Most of my life
these days,
like my poetry, has flown
off the margins of my pAge....
When I was eighteen, at the beach,
in Pensacola, Fla., on "liberty"
from the Navy on weekends,
there was an older man, who
for what ever reasons of his own,
would bring a portable phonograph
& set up under a palm-thatched
—were
they Tikis?—no
matter—
& hordes of eighteen year olds,
boys & girls, gathered to dance
on the sand, meet each other,
hold hands, drink, whatever.
He used to read our palms—
our hands, in his dried palms,
under the dried palm leaves,
& he'd talk to us, friendly—
& he asked me how long I expected
to live, or told me from my palm.
"Ninety-two!," I said.... & now,
in 1992, at 65, sick, half blind,
I wonder—did
I mean 92 years?
Or 1992?
The answer has flown off
the edge, the margin of my page.
Half-blindly, I call upon some
second sight, trying to read,
with both real & psychic magnifier,
through problems & pains, to see....
(October 5, 1992)
To His Coy
Mistress
Now you're coming
off pretty strong,
I mean, I don't exactly admire
the way you part your smiles
and frowns, and the flash
of your past as you eye me, baby,
is too much, something else.
If you want to walk down my street
you'll have to let me hold
your hand and walk by my side,
like, I don't dig being shadowed
anymore than chasing high-haired
turn-ons down fast black-stockinged streets—-
hollow concrete box dark
DOWN
under weight of chain
CAST
tied crucified unknown
forgotten hates running
g
escape hill dark hate
l
out to night sin lack
o
hollow still thigh dry
o
ever to go alone sigh
m
grey stone shadow fall
y
hard grain grit break
bleak tears of blindeyes
uneven torso stump stick
flail whip sore ache
light burst guiltless
torture strip flesh shred
...
man love
woman soft
never?
