THEN I SAID

What moves the myriad hopes
away from introspection
into slumbering cells?
What releases these at intervals
and carries on as normal?
This is the scene we’re interested in:

she elegantly undoes whatever comes to mind
and many many many neurons cry HURRAH
flooding the cervix with that
MOST evasive of things
I have mentioned it before

Just something that came to mind
ON two reasonably warm and pleasant
days AT midnight
waking up before the alarm
hating it with a burning gut
standing it on its head

The things I need
to hurry doing
before I die
As if
I will feel
better afterwards
for having done them

It was Sideways on the couch
It was Saturday
It was New Orleans

took all our smiles
and my memory was beat
Someone jacked an amp up

and everything got worse
She used to wear the
things in season
I took two Vicodin and kicked the door in
I could sleep there
on a broken shoulder
the rationale was
how off season I was
then
the dry river-bed
waited for a let-down
in the reservoir
and the dam
up-stream
waiting for the rain
to pour
another year

I prefer to be
one
who haven’t
made the
big
decisions yet

I shall miss you she said
when you’re dead to me
no more thinking of me
wherever you are

I shall miss you too he said
like I always did not knowing
where you were thinking
you might have fallen ill

But I think I’ll grow less sentimental
and more forgetful soon

I was bored again
with what I did
during the day

but my nights were alright
my nights were alright

I took a ride
on the apostles’ horses
to where I drank
the city silent

I had the chemicals turning
in tune with my spine
the chords made my fingers find
the air where my heart lay

so
I scampered on
down the dark park
to where I reclined and beheld
the night with stars on

how different we were in many ways
the time allotted to us

but towards the city again
when I had seen Orion
the unclaimed God of lamp-posts
cars and laymen