"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Nasrudin comes to a new town
and he goes to a store
and he asks the owner:
How’s business, Sir?

Business is good, replies the store-owner

Oh, then, can I borrow ten dollars?
asks Nasrudin

I hardly know you, says the store-owner
I can’t lend you any money

Oh, how strange, says Nasrudin
*In my town they won’t lend me any money
because they say, they know me too well -
and here you won’t lend me any money
because you don’t know me!
It’s a strange world we live in.

these things are best written about later,
when you could be anyone, and I can lie
(as heartsick yet composed narrator)
about small things, like *'I really tried.'

On the seventh day I met the devil
All alone on your bedside table
Without his flames and yellow tape
I hardly recognized him

Dressed in his casual whites
He just looked lonely
So I simply had to touch it.
And I said, "You sure make a big deal out of being bad"

He had a gun in his right hand
It was laughing
When I asked what was so funny
He told me it wouldn't hurt

Curiosity killed the cat,
and perhaps shot a beautiful water-colored hole through my brain.

He said, "Dip your toes in. Test the waters
See if they're as hot as they say"
So I jumped on in, headfirst
To discover the waters were ice cold.

Caution, lost in the motion,
The tender lapse of green sea waves
The scent that has become you,
Sweet, sweet summer rain.

Like magnets, the polar pull, subsequent and building
The silent seize of your stomach muscles
Oh honeycomb.
Wrapped in cellophane, and the fleece in our ears

Your chin, the small hollow in which rests my head,
The cradle of your Adam's apple.
For hours I studied the color transmit in the darks of your eyes,
Of subtle change and shade

The soft, downy wool of your legs,
Warm blankets rescued from the creaking loft.
And your slow, sleeping breaths, of wind whistling through wheat fields
Shared dreams of barefoot gardens, sweet peppers in springtime

The gentle obstinacy of your fingers,
Extended forward in the thaw of shallow slumber.
The difference between oak and pine,
This nest you constructed, we lay in.

Nestled underneath the galaxy you installed, pin by pin.