the Pomegranate Juice

I just can't. Getting to
the heart of the matter,
destiny for eternal larks,
no; but love, maybe
and for a long time after.

Anything: your chest,
for instance. Certainly
not perfect, but for me
perfect. Had for no want,
let's say, in that time.

Couldn't have, for
absurdity that you were,
terrible hairstyle, silly
fad shoes, penchant for
black; in all things.

Would; how the face
moves, did move, the
literacy challenges
(obvious in hindsight)
the pomegranate juice.

on the Beach

The whole gay political primacy
of us all being on a beach, me
smaller than any of the others, but
muscular, wearing a tightly strung
up black bathing suit, butt flat out.

I am getting a headache from the sun,
lotions and sand and cigarette ash
are one thing to me. That Cornell
should appear in Neuromancer's
sequel; too much. This is the bathing

suit that I'm talking about. And my
penis sit in it here, glans pointing up.

Languor; the moist, damp, jungline
greens. Cutting through the plants
with a machete. Having brown skin,
black, even.
Throwing away the book, itself
composition of juxtaposed elements
and not just bone, lace, marble.

Effaced thing growing in the breech,
and the breech growing around it.
The book upended two feet distant
with beach sand inside of it's pages.

Coalescing

The evidence is coalescing.
Fear of the real word. Yes,
but— People with guns, people
doing terrible things in public.

Skinny-dip and the dress gets wet
anyway. And it is made of tulle
and once white silk, it is a night
gown, really. While you are

swimming it is singing and
still getting more damp, and
that medicine is what God does.
You and I are like a palsy that

takes hold of the legs. So that
when exiting the water and
and getting wet in the discarded
dress, stands on a wet rock that

is overlooking the dark water,
someone still swimming in it
possibly, knees feel drugged,
ankles are noticeably thinner.

the Jonsing

Today I saw you older

and I still love you, thought

that I wouldn't, did. Less

in your face, always a

nascent anorexic. Grew

over a life since then and left

this. Color can no longer

hide your white hair, given it up.

And you're deathly thin and I

like it. Less between us, simple

new shapes of your limbs, joints,

the small of your back swoops flat,

and I am a monumental disaster,

I burned a hole through the carpet

by being slow-witted. I'll grow

Roman ringlets, eat better, eat

less. The Jonses are disappearing,

and you and me are like that,

we are like that one over there.

Swelling

I have no authority in that direction.

A handful of change, no reason

for holding it, nothing to buy with it,

not even enough change to buy with.

Other change ills, like when you stopped

being an alcoholic and our conversations

went to complete shit. You, not having

chaos and the balls then to use it. Fuck.

The good things go so readily, but

don't they? The God-given right

to compose novels of the lost Christ

which is all of us, sometimes. Odd,

how the hair still stands up, my unwilling

it, and that Patenson (whether right or not)

in an affectation lost, stays still, watches

"Alien," maybe, or "Alien: Resurrection"

because he is working his way through

french cinema, and can't stand it.

Considers cigarettes, regardlessly

unfulfilling and counts quarters

he would need to buy a new pack.

Because (though not inconsiderable)

a quarter seems not much to ask

of a friend, when in that state.

David Lynch

David Lynch would
wear a tan coat
and have a grey
quiff all his life.
As a new switch cut
into the main trunk;
wears cologne too.
Tin can all semblences in.

The work of old boots
gathered into
a rubber band
that'll not last;
women too, that'll
sustain a facial tattoo;
or a dream tattoo
grows and still grows.

Passing Away

Why we dated; supposedly
awning of liquor for some time.
What behind bangs? What behind
'em?! Astringent for nought.
Jaw line also is for nought.
By virtue of their being chosen
forty two men hence turn
to forty six quickly. Oh my god,
quickly. Truncated, fucked so
well as to be sleeping. Until
coming hurt not in the body.

My bangs grow out over time
and will not say that whatever
surceases because does though is
so dull.

a Tally

Got to fifty today in tallying
fuckable men. You were only
three of these; David, Percival (!),
Brad.

Love

Through ignorance and being
very busy this place tells me
to "make do." All of the walls
say it. When I am sleeping
and when I masturbate. Brick
take. And I took that brick
home heartily. And I am
here. Smear of new printed
material so new printed material.

So here and farther, though
transatlantic cables do connect us
so less than this. Love
I am sharing my drugs with you.
I am growing up a new child
having all of the right things been done.
I am smart, vocal, have written
a short novel of space bananas,
am broken, unbearable, go to good school.

Having Carried It

If I could befriend you
and the loving surcease
even tangentially
I'd begin by degrees.
Efficacy of this measured
in less drinking. Or I'd
move to the West Coast
like everyone seems to.
But Seattle and Portland deadening too.
San Francisco? does
the fog mean finding?

Increasingly finds life
living. And the little things;
facial hair, whether or not
to buy that breakfast sandwich,
if I should be dating
your old boyfriend are all
often; keep being. We
could eat everything. With
the color all leeched out.
What is in your leather brief
-case? Let us smoke together.

Waves are like this too, I
have seen them scattered
on a beachhead, here, some
twenty meters further, still
some two or three yards
past that, crashing. The moon,
she decides incrementally
how they whence, but not as this.

The old chest superimposed
over the new chest. It comes
out less, wrong. Wish you
could love the parallel scars
on my forearm I sustained
as a boy when dropping
the box with the jig-saw on top,
laid teeth up, and fell upon it.
And for you to be angry
that such a box existed and
that I should have carried it.

Offal that is full
of veil of wispiness threads
that were your buckshot.

This Thursday

On Thursday I will throttle you.
Drech of the week thinner, then
bacchanal on the tongues of
all choristers I am. And you too!

What loveliness when the grey
hairs return to your temples, my
choking the color from them. I
will not lie to you and say "This

is not a poem of my unrequited
love." Because it is. And how you
had so potential to make me
a better person, and I you. And I

am really trying to hold on until
Thursday. And you die in my
hands, and I you. And they
reconstruct us as one vilianesse.

Seeing

I don't know what
my body means
but finally seems
sensible, peeing
in a you-adjacent
urinal and you peeing
too.

Boyhood never was
like this but not
for lack of trying.

the Exodus

Should this not be an exercise in faith
and not despondency? I wont to hear
you in whatever way again voraciously.

Up ended, again. Over the roakes, past
car crash-site, over (even) glowing piles
of embers to arrive at this. Ta! Fare thee

weller upon leaving than at first arrival.
Or fare farther, however. Woods sloughed
off this too while crossing through them.

'A psychosexual thriller' of waiting. Offed
these same woods, however made to
planks and into the water of not one

man, but three men: the overages of them
that pushed a space out in the sand
and made it glass by heating, so that

no one thing can live there afterwards;
water may collect there happily and
stagnate. And covering up this little space

that's been made by whomever.
The lip above of the turned-in ends of basin.
Why're they there? To corrupt this? To hold

this in? I remember laughter. Not from
anyone, but thrice. I recall the taste of liquor
that had no properties, and ice

that made one draw together, steele ones
-elf against the coming cold. Made one
consider cutting something out of life.

Something Glorious is About to Happen

May I know less about
your face please?
It's contours where pores
give way to hairs
sporadically. Jesus
Christ was once your
age, who helped lepers
and befriended them
—and whores! No
filthless wretch among them
filthless. But I You.

Your mentor is a farce,
I think; the cartoon part
of Animus; enough
for you to emulate, dully.
But who knows how
good music evolves these
days. Their prancing with
bass held out like a forecourt
of debauchery before their
pelvis. Litter of red plastic
tumblers. I love you.

the Quorum

Patrick, it has begun
snowing again. In it, age
comes impassively as
eve growing over a scene
of old kudzu. And it has nearly
been a year since I cusped
on you. No recognition
of despondency. No thinness
after meeting, as a trace
covering of snow would be.

Or early April, after this
winter's over, when things
fell apart again. And you
stopped shaving to placate me.
I want to tell you what has happened
in the intervening year
but love metaphor too much.
I want to compare unfavorably
the intervening men and
make a quorum of us.