Fragment

Since I'm posting everything I've worked on since October out of guilt for not posting anything since then, I might as well add this to the mix.

[untitled]

Let him sleep.
You, lying next
to a breathing,
living thing.
Sweat confusion of
his body heat.

Stare at the clock.
Time is a mouth,
chewing everything
down to mere minutes.

Or take off your
glasses and close
your eyes until time
passing becomes a
feeling that sounds
like sighing.

Response Poem

So, yeah, we had to each pick a poet/poem and then write a poem to him/her/it. I chose John Wieners because he was a crazy homosexual.

The year of his death
after John Wieners

lives outside the
reach of
this afternoon. I wonder
how the dull light, piercing
as arrows has found
me today. Full of
mistakes. I mumble
my prayers. I keep
St. Sebastian in mind,
how the shafts
disrupt the stretch
marks on his
stomach. Those angry,
red fingers, like
ripples from a pebble
dropped into his
belly button wishing well.

Most in the pews act
like they are not clearly
aroused by their secrets.

To clear my
mind, I started
remembering the breath
of the children
of the future
and what it will
remind me of, the acidic
poisons in my night
sweat, and the confident sex
appeal of lying pilgrims.

New, Crazy, Written in Ten Minutes Poem

Rules That Let Me Kill My Father

My right ear scraped a buckle.
--Theodore Roethke

I woke up just as you were walking toward the door. When I said good morning, you told me to hurry up. I didn’t want you to be late, so I asked you to help me get dressed, to help me put on my pants. I held them up by the pockets as you needled the belt through the loops. Then you asked me why I had gotten out of bed, what the hell is the point. You raised your voice and pulled the belt tight. Too tight. I couldn’t breathe, only felt pain as you pulled tighter. My intestines fell out of my rectum and slowly slithered down both my legs—large on the right, small on the left. They soaked my socks. My stomach grew wings as it crawled out of my throat. It kissed both of your eyes before flying away, its esophagus swinging in the wind. You took out a handkerchief and wiped off your eyes. Then they were dry again.