with a moldy pawn
i am somehow silent
caught as i am in a trap of unforgiving love.
i eat venereal diseases, letters, and thoughtful words
full of sensitive viruses
i smoke my candle at both ends
i cant even stand a little criticism
i have demeaned hate
even as i have mastered sex
and still i know nothing about love
(go ahead: have some of what Linda Lovelace is dreaming of)
i have eaten my poems, sometimes with music
while carrying a needle lunch
under hiroshima clouds in San Francisco
i can show you my pieces of abstract rainbows
in silk-cut windows full of tender black widows
lost in their own rhyme.
but we will never know why
because everything confirms our deepest fear
greed is everywhere
everyone wants to have the last word.
if you want it, say it and i'll let you have it, whatever
it is. go ahead: you can have the last word.
i wont take it away from you
even tho somebody else
probably
will
2-15-99