“Where There Are No Stars: Part II”

I come to you in search of pain.
I need to crawl around on all fours.
I need to take you into the woods.
Call me the insider.
The composition.
The diamond thief.
The despairing crowds.
The sad clown
waiting for answers.
Show me your broken limbs.
Show me the soldiers
defending your honour.
Throw down your anthologies.
They curse and steal.
They sing requiems.
They feel intense emotions.
Show me the lost world.
Show me the moves you have mastered.
Show me the markings on your body.
The children of the cornfield
are crazy in the head.

Gentle blues
come carry me away.
I will swing from the vines.
I will send signals from the summit.
I will listen carefully to the violin music from above.
I will dream
of the men in white.
It will come to me
cool
slow
and precise.
The young Mexican girl is bleeding for the first time.
We will move on to the next town.
Moment frozen.
The church walls have crumbled
under the lover’s eyes.
A gun is fired from a bedroom window.
Occasionally mighty.
Partners in crime.
Negative space in an elastic memory.

Prose like the military.
Do I have great desires?
Must I destroy this blesséd song?
We are the outlaws of sin.
We will drink gin and tonic
and construct sentences of great depth.
Am I proud to be a king?
Am I proud to model against my will?
Please me baby.
Show me heaven.
Show me random nothingness.
Show me your life at the auction block.
I will mistake lizard travels
for life in the fast lane.
Is my life that empty?
What are my options?
Blood-soaked plum pudding.
Springboard death.
What more can I add?
The women are riding away.

[King of comedy
Laughter in the key of chaos
We are the great gods of Toréloré
White denim dreams
Consuming addictions
A devastating ridicule]

No more soft prayers.
No more flashing blues.
I am the protector of the earth
at high dawn.
I will embrace this Byronic future.
Is this the world we have chosen?
Enter at our own risk.
It stings.
It carries anger in its bosom.
Join our world.
Join hands in the empty room.
Every piece of beautiful
comes at a price.
No more good times.
No more bad times.
No worries mama.
That way
you know it’s working.
Caption.
Focus.
A quarter in the rain.
Phone call to the bay.
Purple poetry passages.
An occasion for celebration.
His fantasies began to fade.
He loosened right up.
This stuff really works wonders.
They have regrouped.
The road is melting away.
The fight continues.
I am no longer here to please.
As you can see
we are on our way
to the surface.
It will no longer look like before.

Is this the repeated past?
Are these the lessons we were supposed to learn?
Are our children paying the price?
I have broken the circle.
I will lead those who will follow.
We’re staring at display cases.
We’re asking questions with gentle fingers.
Are the Pollocks a mirror?
Can we see all there is to see?
Are we standing too close?
A raven’s wing.
It is stretched and saved.
Lion’s claws
and a touch of summer.
Pennies from heaven.
We are starving and sacred.
A king’s yellow bird
is singing to forbidden lovers
for the last time.
Crushed by giant hands.
We have left that all behind.

I told him I thought you had died.
That was the night we made love.
That was the night
I killed the ones you loved.
T.V. specials.
Midnight change.
Numbing of the bum.
Carried away.
I walk the streets
in search of answers.
This is the formation that I fear the most.

[I have come to you
wearing a mask
I have come to you
dressed in a cowboy hat
and silver boots
I have misplaced my belt
I have come to you
confusing the issue
A century of editions
Ribcage]

An injection of topaz tears.
Our hero is down for the count.
We are sailing beyond our reach.
We choose to ignore the signs.
We are missing nothing.
Desiring death.
They have found him in the night sky.
Paid for by the wandering.
What ever happened to the grand piano?
What ever happened to the field full of fairies?
Engaged in warfare
the songs have new meanings.

[New suits at bargain prices
New songs in the jukebox
New coins in the register
Vegas bodies
creeping cancer
I need to be healed
I need to feel the naked rain
I need to see my pictures on display
It no longer matters
I have gone blind
You’re playing with death
You’re turning on strangers
to the falling of night]

Girls on bedroom walls.
Holding it open for dry afternoons.
Focusing below the belt.
Saving grace.
Falling from face.
Are we giving life to monsters?
Are we smoking Christmas dreams away?
He’s out there
hitting the road.
He’s out there
pretending to care.
It’s the way you now accept the bleeding.
It’s the way the virgins came
and the way they left
crying
not to return until years later
their eyes black
and rainbows behind them.
I see you’re still quotable
after all these years.
The ancients sing of summer
an hour before red.

Thermidor Mercury
in neon lights.
Breaking the silence
with a simple word.
Have you seen the symbols in the sky?
Have you seen the mountains crumble?
He led an army of young girls to the shore.
Only the beautiful ones make it to the office buildings.
All the others wear ice cream suits.
Flashing
flashing
flashing.
Ringing up the expectations.
Monarchy morning.
The essential guide.
I’ll meet you at the top.
We will celebrate with custard and cake.
Plywood memories.
Gargoyle road.
Ancient berry jam.
Have we successfully pulled them all apart?
The boy behind the mask hits the floor.
Acrobats are at the door.
Flowers?

Notes for the future.
Great green eyes
like nipples
like the bottom of the sea
like crow shit.
Notes from the stage.
Behind the mountains
already barricading the doors with painted planks
the great demon prepares for his attack.
Notes in a carriage.
Tomorrow
the features of a king
will become that of an apple thief.
Notes in all.
The smell of her cinnamon underwear
was lost among the creatures
of the perfume counters
who live dangerously close to death
or the fear of children.

The women on horses are gone.
They now can sleep.
They will now uncover the secrets.
They won’t remember a thing.
They won’t remember where we touched them.
The two men
in search of America
have been shot
by men with daughters.
There will be no more office romance.
There will be no more searching for the best station.
There will be no more friends in the gallery.
We have come to accept what is needed.
Suckling babes have been dashed.
The journey has begun.
This is the separate reality.
This is the perimeter.
This is where there are no stars.
Welcome.


“slay”

i’m not wearing one right now
she says with a sly grin
meant to turn on our
graying
middle-aged host
give him something warm
to go to bed with
‘cause the wife
don’t do it no more
she says they like to play
drinking games
while she undresses
for the little boys
who don’t know any better
and the big boys
who lay stoned on the floor
on special days
you can see her
reach for a fallen stake
and you can almost
smell the perfume
on her white lace
she goes back to her trailer
and sticks her fingers
way back
‘till the blue towels darken
and she breaks a sweat


“eve: for Ani D.”

when you leave
and the morning sounds
are gone
when the grease in the frying pan
starts to go cold
and white
when all the clothing and keys
have been found
and the cereal bowls emptied
i take off all my clothes
and stand naked in front
of the big window
not because they want to see
though i’m sure they do
and not because i want them to see
though i’m sure i do
but because i am best so
“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
i take a coffee cup
one of the old ones we bought after
we got married
i fill it with water and slowly
pour it on my head
watching the water
roll down my body
and collect in a puddle
at my feet
and as i walk through the house
leaving wet footprints
across the kitchen floor
and into the bedroom
i sing along with the new york folk singer
i sing about the men
parked
on the other side of
the playground fence
men with twenty dollar bills
clenched in their sweaty palms
twenty dollar bills for the next
boy or girl who can bear to loosen their
grip as it starts to grow
and the breathing becomes horrible

i sing about the older boys
who used to pull hair
but have discovered an even
more satisfying way to
amuse themselves
they’ll give up quarters
give up their precious baseball cards
to have you climb a tree in your new skirt
so they can see what colours you hide
between your legs

by the time the family returns
full of complaints about a world
unfair and cruel
i have dressed in my fine clothes
and the kitchen is cleaned
and the tv is on



“conversation with a las vegas prostitute”

at one point
the conversation
turned to the films
of woody allen
a half pack of cigarettes later
with the left-over beer
that was in the trunk
of the rental car
we discussed all those
with one week
to chase college dreams
realizing that crawling out of
all-you-can-eat
breakfast lunch dinner
at-any-time sidewalk walk-ins
was more about loneliness
than anything else
it was an odd way of spending the last night
with the fantasy standards
hanging to dry
the rules of the game
inscribed in her brain
finally released to someone distant enough
from everything
never mention home
where the wife and kids are running
through lawn sprinklers
compliment on the size
unless obvious that he knows
where he lacks
the heavy girl had been cut up
last week
with the knife she kept under her pillow
no break for an emotional catch-up
but moved on to more personal details
a stretched hole
gives no more pleasure
a tap on the door
for a five minute count-down
by the end
i never got my pants down
when i drove to the city that never sleeps
cars full of wide-eyed dreamers
roared past
unaware of the stark emotions
las vegas throws at you


“poem (come down and play)”

come down and play my mountain god
show me all the languages of the forest
the crying of the wind
over the rocky ledge
the banshees
wailing over lost lovers
the tickling of the grasses
the young have been put to sleep
the murmur of the cold river
reaching down to the place
where i have set up camp
taking the water like kisses
watching the sky
hoping to see your face in the clouds
i have nothing left to do
but watch the snow melt
as the sun moves in its
faint crescent
i have been writing letters to you
letting them fall into the river
watching the words
in fresh ink
run through the fibers
as the river takes hold of each word
i know you can read it
from your high perch
i will be leaving soon
to return to a world
i can never really understand
i will be saying goodbye for the last time
i will be waiting at the lighthouse
it will be raining


“Another Night in a Smoke-Filled Room”

The furniture is walking away again
My cigarette and drink are playing a slow jazz-like tune
The bass player will arrive soon
And the saxophone is fresh from a Benny Goodman benefit concert
The women are dressed in snakeskin pants
Older women who will teach you all the moves free of charge
The wind is blowing outside
Sweeping the trash against schoolyard fences
But we are safe inside
In tight pants and leather jackets
For the moment we have made the effort to forget

The pool balls crack
And the women laugh
And the music sets the right mood
For drunken lovers in the alleyway
Men from offices
And women in heels
Pocket their wedding bands
To feel alive again
Under their breath they call it their ball and chain
And we move grotesquely under the coloured lights
And we stop the clock
And we move to avoid the fights
And we leave at the coming of another Saturday
A day to cope --- as they say

The young girls file in at quarter past eleven
They’re underage and fashionably late
They dress in red and form a dancing circle
To avoid the threat of men
Who are too old but fear the cold
Of another night in an empty hotel
And these girls---
They smell of fresh smoke
And play show and tell with their long hair
It isn’t fair
One man says to the other

So it’s another night with nothing to show
And no stories to tell
But that’s the way it is
Another night in a smoke-filled room


“After Hours”

The men are scratching their faces
‘Cause they haven’t shaved in a week
The women are reapplying their lipstick
Still believing they could go home
With an army cadet
These are memories not worth keeping
These are lost hours before we sleep
Past the rising of the sun
Under thin blankets
In bad apartments
Just off Main Street
Where we carefully lift our feet over passed-out drug addicts
With needles still stuck in their blue arms
And occasionally we’re woken by the siren of an ambulance
When someone bothers to call in a crime

We sit in high wooden stools
And rest our heavy heads
On cracked hands with chewed nails
On the bar overlooking the wet streets
That reflect the Chinatown neon
No one has a quarter for the jukebox
That would be too loud and rude anyway
So we listen to Billie Holiday croon from bad speakers
That add to the ambience of the mood
The women in hot pink pants
With expensive silk undies
Have nestled themselves into arms
Of men who have no name
And the drifters have robbed the cigarette ends
From café ashtrays
And all that’s left is bad poetry
And those on their way home in Salvation Army shoes
You find a reason to leave when you can hold it no longer
And the bathroom is closed ‘cause someone overdosed
And the cops are late
So you find a park where college kids
Have passed out next to flowers
Like lotus-eaters
And you’re relieved until the next hour
Where a plugged shower drain and brown water
Wait for your return