I. BEING A BLASPHEMOUS DANCE
There is a secret seance,
A dread and devilish ritual
Around some sulfur and pitch
Choreographed and danced anew
In the turmoil of every
August night’s oblivion
Where circles are closed
And we join corners that
Were never meant to meet
This churning mire of
Neuroses, sordid proclivities
Where the long wyrm is spawned
That threads its sinuous hooks
Through the loose weave
Of my whole life, a thing
Stitched up in
The abyss
Of many nights sleep
II. ONLY ONE OF US HAS HATE IN OUR HEARTS
In a tiny voluptuous red boudoir
Set aside, filled with decorations
That are cheap, and easily replaced
And you know what’s funny?
He’s never broken one, or even
Touched it — though he’s been seen
Occasionally staring past them,
Into a languid valve in the
Fibrous surface of this reality.
When he’s awake, he’s never idle,
Always scribbling a twitchy study
Of some acquaintance’s face
Or singing a stilted phrase
Over and over, loudly, while
Banging on piano keys like
John Cage being dragged down the stairs.
Luckily, I have put him in
This very comfortable room, and
His pace is exhausting even for him,
And when that bastard sleeps,
He sleeps like the dead.
III. HOW I LOVE MY DEMON
With fear
And the fascination due some
Wriggling arthropod darting
Across toes and arches, into
A gap in the baseboard
Through a dim arrowslit
At a spyglass distance,
Pulsating, out of reach
At the trembling tip
Of an afflicted pointer finger
Extended in withdrawal
In the teeth
Of fishhooks strewn
Across any particular
Sprawl of skin
With all the firm and taut
Parts of my body, my organs,
Chafing and undulating, anticipating
Coming unstitched for him
My ardor prickles with
A vain urgency, a briefness
Of breath, a thirst for dissipation,
A kind of drowning
In deprivation.
He has been here,
Waiting under the obelisk,
Grinning lockjawed in the
Black loam, how badly
I want to turn aside,
But my love is a long wyrm
Grown into my bones.
IV. FORENSICS
These red dogwood leaves,
Puncture wounds in
The lazy riot of
Dusty brown and
Green just holding on —
You flagellants, you
Capricious splatters
Spit and disheveled
Across November’s
Shifting crime scene —
There, that’s where
She died, officer,
Artery blown by
This cold wind
Beneath that tree —
That’s where all
The traces lead,
These red leaves,
The chamber empty,
This verdant beast brought
To her knees.