Can I tell you how seriously I take this poem!
_
Could the sun be
just
a hole up there—
that if I could leap
would enter that breach of light
Someone!
Throw me a line!
Give me a reason
There’s never enough
in this life of breathing!
Someone!
Explain why dreams roll a soul
toward the cliffs of day
Wakes to ache
then stuffs its mouth
with necessary same
Inhale—
button shirt—brush hair
Exhale—
necessary glance in the mirror
(yes, still there)
A lifetime!
in a shallow instant’s stiff clear water
(Yeah— still there)
in endless caverns of tired eyes
above mouth still trying
to say SOMETHING!
from ever smaller eternities
in the glass-flat empty....
Please! Someone explain!
this draw of breath
one forcing itself upon another's
life
of beating —
Violence in my chest!
Why hearts don’t sleep—
and I wind up watching
again and again—till
I am the ******...
...Morning lies
in the mists of a humid *****
who moans and sweats
and boils her hips—
and I wind up watching!?
“Will someone please…!"
...and I wind up watching
bedspread, bed sore, death bed
till you’re breathing easy
when she sits and picks
her collapsed bouffant
damning the makeup
that got crushed in the sheets
…Morning
Lies--
with no expectancy
both tired of knowing...
...The Devil lost his balance
in my presence one night
...tired of knowing—
THE WILL!
THAT WILL!
...walk away
or continue to play
I could open this screen!
watch the world STEP BACK!
SLAP FLAT!
as trees and dwellings flush like quail
to prop their tottering panic
against the blue—
You—assume composure...
compose assumptions
Await my next—
Move like a spy
1990
Take careful note:
Why I don’t play chess or any other game
for that matter.
“...and when you're really out there
the windows all have opened onto nothing...
Death having long since-- left the scene.
When you get really out there
it's all--
and nothing…”