You Were Garbage

Don't sit there telling me you understand.
You don't. You don't know anything. You're dirt.
I wonder why you figure that your shirt
Is filled with human tissue. It's just sand.
I think you stink. You drink, you sink. I planned
To tell you yesterday, but I was hurt
And you were garbage. I've become alert
To hot, cold, spice, and flavour. You are bland.

I'm such a lovely person, pleasant, sweet,
So full of love, with such a tender heart.
My generosity is just the start:
My personality remains replete
With kindness for the world, here at my feet.
You are a seeping drain. You are a fart.

Terrifying Sonnets

Unspool your unexamined memories,
Rewriting history with every turn,
Embroidering the truth, gazing astern
To watch the past fade, through the old, dry trees.
Emerging now, at last, from the deep freeze,
You want an audience to watch you burn,
Explode with longing, cry out, move on, yearn,
Write terrifying sonnets, too, like these.

Remember me? I taught you how to write
Without the imagery that others claimed
Your poems needed. I said they were maimed
By such distractions: clear ideas might
Stand best alone, without the sea, the light,
The spirit animals. They were ashamed.

Start Over

I claimed that I have no regard for you,
And, though there are some inborn qualities
I did admire as I was gnawing cheese
From your mousetrap, what I have claimed was true:
I think you're sausage meat, a stinking stew
Of spice and aging sinews, built to please
An untrained palate's untold miseries.
So start again, my angel, start anew.

When I was starting over, I was weak
And empty, thinking I was really strong,
As wrong as ever someone could be wrong.
I wondered when life ever looked so bleak,
But — kiss my ass and turn the other cheek —
There are no clubs to which we both belong.

His Very Soul

"Don't be an idiot," I told my friend
As he was making faces at the screen.
"You wonder where he came from, where he's been,
And how much money those producers spend
To find a chump like that. I won't pretend
I understand," he said. "I see the sheen
On his clear forehead," I admit, "between
Odd hair and half-crossed eyes, a dreadful blend."

"I hate the way he looks, the way he sounds,
The way his nose and shoulder bones protrude,
The sort of blank air his remarks exude,
His very soul," my friend exclaimed. Great mounds
Of smoke came from his head. "His fame redounds
To outer space," I told him. "Don't be rude."

Unintended

I lift my head to see your lovely face,
As beautiful as morning dew on roses,
And wonder if an unintended grace
Has found us suddenly, but that door closes.
I see myself reflected in your eyes,
And hope this is the vision of a lover,
With golden rings and honeyed lullabies
Soothing our nerves, but now we're taking cover.
I dreamt that your existence came to pass
With chimes of glorious, sweet paeans to passion,
To honour, certainty, and love. The brass
Announces how you've loved, after your fashion.
I've hollowed out my heart; with every hour
The sweet taste of our lovemaking grows sour.

Burning

I ache for just a flake of your concern,
Uncertain of unstoppable events
That crowd the calendar. If time relents,
Even for one short moment, and we turn
To find a fox concealed, fire in the fern,
The queen and her pool boy under the tents,
And consternation on the continents
Nearest the sun, what burnished swords will burn?

You say the swords will melt? No, heightened heat
Will chase the chased steel for eternity
Into oblivion, obligingly,
From this our moral universe of meat
Into a dream of nothing, drive a street
To nowhere. Know my new identity.

Magic Beets

You spent your money on the magic beets,
No beans being on offer. They looked great,
So why not plant them by the eastern gate
Next to the lettuce? There were deli meats,
Potato salad, cole slaw, sticky sweets,
And dreams of borscht. We set the orange crate
Next to the picnic table, and we ate,
Thinking of magic in the unpaved streets.

Did Jack the Giant-Killer pass this way,
Distributing that nouveau-riche largesse
And preening in his new-bought fancy dress?
Don't tell him you have magic beets. Just say,
"Thanks for the dough, Jack!" Courtesy will pay;
Let us not live our lives in bitterness.

Clam

Depressed once, now I'm happy as a clam,
A throbbing mass of bubbling delight
As pure as sunshine is, and twice as bright.
Once dry, I have indulged in a wee dram,
I've huffed a spot of glue and smoked a gram
Or two of fine sludge, and engaged the might
Of other stimulants. I feel just right,
Exploring what I think and who I am.

I am my introspective intellect,
My deepest true emotions. Is my soul
A topless tower, or a seamless whole
That sings where universes intersect?
When E. M. Forster wrote, "Only connect,"
Did he mean this? Oh, man, I'm on a roll!

Enchantment

"Here endeth the enchanted woods," he wrote,
"Where princes walked with faeries, soldiers vied,
Where fearsome wizards magicked, damsels sighed,
And brave knights met with dragons, whom they smote
To weave their scales into a shining coat
That cried their heroism far and wide."
I tried to weave and smite, sometimes I cried,
But mostly I looked for an antidote.

Here is the sound of words, the easy speech
Of everyday impressions and desires,
The sweet smile, the illuminating fires
On moonless nights. I want a tongue to teach
A true enchantment, our own words to reach
All ears, without favour and without wires.

You Know This

You think you know this: All white people are
Right-handed, and diseased. A rabbit's eye
Gleams harshly when three lovers say good-bye.
If there are seven moonbeams in a jar
We'll meet with pirates in a Stockholm bar.
A sharp retort will make the ladies sigh,
No man has elbow pads, and pigs will fly
When some child wishes on a shooting star.

The summer grass is orange. "Orange" rhymes
With jodhpurs. Jodhpurs make the roses bloom.
Glass stinks. The question about "who" and "whom"
Concerns no human being. There are crimes
That benefit Venusian goats, sometimes.
The horse is never worthy of his groom.