AFTER GILGAMESH

Man, plump yr. craw
& don’t think about the average ravens
          in the grave: they walk around
          on pin-like feet mired with suicide;
          they eat steel & shit steel
          & some of them were Kings, but who
          sings praises to them now? There
                    are few precious stones in Hell
                             only tektites & dried gall
So don’t embrace the dust
before you’ve yet begun
          to turn the Sempiternal Wheels with care,
                                                O Man:
It’s pleasant to vomit
          after tying one on.
The dead never do this.
It’s pleasant to have your kinks
          untwisted by a pretty one.
Do you think the dead do this?
          & How pleasant to rave
          at sunrise at
a lake full of bucking language
          your hands heavy as dull
ax-heads chopping thru the breeze,
          all cages emptied of ibis
& loon
          except for the Moon’s tiny
wickerwork of tin standing in the West,
          a riot of mite-infested parakeets
          cheeping in sync.
                             So make yr. woman jump for joy
          buy yr. child a not inexpensive toy
applaud a fire that burns itself to ash
          feed & spend & spawn
          without care
for the gods harbor no candied yams for the dead.
Though bees slobber rocky sockets full
of honey rich & black as Hell permits–
          All goes untasted there,
                             god/King ##

* * *

EVENING INTO NIGHT

Crows duel for leathery
droppings in the street;
gutter water freezes.
A neighbor’s music
–fine as a sparrow’s
skeleton–
rows above the roof tiles.

I dry my single cup and hang it on a nail.

The poultice moon draws
fever from the sky
as clocks slow
into midnight
and furnaces throb on
in rock-ribbed cellars.

I shut the happy book of lies, yawn.

The Great Ladder’s
rungs
once hinging heaven to earth
is now a scattering of feathers
on the ice. ##

* * *

MIRACLE

Clothes stink of oil. Wheels thrum
in cellars. You shift a gear; run in place
get your wage. This
is the first miserable miracle. Then

the girl rides your wrist. Drinks
from a mason jar. Straddles a hay furrow, laughing,
pissing, waving goodbye. This is the second
miserable miracle. Your paycheck

rusts like a blade in the sheath,
asbestos gloves clinch
on the floor. Work shoes
hold the impress of your feet, one steel toe
glints through leather, & your

new woman grows morose,
stands by herself in a halo
of b.o., face turned to a corner because no cash.

We know a face held too long in the hard mirror light
crusts over, begins to darken
like old meat in a pot--

& soon you see all the hard days
set end to end in the brick-lined
circle of the factory drive
where willow whips clack ceaselessly

& if you crouch low enough you see
smokestacks sprout from the lids of vaults;
hear a punch clock
click in the smothering dark--

this is the last miserable miracle. ##

* * *

POETFACE

Leaping now. Feral. PoetFace, aw-
fully empty in your arc of bone;
hands steady the loutish head
with digits fused to the jaw--

gusting: dropped in
deictic speech:
How d'ye know?
Optic? Haptic?
Mumble, but god made these

gifted
Kick-out legs. Kick out to
either side, punk. Leaps over less-risible
incarnations: variations of insect muzzles
torn from torsos
& abandoned in the smog.

Parts split open,
generously splayed for our
inspection, shows it male
& female. It takes to the air
as a frieze inscribed on crystal,
a Doric column kissed by
phantom bomb. Lessons
warm the lip
ready to unleash
altitude from twin hooks
when cordially mulct.

Poet with your phallic
crown. Fetal putti join hands
to lift one gutted form
in your honor. Staring back
with iron-work eyes they applaud

your steady journey from Nin to Nan,
your arrival among the blind. ##

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