I cut out the "Heart with Snowflake"
Myself but it is not mine, Forget
This bloody coat bloody shirt, I
Think it is the writing that makes
Me sick, The scores and scores of
Incidental music, this nosebleed all
Spring all wet, I'm positively angry
with the Impertinence of it! I'm
Sewing up the kinks in this film, I'm
Trying to! I'm trying to burn a light
Between, There's a light and I cable
my voice on it but it rips when I trace
Anything! WORKS ON PAPER, THE SHIP
OF DEATH "Oh build it!" Sings the 
Heart, "My coat would be so bloodied
I could wiggle out of my coat!"


                         – for John Wieners 

Leave the long fall between us (peak after peak)
Here were my paints and there were my powders
And then I was drunk and we lost each other
My shadow tumbled after
Soaking cinnamon leaves in the lake of the moon
The roll of the damned drum calls me to duty
The dice in the light of the lamp
I hear a stone gong
I lean full weight on my slender staff
Yellow leaves shaken and petals confused to my garden
The hard road is written to music
How lovely locks, in bright mirrors, in high chambers
The moon shows further a gold and silver terrace
The northern grass is blue as jade
(A dream) venting in the pit of heaven

 

Hung up on
my hearing
and deep in whose
playbook
one too many
nights and never
a black-out
Doing the best
I can, only a man
It hurts me too
Blues in the night
Verlaine Blues
sitting here thinking
a blues for Anne
(all nerves)
and mine
the most dirty
unhurried
afternoon jags
A freshly penned
lyric for sinking
to autumnal
atlantean shade
I wish us more luck
I wish my little
tiger lily sheltered
in a clear crystal
box (being carried)
Green pearl-handled
mallets edging
the annunciation
toward a new burn
The chamber of maiden
thought is metered
Big fields
villagers, stars
on the back-lot blues
it’s the smoke spot
I shade softest
a curve so tight
its really blind
the chamber gives
way to the word
in this case (mine)