Two Poems

Contra Marilynn: An Exorcism

I don't feel like forty

It cannot be

In me you may behold that time of year when the icy claws strike back, and rend the shroud that has been placed by unloving hands over my still palpating flesh.

The other day I said something to someone that made little sense, as usual

The other day I revealed something of myself that made no sense (to me)

This day I woke up, reveling in the absurd notion that I can embrace life in the iconic form of my ideal: flesh encapsulating Beauty.

I feel like a child, needy and silly and full of shit.

I feel like a young man, horny as hell.

I feel like an ecclesiastic, prepping souls for hell.

I DO NOT feel like forty.

If you say so, darling ... if you care to speak ... I'll shatter your tongue with forced fingers rude ...

Yes, logos does not contain an omega: I mispronounced it. But you ... you made an end worthy of a fiend. And I begin again, with an angel.

To One Who Comes After, and Ever Before

Certain songs make us feel like there should be no other songs, as though all other attempts are empty, annoying, and unfruitful. Springsteen's "Thunder Road" obliterates all other songs, at least while it is playing.

There is a woman who makes me feel like there is no other. Her name is not Lisa, nor Debbie, nor Barbara ... nor, even, Marilynn (the sacred one) ... Her name is that of a month, the cruelest, and I love her. No trope to be deciphered. A time and a place.

A romance of crippled souls? No. A new morning, unlike any other. She is a Grace, a Muse, and a problematical little entity that prospers as she inspires. I love her.

A silly man am I. She provides an antidote. But there is a little spot in Kennedy Park, a spot beneath a tree, a spot where I gave it all up ... a spot where I envisaged some grand work ... I asked her for an opinion, and like a piercing truth she stood ... Too pretty for words. I don't like beauty, but I love pretty. I love the work of an hour, when the gods laughed at our little gambit.