//The Pariah and The Parasol//

//The Pariah and The Parasol//

I’d rather speak without sugar on my lips
but again and again

Life is played precisely like bingo
Scott-free,
like a sin begot.

Sometimes, it drinks to spring
under a green parasol,
and leers at the servitrisse
…like a pariah,
…stinking of perfume.
How meaningless the mist is
In the face of life’s only truth
Firmly,
tucked away
in the darkness.

In little and in large,
Now you see him

Left standing
in the sun
and
silence

Love and destruction, life’s dear tax:
Ringing
((i mpl ac abl e )),
implicit
outside his breast
gleaming scarlet
without tongue
without lung
Shame is shone As
Life and Death
as life’s only truth, going together hand in hand.

The spacing is quite strange and there's supposed to be an effect at the end in which the lines can be lined up in such a way that it's read in two complimentary ways.

Ringmaster

I am the millionare
I am the maker of explosives
I am the monster
the ringmaster who calls
cleft lip and bloody teeth
to frighten mothers
into one more child
with husbands
who take no interest
in the twirling circus.
I inflict the locked door
and neighborhood watch
I steal into children’s lives
and force them back inside
from a day at play.
I force the sun to speed
and end all days early,
all games unfinished.
With me, no more.


Sorry I haven't posted in awhile-my computer's hard drive went kablooie, so I lost virtually all of my work from the last 4 years...this is something new, written this summer. Hope you enjoyed it.

July 1

So this is pilgrimage. A can of coke.
Some crisps. Cigarette butts. the smell of fried
Chicken. The sun behind a cloud. The light
Turns red. I cross. A girl my age touches
Her face and looks away. An older man
Kisses his girlfriend while she's on the phone.
The brick is black. Alone. Guitar. The sun
Blinks down. It's afternoon. A father has
No patience. For a moment there's a man
With coffee contemplating sitting down.
He looks at me. A smile. He walks on.
A language I don't speak. The sun again.
Unless I raise my head I can't be seen.
A woman leaves the city council library.
Tourettes. She shakes her head. Again. She takes
The corner. Ducks into a run. The wind
Blows trash and leaves. A car horn blows. I look.

June 19

Earth fills her lap with pleasure and yearning;
I'm above them both,
Staring into world's end.
There is no smell here, no sound,
The taste only of teeth,
Two-day-old coffee burn.

The orphan ascends again:
The crown of stone bears up –
Each step reveals another half-mile,
It seems – fighting the clouds, glorious
And terrible, borne on the wind,
Which enfold and blur me;
Rough turning hands to face the descent, to tell me
Here is a temporary heaven.

Mist lingers behind the gale
To hold me in her long arms;
She chills me,
Evaporates on the backs of my hands –
Now she's in my capillaries,
Tracing her way back to the source.

I won't say I love her,
But I keep her in my heart,
Which is how love works anyway
The way I learned it.

It's not in my mouth,
The tips of my fingers,
But the occasional heartbeat –
Once every couple hundred, I guess –
That takes the taste from my tongue
Twice as well as any cup of coffee.