SWAMPMAID'S RETURN

I sat beneath a bridge with my notebook,

watching birds boomerang in the viaduct.

I saw a swampmaid crawling

toward me through a drainage tunnel.

Her face and body were scarred,

but her terrible beauty still shone through.

She gave a rueful smile

as she emerged: we recognized

each other from nights

of love and madness

in the deep swamps of Georgia.

"Was it another orgy?"

I asked, teasing.  Swampmaids

have a gritty sense of humor,

and she laughed.

"There are cords, or strands,

that we don't see, anchored

in physical reality.  Right now

your kind is anxious that

the visible cords are being cut:

but the invisible connection,

the deeper fabric, is already gone.

This is the end of your time,

and ours too."

I took her slimy hand

and kissed it once, rubbing

the scaly back with my thumb

to press the kiss deeper.  "I can still

visit you in your swamps, and join

your frenzied water dances,

coated in your precious scum

that lets me breathe in mud?"

She laughed again (they like it

when I make speeches and perform).

"In former times we never would

have brought you into our midst,

no matter how deep your curiosity.

But now--our worlds are being

crushed together into this one:

we might even transform you

near the end, if you wish: it will

shorten your lifespan, but it will

also make it more--vibrant.

You are a dark and savage beast

but we find we like you."

I like you too, swampmaid.

I have fallen in love with your esoteric

and furious ways.  Give me fins

close to the end, and give me gills.

Let's watch their world burn

from the water that they scorned

and fuck like gods

in the radiant muck.

Let all my blood turn brown

as dark as earth before I drown.

On a ledge full of flowers

looking over little kingdoms drowning

brain pans filled with candy

rails that slither for haunted towns

cracked lots sighing under folded wings.

If I went fetal on this rock

and excreted my eyes

still the presence of natural channels

would lead me home to outer space

and seal this manuscript in gathered guts

beneath glistening lacquer.

Chariots of wheat are

piled high with sleeping bodies.

Clouds of steel are gathered

on harsh electronic poles.

The stumps of fallen trees are waiting

the soil beneath the blooming leaves is waiting

doors in stone slide open

pouring lights from naked ballrooms

the skin's transparent tresses

waterfalls of blonde on bones.

ON THE LEAVES

Bend down and kiss the Earth, wench:

spread your genitals for me

and let me watch them glisten.

Let me fuck you in the rain

and stay close and deep inside,

bathing my whole seed-shoot

in your juices.

We can laugh on the leaves

and kiss afterward.  We can

roll around in them

and let them stick to our skin,

we can let leaves

be our clothing for a day.

ROSA

Diamond mind

how I wish I could

find you in your epic dreams

and resurrect you

take you to a place

of luminous cool

and heal your wounds

with light.

BIOLOGICAL TRASH WITH SOUL

Your fecal gods, your fecal lovers,

are coming to tear you up

and attach your fragments

to an endlessly crawling vine.

You will be dispersed

in conscious pieces,

watched by hateful, luminous eyes

that never stop staring

in fascinated disgust

at the mottled pieces of your hubris,

which was the only form

you chose to inhabit, so that now

this wreckage of your form shows

what it was actually worth: little chunks

of cosmically imprisoned meat

carried far by overwhelming forces.

NO SORROW

The angel of death

is the only one left.

Humanity is foul

inside and out.

They wander in the paths

of their worst fathers,

who abandoned them,

and still they follow

like the shades of anti-life

they really are.

Their footsteps kill.  And I

can only walk away from them

so far.  It's never far enough.

I won't worship this race.

I know my hideousness too well

to think I could do fundamentally better.

We think we pop the latch,

but we attach the fetters.