I have just dicovered the secret
of King Midas
who each morning, awoke to his throne
and slept at night with his crown
because it helped him think
and as he watched an alloyed world outside his window
full of leprosy and deceit,
far beyond the reaches of his own mortal grasp
he felt as powerless as a sparrow
as all arrows pointed toward him alone
to solve the riddle,
cut the knot
and distill the secret
of philosopher’s stone…
for Tori Amos (who appeared in the guise of a guardian angel in a dream)
in a place safe from battle
she awoke me from my deathbed
gently in a dream
of mauve and velvet
and the starry crowns
of violet-green passiflora
exploding from a fire escape,
attracting sparrows—
the only indicator
of surrealism
and half-asleep and blinking
I waited at her wooden table
as a teapot whistled—
and as she rode through the doorframe
like a birthday candle flame
in a dress made of peacock feathers,
I just listened
…
for Anais Nin
You were every bit a child still, at thirty
when that afternoon in the hot mistral
you invited him in
and in
and in
until he tangled your conscience
with pheromones
and tender insistence,
drowning your homesickness
in his ocean of chromosomes
that gave life to your own
until he filled you up
and came out the other side…
Today the world is a disco ball
with glitter pyrotechnics
dappling the sunlit road
and all the trees are money trees,
and all the potholes pots of gold.
The earth is strumming its Carlos
Alomar fat bass riffs under the snow
and the cardinals all fight for the limelight
of the sun’s pulsing paisley fractal smile…
…There is no disgrace
in surrendering
to passion
as long as you remember
to plan it:
with a steady conscience,
cast your libations
to quench the thirsty dead
and honor the thousand invisibles:
you must always remember
the thousand demons that sneak
into the unseen midst
between eyes and electric brain,
knotted knuckle-fists
and through the gaps
between
your thousand wandering kisses
erupting in violets
over skin’s borderless terrain,
blooming from a thousand open pores—…
