Untitled

My sleep    i tell     be still
    because it dream of thee
nervous as leonina melibe
    that slips from here to there
by no one shape possessed

o tell me    heart
    that be i sore or sad
more in head than in thee

though tis dream i dream
    dreamless addressing thee
thy potent afflatus
    as if some demented lodgment
penetrates my brain

yes even mottled vagary
    of fashion or motion
forgotten as soon as seen
    art thou in my subcranial
notices    albeit more unreal
    than illusive self i tend

oh yes    what you demand
    in my most demented dreams     i fend

oct, mmix

after reading Thomas Campion his verses
when ill and medicated, my awakening turn to pen

Dream

I come alone to this unwholesome spot
    shut off from the passersby
where the garbage sprawls over acres
    and I recognize my collected consciousness
site of every care and feeling I disinherited
    and the air smells like the entrails of a disembodied animal

now I know how my natural spring of joy went underground
    choked up and went underground
buried by this debris
    no wonder!
I realize my fear of discovery
    cost me more dearly than any of those paltry sins
I hid    alas!


mcmlxx__ (rev. mmviii)

Walking with Willie

Luv, at the time i was walking with Willie
we weren't mashing, nothing of the sort
he held my hand, turned and said
    "Doris, i want to court you"

what'll Dad do, i thought
get mad, tell him to get lost?
    "there's better than you in store for her"
he might smartly rhetorical
and Willie, what'll Willie retort
    bein' a cobbler's lad?

no, Willie's a billet do, a ticket of goods
    he's smashing!
he held my hand like a proper pal
    turned and proposed, just sesame beaucoup

luv, whatever Dad and Mam may purpose
i stood and gave him my heart, savoy fair
when you get a brave dare like that, take it
luv, i'm walking through life with Willie


mcmlxxxvi, rev. '99

What to a void

What o void calls me back to you
     except laziness and nostalgia
     on this chilly july morning
     when no sun is up
     and my sap runs low
I wish to be reborn
     delivered of your sybaritic influence

O for a mantic tangent
     a shot that clears this dread propinquity

What o void calls me back to your plump arms
     you escape-clause in my contract with mundane earth
Is it your offer of incomparable perfection
     blissful opulence of nought
     inhabiting a boundless bosom
     to suckle or nest on
     cleavage adorable

I thought i'd forsaken childish things
     this whirling back into dizzied emptiness
     and guilt-edged dreams
     almost beyond the reach of shame and hurt inconsolable
     as if thrall to the humours of that spume-begotten sea-witch, Aphrodite
     who surfs the bowling beach-waves
     with fractal joy
     spiralling into solipsism
     and faint death

I know why i return o void
     to lie me down
     and enter through the omphalic portal
     the hermetic vale
     forbidden to human consciousness else
     where i would tap
     the psychic impulse
     of the elemental womb

O black sinkhole uncharted
     what to avoid is you
     on your terms
     thou plausible one
     petulant when night is done
     so go    go    go
     before i succumb

     to dream
     is one thing asleep
     and awake another



mcmxcviii

Dream

Poems from the 1970s

last night

        i saw a

                         lonely road

                         it wound

                and wound

and as i wended

i found it

lying wounded

                beside a ditch

                         curled up like a

                                snake

                         biting its own

                tail

        and i know

i am

that lonely road

                oh god i’m sick

                        of gorging on myself

         such helplessness!


                                        dec 2nd mmi [1973?]