If I pick one, she will be torn

so many beautiful flowers
if I pick one, she will be torn,
no one will see her except in my vase
back home,
and I can’t let that happen.
a children’s store crayon
that I break between my fingers is
no longer my favorite color, god, everything
is white light, black pain–my life on a graying canvas.

Bathing, 10/8/1944

I couldn’t wait for the station when I saw the train smoke,
A nice cushion to sit on–I had only been on a train once
–but I had loved it.
Yellow stars under a yellow sun
it’s not my color, but it was my mother’s,
said it was too bright for a tradesmen’s wife–
on the Sabbath.
Dark bodies shuffling past the light beams
between large cracks in the overused cattle car,
What did they do with all that beef?

“Name?”
“Alter?”
“F?higkeiten?”
“Sonderbehandlung!”

Shoes, clothing, watches and jewelry piled–
I add,
didn’t even glance
“Zun?chst!”
another girl inspected and stripped as
families separate and lines form.

At last, a shower after days on the train!
No steam rose from the building ahead.
Oh no, cold showers. I hate cold showers.
It is cold and there is no soap.
a cough from the shivering elderly man to my right.

Staring into the sun

staring into the sun
burns my retinas
leaving a spot I cannot correct
with my will
staring into the darkness
waiting for another night to load. . . 10
another picture, another page 20
alone, all the same,
the children, the adults, the in-betweens, 35

Lola eat a another one–
swallow me whole,
because there’s no going back
now, it’s just up and down, 55
he…he. . . up and down–
this infinite loop’s got to end someday
like the guilt disease–like me, 87
for boys don’t cry
except when they’re against a beast
that won’t release–his claws
because he’s not a problem. 100%
–
with my story:
the children, the adults, the in-betweens,
not alone, not the same,
not another picture, not another page–
I stand naked in the light.

Waves of tongues

I want to straddle the waves of tongues,
ride around the sanctuary on
winds of voices that lack skill
but lost in unity
blend polyphony into monophony,
piecing together an unspeakable sound that can only be said by many

My pen is a thumb–

I suck
when walking in circles
tablet in hand
deciphering images
caused by pizza,
fornication,
the Divine;

dipping in hydrokometes, comatose in simile
smiling arrogantly, the thought drives the wheels
into synecdoche
Bound–hand in tablet, tightly
the Whole
becomes my fire-bearing part, but only partly:

Instructions for suicide
1. Grip pen firmly.
2. Release pen from hand.
3. Extend index finger and thumb.
4. Place gun in hand.

Instructions for salvation
1. Grip gun firmly.
2. Release gun from hand.
3. Curl in index finger and thumb.
4. Place pen in hand.

The vermin–verses–the color field

Lost in a field of maroon,
bumping up against ambiance–
assonance of a few-color-palette
brushing up beside the intoxicating thesaurus
of reality, with its big, burning, brushes painting
bold strokes on an ivory canvas of innocence.
Jaggedly, I run across (away from the open)
toward the eclipsing trees to transcribe,
“Hah, Number Ones! Zeroes leave a path, too!”
So splatter this vermin into the wind
and hang my pelt in your book museum.
“Would you like these words sauted?”
arriving on the table–bubbling verse, fat of the living, no acrylic–
for “if ever I loved thee” and wanted to explode, “’tis now.”1
explode me with your eyes, chunks will fly and be
reborn in the healing, cleaned once again
–to splatter hemoglobin
on the platelets and dinner entrees
of the hunting.
1 from a hymn, “My Jesus, I Love Thee”

Parenthetical thoughts of the future

having everything except the thing wanted the most,
(when we meet we won’t deserve each other
couldn’t have it any other way)
veneer paneling doesn’t splitter your skin, you say,
hiding away, some crevice, somewhere dark–
waiting in passive beauty only the living (are beautiful, you know?)
daily strive, ah, the alive, falling and failing,

and getting back up again,

haven’t met you, maybe I have but no doubt I will have–before we meet
because you are no ideal, no goddess (I know)
wouldn’t want one (for keeps),
so in love with our destitution (are you, too?)
–
we should still strive, reach each other,
or I’ll give up before beginning,
sitting here like you today.

The slashing, slashing

I refuse to be locked up by these steely bars
that steal dreams of any joy,
it’s dim down here grasping for shadows in the dark,
these walls are nice sometimes–they limit,
provide warmth for my doubt to fester,
for nothing satisfies, can I smile!? laugh?
hurt–feeling real only when I cry,
am I supposed to chuckle?

but I heard water the other day,
distant, but a roaring deluge,
I don’t know how to swim!
as the water rushes in,
deep in this dark cistern

to the thigh–to the nose,
I can’t touch, my neck extends,
forced to turn to float–
splashing–slashing the water
to grasp the slick brick
where the missing mortar fell,
so long ago–

rising, rising,
I’m slashing, slashing,
as the well fills,
I spill out upon the muddy ground,
the clouds clear,
a shaft of light,
blinds me.
Will I burn?

Through the seasons, changed

If my seeds of friendship never planted,
and I became a jobless dust bowl upon the plain,
if I was the last leaf to fall from my family tree,
and I, homeless, fell upon the roadside snow,
I’d sing with weathered lips,
“He is here. . . He is here. . . .”

Through the seasons, changed–
coalesced by Nature and my nature,
unable to hold my own, beholden to only one
comforting me in this melange of madness.

Oh, this milkshake of mine

Oh, this milkshake of mine,
I stop by the store–time after time
and it seems less and less divine
as I go along that I can call mine,
trying hard to look but it’s hard to find,
just like this poem, just like this rhyme.