Explanation #2

I wrote this poem in the dark
I wrote this poem in urine
I wrote this poem while being chased by nudists
I wrote this poem in a Confessional
Marilyn Hacker told me not to write this poem
I tried writing this poem in Iambic Pentameter
I wrote this poem because I was aroused
I wrote this poem after imagining myself in the shower
I wrote this poem and then woke up in the shower
I wrote this poem after listening to a recording of myself crying
I wrote this poem after realizing that it wasn’t me crying
I wrote this poem in my sleep
I wrote this poem because I don’t sleep
I wrote this poem after drinking too much antiseptic
I wrote this poem because I’m impotent
I wrote this poem in the womb
I am repentant for impregnating this paper with my poem
I refuse to acknowledge this poem
I originally wrote this poem in French forgetting that I don’t know French
I wrote this poem after yelling at a homeless person
I wrote this poem after yelling at God
I wrote this poem because my mother told me to stop talking so much
I wrote this poem after losing my train of thought at a metro station
I have no idea why I’m writing this poem
I should have stopped writing this poem years ago
I wrote this poem after hearing strange noises from my brother’s room
I wrote this poem because I’m an only child
I wrote this poem as a means to get even with my poetry
I wrote this poem in order to map out my body’s twists and turns
I wrote this poem in case there is a Communist uprising
I wrote this poem after Senator Joseph McCarthy interrogated me for being a homosexual and a Communist.
I wrote this poem after ending my affair with JFK
I wrote this poem in a dress
I wrote this poem by mistake
I wrote this poem while making mistakes in a dress
I wrote this poem with icing on my chest
Why would you assume that I wrote this poem?
I wrote this poem after 40 days and nights in a dumpster
I wrote this poem shortly after my testicles dropped
I found this poem in a test tube
This poem wrote itself
I broke a car window with this poem
I made my father cry with this poem

A Breath Is Taken; But Not a Sweet One

The polar regions of the Sahara continue ellipses on mountaintops. Snow capped syringe tips point at the uterus in my incubation chamber. A bomb shelter away from a good pregnancy metaphor. Never understood the use of pronouns. “In my day, the clitoris of a pear was a mere legend.”

Weekend compasses dare to fashion waves with taken tonsils and introverted mannequins. Random accounts of history. Accounted accents. Awkward moments. Momento. Mentos. Me.
“She peeled back my face with tweezers, opened my sinus cavity with butterflies, and breathed silence into my larynx.”

Hollow cult-cut turkey breasts. Streetsweeping genres. Androgenized antidotal evidence. Eyes tell me otherwise. “Hopefully this is the last time you talk of hearts.”

Cardiograms and coloring (inside the lines) in three acts. Paintings in C minor. Minor lacerations to the bedposts. An ultrasound speaks of nothing but compound words. A breath is taken, but not a sweet one. “Holy N+7 Batman!”

Earl Grey mistreats his wife with diamonds and bergamot. Vetiver swamps and cardamom crimes. Cauliflower bouquets. Tumbleweed in a salad served in cases of sublimation.
“Just in case, here’s a notebook and a pen so the neighbors don’t hear you finding yourself in mirrors.”

I caught you sleeping with magic. There are no rules in romance novels. Your body was woven in syntax theory and contorted in subversion. The rhythms of your nostrils flaring in and out like my interest in the rhythms of your flaring nostrils. “Anthropomorphism is not the same as anthropophagi, but they are equidistant.”

The Many Faces of Pablo Picasso

A 1950s switchboard, you say? Too wordy for wires but plugs seem to stifle my meniscus and understatements. I am what my mother made me: a scaled person.

You found me wishing on sheared grass. A lawnmower chops and mauls
the parsley floor. Green blades smelling of spring inch closer to lop off my ears:
an impaled person.

Whimpers attract bears, so I'll cover myself with bees to attract the queen.

My stubbed-toe screams muffled by a postage stamp: "Lost-in-the-mail" person.

Venus descends with shining breasts, capturing the bees’ attention, then leaves.

I make sketches with an hourglass but later burn them in a Prius: an unveiled person.

Fireflies struck down by stars, eulogies written with chainsaws, and books that read like tanning beds. 

Too attached to those books; skin boiled, and blind: a brailed person. 

I’m a can of tuna and three shotgun shells away from Yahtzee. This is the end 

of a line etch-and-sketched into oblivion or a dry-erase board thin frail person. 

I’ve seen myself enough times in others to know that I’m a picture perfect visage 

of cubism and Marilyn Monroe. You stroll along silk entrails: my failed person.

I never had you; therefore, I never lost you

When contemplating the existence of losing myself, I try to follow the rumble of elephants chasing the tails of constellations and the moon’s milky nightgown, but all I find are spacecrafts in parking lots and discrepancies in manifestos. A “lost in the fields of barley” Scotsman calls out Lucifer (in German) for cheating at a game with no rules, while empty milk bottles deploy tendrils to suck up souls smelling of shit-stained suppositories. Ghosts leave crackling wrappers stray on turf foreign to sweetness and my soul, oh my soul, is a toothpick prick away from calling out for help, bingo, or amniotic fluid from an I.V. A derelict at a gas station swallows salivated nonsense from the foreign diplomat from Mars, while a trashcan goes over inventory for the night before finally going nowhere. A streetlight loses track of time after contemplating what Sunday did to deserve Church Sermons. Undead dream clouds float over cemetery fields before being pimple-popped by the scythe of a four-year old feeding on the corpses of princes past. Syrup drips from palm trees running gaily in fields of phallic objects until clouds decide to make it awkward. Rivers flow west where winter winds its way through tunnels of smoke-pocked timetables and schedules depicting the end of beginnings and the middle of ends. An old man in Delaware declares that hemp is hostile and that Elvis is himself an impersonator. I never liked that old man, especially after he enslaved cyclones with a smirk and stripped silhouettes of their wetness leaving them lamp-shaded and well rounded. As for me, I grew up three years younger, composed something of a symphony in the name of science, and still susceptible to someone saying, “I never had you; therefore, I never lost you.”

John and Diane Drink Coca-Cola in California and Make Love On the Banks of a River Grande (or A Teenaged Girl Finds Adventure and Love in the Son of Satan)

[Time fled years ago. Wind is blowing. That’s all you need to know]

Diane runs along the coast searching for cracked seashells. She gets tired and lies down in a puddle.

Leopold is blind but runs well enough. No one realizes he is a cat until it is too late.

John on the other hand is a strong name and therefore is real enough to be more than a marshmallow, but less than a giant. He is just short of 5’11 and strange; more so than gelatin.

John: This breeze is awfully pretentious.

Diane: {In an English accent (she’s from West Virginia), but sensitively serious} Indeed. Very much so.

John: {Surprised agony} Sorry, I was talking to the ocean.

Diane: {Equally surprised} Why would you talk to the ocean? That sure is dumb. What are ya? A dumby?

John: John is perturbed that this blond chestnut called his mother dumb.

Diane: What now? {Thinking that she has the ability to speak below a whisper} THIS FELLA HAS A SCREW LOOSE I RECKON. {The English accent returns after conceding that he will be sun burned regardless} My vernacular is quite strange. I find it almost comical. {She giggles, causing her nose to wiggle. She snorts unintentionally, resorting to more giggles.}

John continues to stare at the waves. I don’t know why, but the sun does the man good. His hair captures the UV rays like a pool, adding a shiny reflection of gold with a tint of copper. He may be a red head.

John takes Diane’s hand, while nodding his head.

John: Yes, this must be how the world ends. (He kisses her tenderly and melancholically. The English accent is touched.)

Diane: What in the world? (Of course, they are kissing, she as much so as he is, but still, the girl can dream). girgle girgle girgle.

John’s eyes open mid-kiss in search of plankton. His nose wants to smell his new catch. His skin is confused as to why John merely applied fish oil instead of SPF. His Ray-Bans are on the beach depressed and finding little hope in the ethical treatment of dolphins. John’s toes though, are warm enough in the sand, wiggling in bliss like hermit crabs.

“Oh” (or “Oww”) escapes miraculously from somewhere other than the girl’s mouth.

After what novelists would call, “The Kiss Grande” (which was a little much if I have to be honest. It was like watching a goldfish preparing to sneeze, and the other one looking like they were choking on a fork) plus ten years later, John and Diane are found by no one in particular rummaging in the Amazon. John now has a full-length beard (alas revealing that he is in fact a red-head). Diane after coming out of the local river, naked (locals consider the river holy, and therefore a sacrilege to swim in. They will declare war. John will win.) looks, and in fact is not a day older then when I first met her.

John: (Inhales deeply preparing for his lines. Diane does not realize that this is all just one giant joke) What a pretentious shade of green. (The beard falls off his face. He is again reinstated as beautiful.)

Diane: (Still naked) My dear, shut the hell up. We’re in a jungle.

John: I miss mother.

Diane: Oh Jésus Christo, not this again. (She expects John to chastise her like her mother used to after overhearing her speak Spanish).

John: John is silent and hungry (It is clear that John loves to speak in the third person. He goes off in search of caramel gardens and primate exotic dancers. He only finds a vegan meal consisting of horseradish and poi.) John is satisfied but not so thankful for this feast. (With annoying vigor)Blah blah blah CSPAN corpus erectus maximus blah rust textured sunsets, Yoko Ono, rose ripened lips, nape necked blouse, wet dewy navel, heavy breathing, heaving snot, moon-laced sun kisses, rainbow universes, spectral epiphanies, salmon skinned brush strokes, bird shit Sundays, bag pipe solos, ah-choo, amen to you, Tarturus, tarter sauce, tainted kiddy pools, wading in vomit, untampered beauty, you you you, and Diana! (Suddenly the horseradish sprouts into a fragrant grove of garlic, mana, and underarm sweat. The poi, sadly remains poi. After deeming his work, and the poi imperfect, John swings on a vine but does not have the upper body strength of Goliath or other Scriptures. He resorts to walking on water.)

Diane follows John undetected, fully knowing that he is off in search of the infamous chimp skin-bar. She starts to purr like a lawnmower. She finds it attractive. She finds her flame-haired lover, crosses herself like every good Christian girl should, and pounces on her prey.

John: {Quite sensibly and trapped} I love you.

Diane instantly orgasms. John does too but for other reasons. They both consider it a beautiful moment. John reconsiders “The Big Beautiful Joke” and begins to repent his chimpish ways. Diane draws a salivated cross on John’s forehead like a mother cleaning her child’s face. It is a touching moment.

Diane: In the name of the father; that’s God, the child; that’s Baby Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, we are now married.

John: I see.

Diane: Seeing is believing. Or is it ‘Believing is seeing?’

John: No matter, I’m pretty sure my father is the Devil. (John’s saliva cross begins to boil on his forehead. He seems to enjoy the burning.)

Diane: (The English accent takes off his cucumber slices from his eyes after tanning and comes to the rescue) It appears I’m in a little bit of a pickle.

John: (Strikes an intimidating pose, bears his fangs, and bites Diane’s neck. She seems to relish the pain. The ghostly “Oh” (or “Oww”) reappears, but this time escaping from her mouth.) (Singing (but not well)):

I wish for a son to bear my crest,

and a blond lass with a hefty chest.

Her skin, as white as a peach tree flower,

 and to kiss me softly upon the hour.

A fire that burns behind her eyes,

and heat of passion between her thighs.

Silk that wraps around her skin,

and hips and arms that remain thin.

An agelessness that never tires,

a pout that forever lights my pyre.

If ever I find a lass as fine as this,

I shall seal her heart with a vampire’s kiss.

Now with a belly full of blood, John forgives his father for being Lucifer. There is a bright flash! I begin to paraphrase…

John wakes up 86 years old in a downtown flat in central London. His face is old. His hair stubbornly remains red. His figure has diminished. He is no longer beautiful. Diane wakes up, looking at her elderly lover with a smile. I don’t know what she sees in him. She picks up a Wedding candle and drives it through John’s mortal heart. He dies agonizingly…

John wakes up from his post-coitus nap terrified. The sun is up so he is naturally sparkling like a red red ruby. His hair is still stubbornly red. He wraps his strong, tanned arms around his would-be killer out of fear with a hint of affection. It is a tender moment. I begin to suspect that this is how love remains timeless. 

I wake up in a dumpster behind a Slaughter House

I smell the world for what it is

A seductive catalyst of “if”s and “oh”s and tremolos

Polka-dots and ginger cats

Diapers, gun metal, Tupperware

With a hint of spoiled produce and slime.

I yearn for perfumed gardens that reach their zenith in December

With high notes of zinfandel that insert my similes for me;

that capture my “ooh”s and “ahh”s and irrigate my urine for its zinc.

I see the world for what it is;

A wretched rodent that survives out of spite,

claiming beliefs that only hold true in moody metro

bathrooms where suction is God busily converting waste

to potpourri and light bulbs flicker for dramatic

reinforcement.

I yearn for warm shelters on cold nights in Autumn,

Where red transfers its glory from red pedals to leaves,

and that seasonal cinnamon that comes from crushed orange peals

and wood shavings that leave me feeling estranged from my moth-ridden musk.

I feel the world for what it is,

Two-pound porterhouse beef strips raw­­–

(that is not sexual)

A red coolness,

cold enough that you know something is wrong,

Wrong enough, so that eating it is a guilty pleasure,

A pleasure similar to masturbating after a funeral,

or stealing a kiss from a snake charmer,

And a watery wetness over
"Oh no" eyelids that forever brings
a blush to pale fingers.

But deep at its center, (the beef I mean),
there’s a hidden warmth wrapped in itself

that hints at a pulse somewhere. Somewhere.

I yearn for folklores that matrimonially join
the undead with werewolves

in midnight fields of sun-blazoned wheat,
golden corn husks, and petals of brass

with me in the center of the story (and field)
busily trying to create a snow-angel,

causing onlookers to say, “What an odd fellow flapping

his arms like a vulture in heat warding off hungry eyes.”

I would be the world’s greatest gastrophile
to taste the world’s true colors;

the river reds, the breath of blue,
the spice of yellow,
and the youth in green and pink (but not together).

But my palate is gray

and my mind is full on

brown.

I yearn for a Shakespearean ending in which
the young and fair never die,

and I always have a rope of roses
wrapped tightly around a deeply-rooted

banyan tree,

so that when I slip,

I do not

fall.

I hear the world’s slithering silk-lined sestinas
hissing hymns of halcyon cloves,

but between each perfumed line,

acid reveals the forgotten mantra,

“No that is not what I mean. That is not what I mean at all.”

I yearn for silence to echo my sentiments.

After Dinner, I Look Up At the Stars Longing For

Did my face please you, Brie
and leave a strong impression?

Were my features not grand in scale,
and did you not find warmth in my expression?

Was I too cold and sullen?
Was my Cain’s curse exposed?

Were you taken aback from my tiny ears
and my nipple lobes?

Did you think of me
 as I so fondly thought of you?

And if so, then why did you not tear my lips
and with yours, suckle me dry of blue?

I love you Brie, I know I do;
In fact I’m almost sure.

I hope your teeth never dull,
And your memory remains blanketed in furs.