& immortal diamonds will soon be yours.
GRACE
Let go & let God is my guard dog Beware
the ragged shithole hordes & bless
my chrome moly Bushmaster .223 rest
your asses nowhere near my rod & staff
I raise my beacon-hand &
torch anyone who doesn’t believe Jesus
was calved from a virgin & then ascended
to his penthouse & will raptor down
to smite Jews abortionists niggers
Muslims fags Obama the AntiChrist SATAN
WAS THE FIRST TO DEMAND EQUAL RIGHTS
outside the Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle
while a boy puts his tongue in another boy’s mouth
& they lie down together shy & barely breathing
HIGH DESERT, NEW MEXICO
Temple of the rattlesnake’s religion.
Deluge and heat-surge. Crèche of the atom’s
rupture. Night blackens like a violin
and bright flour falls from the kitchens of heaven.
This is where the seams begin to loosen,
where you can walk for miles in any direction—
rabbit, lizard, raven, insect drone—
and almost forget the shame of being human.
Smoke tree. Sage. Not everything is broken.
Horses appear at this remote cabin
to stand outside and wait for you to come
with a single apple. Abandon
your despair, you who enter here forsaken.
The wind is saying something. Listen.
SIGNS
This morning the East River Ferry is just a boat pulling up to the ugly little park in Williamsburg
& Manhattan isn’t the underworld projecting its eternal office buildings into those clouds
The seagull landing on my balcony isn’t an image of transcendence or being destroyed by love
There isn’t any meaning in things
There probably aren’t even any things
which is hard to think about & this morning I don’t want to think about anything
but I do, I think about . . . things
as each special, unique individual in the long line below my window steps onto the ferry
as rain slips down not representing the Many cleaved from the One & black umbrellas unfold
I think about the giant wax man in the museum with three wicks in his head slowly burning
& the hollow as his face starts to melt from the inside
& the heartsick woman who jumped from the bridge, hauled up & covered with a tarp on the dock
I’m sick of death & sick to death of romantic love but I still want to live
if only to rearrange the base metals of my depression
like canned lima beans on a mid-century modern dinner plate
My last love had beautiful green eyes
Eyes like two caged parrots refusing to say anything
Eyes like two rivers filling with toxic runoff
Maybe later today the sun will come out & smile like a kind nanny
but it won’t be a kind nanny, or even a mean nanny, shaking me hard
One day it will just cool, like . . . a star
When the clock says 11:11 it doesn’t mean
the design of things has risen to the surface & been made manifest
It means I’m still here hours later watching the boats dock & then leave without me
It means the people who commuted across the river to work on Wall Street
are still there, their eyes like suitcases of small, unmarked bills
& everything is going to change for the worse
THE EARTH IS ABOUT USED UP
like a sodden tampon & no place to throw it away
like an armpit-yellowed vintage blouse with see-through pearl bubble sleeves
like a tissue travel pack in a foreign bathroom & you have to squat over a hole in the floor
The earth is about used up, is the point I’m trying to drunkenly steer through the potholed streets
into the suburban garage of your ears
though you probably already know what’s up with the earth, but I am telling you because
because because because because because
The earth is about used up
like the preserved atrophied brain of a retired NFL defensive lineman leaking cryoprotectant
like the tender ass of the cow & the large heart of the racehorse
like a wind-up ladybug, ladybug
crawling in decelerating circles on LuxTouch marble tiles inlaid with precious stones
Even the ocean is gasping for air
while someone smokes a cigarette through their throat-hole
& sodas go flat in the heat
& a stack of National Geographics bloats in a rained-on cardboard box in a fallen shed
some animal dragged itself into to shit away its life
I’m standing on that box with my teeny megaphone, bringing you the news you know
wildly virtue signaling waving my mortal handkerchief dropping it at your feet
where it burns it burns here I don’t want it you take it please you take it
IN BED
The world is like an ugly person you’re supposed to love for their inner beauty
but some people are just ugly—if you poke them with a short needle
you find badly lit rooms of cheap wall-to-wall carpet
& metal shelves of racially insensitive trinkets
so it’s often better to avoid them completely
& mind your own business . . . in bed
Today is a good day to get things done . . . in bed
An atmospheric river has closed the zoo, the elephants are trudging through the mud
Trees are falling over like myotonic goats & not getting up again
At the bottom of the river you’re in a cozy submarine . . .
Cats asleep on either side of you . . .
as you think about Colette, who spent her last years in her apartment in the Palais-Royal . . .
with her phone & books & papers
Time wrote that her novels were about “quietly desperate women in love & in bed”
but that’s all the women I know except for the ones
whose beds are shallow graves
Sometimes it’s fun when in love to grow loudly desperate . . .
and write about it . . .
especially when your lover has left you alone . . .
to be cradled by your Microbead Boyfriend Pillow in its striking azure T-shirt
There are so many things you can accomplish, at home . . .
You can meet all sorts of lovely people . . .
You can fake an orgasm to hurry things along . . .
because you would rather be out having brunch with bottomless mimosas
or binge-watching other people having sex
With a man or just some sperm & the right equipment you can get a baby
& then bring it in bed to sleep with you
until it grows up and leaves you alone . . .
But beds are not just for sex or procreation
or sleep, or sleeplessness smoldering
