Sexual Archaeology

_____marmoreal shards
bone_____chips --
__________Leakey's
mother lode shipped
worm-eaten crates
__________New York City.

_____lucre to you
royally filthy necrophiliac
your laboratory redolent:
_____sawdust, solvent,
hatred and glue.

_____hallowed sable brush
breathe a fucking clue
as to who you wanted us to be --
_____gracile, ossified, gentle,
__________inadequate and true.

never again between me and you.

Soigne

"Baldassare wore that dry air of self-sufficiency which respects the inwardness of others..."  Sidney Alexander, MICHELANGELO THE FLORENTINE.

Streams, muttering silver, thin
and white under shadowed oak,

over granite arranged so
as to form a fortress in

black glitter; they water skin.
Linger, alabaster glow

until clouds we can't see flit
between moon and those arrows

sunk in Plutonic, rich filth
mere inches from her pale toes.

_____Exposed to the arching sky,
_____a goddess knows she won't die.

Sabra

- Inspired by Gene Wolfe's THE SOLDIER OF SIDON

Waxen woman
dead in transport
down the dread Nile.

Nubia:  you
and that black cat
come out at night.

Moonlight, white, glows --
illuminates
papyrus, glue.

Nails fastened me
to the coffin
lid you hew through.

Lamb-brained friend
ask the scribe why
she prefers you

over dark me.
Pretend Hathor
succors old men.

Haiku #2

はなびらが
たたみにおちる
にがいいき

Haiku #1

やいている
かしわのかれは
あきのあじ

Dharma

The brahmin
__________undisturbed
_____moves on.

Glow, moonlight,
__________on the warlike
_____and those

who delight
__________alike.  Warm us,
_____heart fires.

When the flint
__________strikes pyrite:
_____fool's gold --

__________extinguishment,
_____white spark.

Pillow Talk

Closer, closer
and listen.

Ammunition
is driven

to where it's fired
by a man

whose ire at red
lights could fan

conflagrations.
Listen, now,

carefully.  I've
packed your lunch

with gunpowder,
a flower --

carnation's your
favorite.

Smells overwhelm:
cordite, milk

spiced and sweet.  Eat
with my words

that pinch of salt
you would drop

on a bird's tail.
Feather soft,

reach between walls.
Take no calls.

Olduvai Estate

__________Agarttha
pillars of banyan.
__________Cerulean
ribbon plaiting plain.

(Hallowed be thy name.)
Tawny, brown, sere.

An arrow landed here:
__________mahogany
shaft -- white feathers.  Rafts
__________made of reeds
float among camphor's
__________shamefaced smell.

Bells ring:  dusk.

Edenic

River bend; jacaranda spread your arms over dark stones.  Cascade and black ripple -- outermost, white foam.  A mosquito roams, rises and drops.  Blood is the warmth the sun threads under our skin.  Permit the broken sky in -- he seeks the comfort of torment.  Lightning lent life; thunder is the cry it gave out of the gate.  Set the oak table for eight.  Use a placemat to hide the human stain.

Hospitality

Angels_____daughters_____sons
don't die as clean
__________as animals
at each other's hands.
_____Asafoetida
bitter stench
_____greasy smoke
writhes, a Salome dance
__________over
and around conquered lands,
_____under a sun
obdurate; its gold-white
light appears to recoil
from vulture-stripped bones
baked into hard clay soil.
__________Bread broken
under this roof
__________the host
offers with a mirthless,
_____half-toothed grin.

Happy

My friends permit me
to straggle._____I adjust

my red silk pocket square.
I take my place

_____behind the crowd
gathered._____I look

where they look.  I know
yet enjoy._____When

the lights die_____a hush
erupts._____The night sky

thronged with piercing stars
obvious now even from

downtown._____We wait
for the show to start.

I remark
to the programmer_____(she stands

at my left) that better than
quadruple redundancy in the case

of spacecraft systems
is quintuple -- better still

is arriving from a different
angle altogether.

Don't shush me;
the show's been on

for eons.

Butcher's Bill

Sex and death in the same breath
Profundity?  What was that for?
I've got ghillie-suited snipers
Knocking at my door.

You say you smelled smoke?
You spoke too soon.  I've doused
The flames.  Curtains of shame
Drape plastic window panes.

Acrid as a Larkin street whore
I've been.  Sorry, I'll truck with men.
Sound alarms for poor Mr. Yorke:
He needs surprises, but when?

Gorgons and Sirens

Networking, schmoozing.  Flutes of rosé.  Feeling sophisticated for playing this game to score some dick.  Remember Nick, who knew I was easier than you?  Console yourself, I still practice wearing heels at home.  I didn't learn how until I was 22.  So what?  I can only guess what you're wearing and it's not Jimmy Choo.  Graduation dethroned the likes of you, the little hard candy ex-cheerleader tyrants who couldn't get a clue:  brains to earn money for shoes, and men whenever you want.  Oops, how're you getting on?  No one's calling me loser now that I pay my own rent, and don't have to share a toilet with vapid drunks in their boyfriends' trunks.  Bitch, you called me a failure just for wanting to fuck.  At least you didn't call me a slut.  But giving me shit for not talking ball when all I wanted was sex?  Stupid cunt.  No wonder I'm in Menlo Park and you're trapped somewhere you hate, surrounded by thousands of older versions of yourself, with whom you compete and with whose husbands you wish you could play adulteress and procreate.  Spit on your fingers and flick.  Guess what?  I got to a 30-24-32 -- muscles and truth.  They're eating out of the palm of my hand -- not so many jocks as couch potatoes I'll admit.  Tonight, an IT guy, don't know his name, tomorrow a tagger and a hacker (two in the bush is worth more than one of your little fuck fruits.)  Susan Smith your way out of that little cul-de-sac, you cunt.  I just wanted to send this off with a care package to the former queen of Alpha Delta Pi:  box tops I cut out for the schools shouldering your evil little shits, and three pair of white cotton granny panties -- one for each girl in the house you said didn't fit.  We didn't.  Ready to stick a fork in it sis?  Love, Dana.

Sacred, Meet Profane

"The kids are all right,"
she writes, in the demotic
from golden hinterlands.

"We feared the future,
as it ends the now.  Schlepping
around Hong Kong

"In that shit-smelling dhow,
or whatever they're called,
did you not see daughters

"walking the jetty with tired
fathers in the lead?  Please
spare me your unsparing

"Teutonic misanthropy.  Even here,
in Baghdad by the Bay,
a coding drudge, son

"of exurbs, fences,
and the-goddamned-NRA-make-
good-neighbors -- even he

"could lift by hand out of the gutter
some skeevy junky.  Mothers
of whim, not necessity, upended her there.

"Her abjectness, her sores, weren't
catching.  'Holocaust,' you sneer,
'the cleansing fire aches

"'to break free over our
dollhouses and mounds of cocaine.'
I tell you I've spoken to the sane:

"to such silent children whose eyes
were unforgiving as razor blades.
Should your vaunted flames

"perservere, they leave behind
ashes and fat, water and lye.
Indeed, ridicule may alone thereby die."

Travertine

Tivoli tomorrow,
work today.

Posters are a luxury
on her pay.

In bold deco reds and gray:
forests, lakes, Bauhaus

letters proclaim
the cruelest Italian thing.

She flours her biscuit cup's rim.
One more dime she flings
on the rusted baking tray.

Arachne

_____Spider-guest, bare your fangs!  A drop of venom from the curved thorn hangs.  Medicine, placebo or bane?
_____Six eyes, nilotic gloss, wide.  Do you or does the world they spy hide?
_____Thump, thump, skitter and rest.  The trap you lay is a future rat's nest.

Silence Doesn't Tarnish

Black robes abjure
pleasure_____guilt

Do not think the black silt
harbors gold_____incentivus nil

Spilled on the inside of her thigh
an ungainly glob, evaporated milk

Devoid of "I,"
_____passive voice

Pubic hairs curlicued
in Pashtun

_____Phantom levers
__________payroll pushers

_____locomote.

1944

Herring in a tin
tub._____Beached

span from hinge to sand bar
bangs, clang of steel.

"The Germans aren't fond
of American chocolate.

"Still, they smoke our cigarettes
thinking them

_____part bargain,
__________part deal."

Tools

Shadow-dappled
_____sidewalk.
Trees leave
_____lung-shaped
__________tracery.
__________Dark, light
_____sway of white
branches._____Fix
_____for a moment,
__________compass-like,
a limb against a light blue sky
_____starless.
Only at night
_____dare we navigate.