body

i am not good at loving--

i prefer
deserving
serving
(disappearing

which i can't, here,
sitting in frayed jeans and no lipstick
in these pews)

so:
here

among the jcpenneys
jcrews
the high heeled shoes

the collared shirts
the sportcoats
tasteful ties:
here

i will
sit, not raising hands
green joy imploding

not weeping

seeping like cutrate meat
(picked up/abandoned
 by some SNAP mama whose
unmannered and undaddied kids
tear into their unpurchased candy bribes)
seeping, and stinking
in the clean packaged ranks
of skinless freerange chicken breast
Offensive!

(offended) --
Bleeding,
here

i sit, i consider
myself
(i am not good at loving)--

i am
beside
among
together --

oneanothering with these
cleaner, other
souls of Yours

galaxies

To trawl strange stars what net
will, dear Man,
suffice?

i fear

i will go on tracing you
in blueveined, pungent cheeses
in bitter beer

Can i, hook and fishnet, know
your sighs
your skin
to hold you,
Soul,
fishcaught

measured, scraped, unbowelled,
tasted

Oh Man!
do i go on slowly
these six years' days
building this not knowing

this bridge
our skin

sagging and folding
dear Man i will
in six and eight and ten
years, be

here, dear Man
i love! Do i
love (want)
(covet) (fear)

Oh Man i love you now
with silence
and no sweet potatoes

i know the stars
some of the stars
in your games' empires

i am jealous
for further galaxies

i want to hang stories
like constellations
on these lights
your whitebright minute victories
your pulsing shames
your blurred and shifting dreams

thoughts on psalm 42 (while nursing)

Confiteor

i have sate, till now,
at table
eating heavy loaves of Safe
spread thick with Pleasant--
i confess

i wanted You
for fine liqueur
for pungent cheese--

a little piquant crumb
a golden drop
to sit atop--to slip between
the cracks in my
Replete--

Peccavi

Now (milkdry) i see
how glib--how slippery--

Now as the deer--grant me
my God, to long--
doglike
with starveling eyes
with swollen tongue

To labber at your presence
every sinew tensed to snap
the single precious crumbs
the silver drips--

To thirst till every shriveled cell
cries out to unseen swollen clouds--

To want bonedeep to drink
to drench
to swell--


Ut gaudium meum sit plenum

go home

they say you can't go home again
they say you can't 
go home again

the house that i remember --
went that way --
had fallen in

the house that i remember
mama met me at the door
mud pulling at my footsteps -- mama
met me at the door
Said Child, you can't come here any more

Got my pockets full of sadness but
i walked inside the door
All  my pockets full  -- still
walked inside that door
i have enough of shame and grief
don't give me any more

mama won't you hold me?
Child your mama needs a friend
Her back and arms are aching
with the stones she's carrying--

daddy won't you hold me?
Child your daddy needs a friend
His mouth is black and bleeding
Belly full of sin

mama won't you hold me?
walked back down that shadow road
saw the house that i remember
filled up with heavy stones

i got buckets for your burdens
i got bottles for your tears
i got chains to string your heartbreak
Got pockets for the years --

pockets full of heavy
tried to stuff your sadness in
my pockets overflowing
Got no room to stuff your burdens in --
Tried picking up that heavy and
i broke my back again

they say you can't go home again
Mama sent me to the preacher
pockets full of sin

pockets full of blue and black
nothing in my arms
couldn't carry nothing 
but my grieving on my back
Preacher took my burden
(I said
don't send me back)

Preacher took my burden up
Preacher sent me on
I can't tell you where i've been
I know i'm going home

Come with me to the preacher
Don't have to leave your grief behind
Bring your burden with you
Gonna have to come some time

extract from working notes of H. Prometheus (with original illustrations)

Project Icarus
Design no. 5.5 (chest harness, batwing model, steel and copper frame and clockworth, sailcloth wings)
Notes: attempt 205
9 May 2015

Having corrected design flaws from previous attempt, endeavoured once again mechanically to achieve and maintain airborne state long enough to navigate across back field (see notes, 141, for dimensions).

Am pleased to result success in first particular--5th successful liftoff since having embarked on Proj. I. Estimated height ranging from 1 to 2.5m from gr., duration appr 1.5 minutes. I was unable to maintain control of the apparatus--either in re. ascent or navigation--due to recurrence of those painful sensations which have plagued the course of the Project since model 1.0 (simple shoulder based model--see diagram, prev.). Additional padding added to 5.4 obviously insufficient to counter my perception of extreme compression, abrasion, and cutting expd during flight. (N. physical validity of sensations confirmed by scrapes and bruising upon later examination). Puzzled again by the appearance of feathers, inexplicable, edged this time in the most ludicrous shades of green and gold, but again bent, broken, and smeared with blood. (N. revisit previous notes to compare.)

Attribute failure to a fault in the left, that is sinister, of the frame. revisit schematics to discover imbalance. hypothesize weight of structure too great to support flight. begin to suspect a new material must be found. perhaps a frame made of hollow reeds? or bones of birds, for the purpose. sufficient to bear the weight? If it were not outrageous to the sensibilities of most -- & therefore practically unobtainable -- would try instead the bones of men -- the ears and digits of which might yield pieces peculiarly suited to the constr of clockwork--
(Ed. This last heavily struck through in the original)

How to correct the as yet inescapable inclination earthwards--to escape the tyranny of gravity?

i do not understand why there should be--from where--again--these damaged pens--