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What's New
"My father had little use for poems, less use [1] My father died alone, shot so full of morphine he couldn't care his wife had left his options to the docs & I, home on holiday, went to work dismantling a life file case by dresser drawer until all that remained was the gavel from his lodge & his ashes which I declined to scatter... & when the crematorium called & inquired, 'What's to be done with the box?' I asked it be dropped at sea, you know, tossed from a plane or however it's done & when they seemed perturbed I'd not take charge I lied a bit & said, "It's what he'd expect." [2] Today, when I pass a neatly ordered field of corn or beans or tomatoes, there's usually a man behind a plow or hoe or walking down the rows & stooping to pick something, put it to his mouth & taste its flesh to know how it's going & how it's going to be in the end when he'll finish what he started. Marrakech 1] The Souks: day The boy with fire in his eye & the quick hands
of a thief shuttles us beyond the chickens & lame donkeys to see how
wood is seduced copper is twisted & bent & scored & etched & polished & the tattooed hands of women & roasted dates which hum against the gums & snakes which bite & monkeys & Iguanas which do not...& mint tea & honey cakes & a single carpet sixty feet across & deep in the interior on a darkened street we're led to the peddler of bones who dances his fingers across a board shuttling skulls & knuckles & toes down the alleys of my life which throb & narrow & glow... 2] The Souks: night Men. & the aroma of roasting meat & fish fried crisp & boiling pots of broth & cous-cous piled high with diced tomatoes & roasted eggplant & chicken & almonds & onions & Men. Eager & jostling & eyeing the foreign women who've come to see & the air thickens & the air stiffens & a dozen lanterns create pockets of light where young
boys box for money & musicians & singers & some stop for a
meal & some for a sweet & the menu is the same & the menu
is different & the dark streets where cars & carts converge & you cannot breathe & cannot remove your mask but dance to the drum with your caftan stained & beard askew & a thin chain that glistens on your neck &... Men... Rock Hearing her story jars memory back to those jagged nights waiting for the driver to run his game pacing half-pumped half-charged a delirious dance of lines & spoons heart-throbbing vein-popping rituals gone bad. In my dream she disappears upstairs with him while I'm driving in the rain his two dogs panting after the car. I see them in the window he's laughing his tongue in her ear her hand down his pants. In the next frame, beside an eclipsed moon, a troupe of Rumanian dancers skim the razor tumbling through hoops-on-fire, smoke & shattered glass, balancing ballet with terror. There are dogs barking & orange blossoms. Only after the unmistakable screech of rubber churning on asphalt brings me back can I be sure I'm alone. Chasing shadows down alleys will toughen my resolve. Will anyone repair the lights? Whose mistake was it anyway? Will you be sure to write? I've only $40.00 left & a sink full of dirty silver. Can't you see the walls are closing in? Watch out! We're not alone...are we? In the penultimate frame, a magician in a black greatcoat wills a snake to slither from the mouth of his young assistant. She has green eyes & flicks her spirited tongue in my direction. The light is still lit & I can see her. She's on top now & sucking his cock while he deftly peels a pear letting its amber skin fall in tight coils on her bobbing hair. A queen bee settles in the palm of my hand driving her spike to muscle. Will dinner be late? Who's left to take stock? Will there be enough time to say good-bye? In the last frame, a tanker steals from the dock & is soon out of sight. If I listen closely, I can still hear the faint beat of cormorants & gulls trailing in the fog.
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