You can quote freely …
you can quote freely dear
it resolves nothing
that other bete noir
where does it spend
its waiting days
to spring in an unguarded moment
my dream’s recurrent shark
spine etched like fetish
between the sheets
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Why you wonder …
why you wonder
awarding yourself the order of the garter
why does the Parisian mouth
spell constant no
dependable never
and why
when the Parisian eye
isn’t heavylidded with disinterest
it has that ticlike tendency
to wink
a conjob’s reliance
on the weakness of others
for sad little gangraped truth
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Stuffed full …
stuffed full of words
so full of hatred
for words
so full of indifference
to my hatred of words
words that I could say
were shit and yet
repeat
like the harsh backward whine
of a damaged rotary
collector of dreams
of hair
from the heads
of dead girls
a formula
a pattern
a structure
a net
all in ruins
only to leave and then come back
only once
with no desire for restoration
to be virgin again
most monstrous of all
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Racine dreams despair …
Racine dreams despair
in the smoking jacket
he borrows for occasions
when glum is
the order of the day
admitting language
is one cul de sac
down which even the
reddest of flags
the blackest of banners
must dutifully parade
bringing to the struggle
nothing so humble
as a blush
the typewriter ribbons
declare themselves
a breakaway republic
of plagiary
not much better
than jargon and
onion skin
touchy and snarly
in their double meanings
and clogshod awkward
in their hospital robes
translated from sick
to ill by
Bohemia’s leechcraft
out of a French
long famous
for its make-it-up-as-you-go
profundity
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Private tutorings …
private tutorings of a sort
that might have led
to modest murder
in a place less
addicted to euphemism
and worrying of
the evidence
till all was well
I learned to be
this costive
in the alcoves
of the witch-haunted library
riddling the words
by a compulsive
fiddling
with their order
error to orchard
to ardent to enter
in ‘eric fine’
in nest
in starve
in vengeance
a Celtic aberration and
‘eric fine’ means
you killed your brother
but all these i’s
are too
French
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Grammar is an arbitrary tyranny …
grammar is an arbitrary tyranny
which the armchair anarchist
limply resents
bitten fingernails
jittery as caffeine
chiffer above the keys
seeing no way
to continue his manifesto
of personal liberation
tonight and tomorrow
tonight or tomorrow
all nouns will shush
their bedmates
proper or not
and very much unlike
the one who
married him
or described herself
to bright-eyed others
as the fiancee
they’d never heard of
yet I can’t quite
bring myself
to surrender
I sneak words like cigarettes
burning my fingers
to extract
the smoke of
meaningful halos
to ember my sleeves
with precise ash
I can hardly claim
some innocence
to my motives
hands full of splinters
I would not
take advantage
only show me
the flames of temptation
see if what you’ve said
might not be measurable
might not stand up
in light
and spit
with the best of them