous war by water
I want to tell Grandma, move aside
~*~
XLI
As I was catching my breath, the maintenance crew
came to fix my toilet. As I was catching my breath,
she suddenly started rubbing my shoulders,
in a feigned or ineffective sympathy. As I was
catching my breath, the earth itself granted words
of caring. As I was catching my breath, a blond child,
walking back to the pool from the fence, smirked
to his buddies. As I was catching my breath, the ground
turned so dry heavy rainfall ran right off. As
I was catching my breath, I had no need to be clever.
~*~
XLII
Crawling into conservative suits
for work, we bid on homemade
ice cream and finally understood
so highly esteemed. Crawling into
the living room, I could not see my
own merits when competing with
rivals draped in tailored clothing,
swimming pool club memberships,
and new wheels. Crawling into the mall,
I glimpsed behind your golden façade
and recognized motions to consolidate
power. Crawling into a seething rage
just below the surface, you unintentionally
confirmed with your own statements.
Crawling into a sunny morning where
construction workers were already
present, I found whatever intimacy
I had shared with you was turned
against me. Crawling into a tattoo
studio, I forgot your name.
~*~
XLIII
Let's say our own lusts cut free from leaps and
dances so we'll again face that naive sexuality,
soft-edge of untested ambition, raw ignorance
skirting danger that blames the wolf in Red
Riding Hood. Let's say we allow corruption
and lies within our own high places so we'll
return a few days before flying off to England.
Let's say you're forgetting my psyche, a narcissism
of the women I've caressed so we'll find relief
in any decision or action. Let's say events with
my spouse weren't quite a smiling sprite, eventual
prom queen, impeccable bride, so we will avoid
addressing young talent. Let's say you've renounced
pyramid climbing in a ripening more emotional
than sexual so we'll have a patched sweater to wear.
Let's say I couldn't leave my wife preoccupied
with jousting strategies so we'll be itching like crazy.
~*~
XLIV
I inhale the destructive price of fine art
I exhale your body seized by lunar rhythms
I inhale treacherous apparitions overrunning your sleep
I exhale a seashore cottage
I inhale a tapestry flight
I exhale a woman who has become a drill sergeant
I inhale the inside of her cello
I exhale the conjuncture of how many geometries
I inhale a Paintbrush Opera
I exhale diametrically opposing values
I inhale a feline infidelity
I exhale chains running over sprockets
~*~
XLV
Next exit, there is nothing of the girlish dimension
when I speed on at sixty. Next, her glance hints
she knows intimacy as I speedily don a rubberized green
apron. Exit, where Peter has his boat torn apart
for extensive repairs, I gain speed on reagents
with certified purity. Next, as though parking
upon hard and vast distances of fracturing snow,
I speed behind safety goggles. Exit, the bad boys are
at such an advantage I speed along glass tubing.
Next, I will never have to speak as I exit into
the cement wall of a cemetery T-intersection
at one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour.
~*~
XLVI
For a cotillion starched mirage to be commended
to my repair and proximity I had to relate
a joke skillfully. To become adept in luck,
to be blessed, to be as potent
as a safety-goggle Lucifer captivated
with natural, flawless features counter
to my liftoff into chaotic suffering, yes
I walked in the fleshy basket of berries
before a mortar-and-pestle seraph. Then I was
scouting, chem lab, thickets, and coursing
imprinted with doubts countering memory that
still somehow transcribes another blonde ponytail
Kentuckian apparition. An alcohol-lamp demon
could have wooed her with success that fathoms
almost nothing. A shiver of remedial subsistence
at poolside bestirs titillation few of us could speak.
Nobody touched the pianist, so far as I know.
~*~
XLVII
I barely recognized one ghoul
after that ride once a gum-chewing
Dr. Grocer had preserved her sunset
pony-tail in a tea-rose vase. As a matter
of fact I'd assumed her svelte parody
would swagger along the unlocking
chamber of my budding adolescence.
Instead, she executed a prelude to
concussive curves others would pitch me.
With no coaching to steer clear of repeated
deceit, I marched into an uninhabited
reflection as shallow as pornography.
Nobody on this franchise would
forewarn me how the right bat has thorns.
What spoils my stony inexperience
miscarried in our mutual bewilderment
still entailed what was forbidden.
Despite my intentions, I escaped
the gargoyle entrapment of open windows
I, who am still astounded by the crackle
of clear hosiery in my clasp. Now I pay
another price, belatedly recognizing
there were so many opportunities before
that brash squirrel and I sat in my father's
dark garage. I still do not understand
the male who begins breaking off,
"I think you don't like me enough."
His new demon who'd been so
complete becomes the painstaking bitch
after just one chord in a concert of
financial constraints. Again there are
s
o many ways to close those eyes.
~*~
XLVIII
The naked couple showers with lemon soap.
In a restful haze they talk
of an absence from sex or of their giving
a wedding night peignoir.
The naked
couple is ripe and from Norway
when a calfskin sun floats
along the lake on their backs.
~*~
XLIX
A sorceress promises to bear fruit
becoming a full moon violin recital.
Her mouthful of braces gleams demurely
becoming my motorcycle fantasies.
Forced to quit high school, she married
the reptilian part half-hooded with anger.
She shows no sign of continuing interest
while one falsehood leads into another.
She rarely ever approaches me when
memories in the photos turn brown.
A sorceress suggested obliquely over
dinner I take a co-worker as my mistress.
~*~
L
preparing raw oysters
on the half shell sundown
is just starting in your
closet as you stack insecurities
between movies and cocktails
for us next to glossy fashion
magazines in your closet we
listen to water in your closet
placid eyes sparkle in your
closet you array garter belts
of every color in your closet we
devour an intimate repast
~*~
LI
You gave me petals in an apple
orchard where idolatries and
infidelities appear the same. I gave you
beveled leaded glass from a Time
magazine cover story. You gave me
an hour of zazen under a beech tree
in Indiana where I sent you that strident
letter. I gave you drunken exchange
students from the Italian grocery a few
blocks south. You gave me blue cotton
jogging pants where I had to wear a suit
and tie. I gave you all classifications
of existence within lingering bitterness.
~*~
LII
You decided to look out from the window
to admire a branch in burnished clouds. I choose
to give you permission to break off
our engagement. You concluded
it was all a lie. I'm rejected once more
despite my labors. You decided to bare
your mons veneris with a razor. I grip nothing
in small measures. You concluded there's
no breakout from materialism. I am,
you insist, every defect you've selected.
~*~
LIII
When I heard how closely she parodies
a place in my heart she hoped to snare
false messiahs. When I heard bag ladies
and street people, she was playing
at the cinema. When I heard my spiritual life
was undergoing incredible expansion, she
became a month, a year, a fashion, or a hot song
her own age. When I heard others in the room
confirm — without my asking — how much
she was available to me, she was stuck in place.
When I heard the final straw fall, she'd become
a memory of forbidden sweet intercourse. When I
heard I've failed to value my own self sufficiently,
she insisted I've no right to be happy.
~*~
LIV
We planted patio grills and point-and-shoot cameras
to crop up as BLTs all summer. We harvested
what would rend us. You tried so hard
to prepare me for a permanent-press, split-level
cul-de-sac. We planted a set of invisible slates