A Holy Death

It was at dawn that I knew it,
blackened seraphs spat new truths in my ears, 
draped velvet curtains over every Holy Building
until the gold did not shine.
I had been tasting words for twenty years,
repeating strange things to my ribcage, telling
fresh generations with clean cheeks and lips
that I knew how things really were. 
I licked wine to the left of the pulpit, 
touched the grape juice and the bread, punctured my wrists 
with the thickened panes from ogival arches. 
I left at dawn due to the discord, a break in the harmony
Stravinsky promised, as he sat atop a black piano winking sternly.
Am I wretched now? Bound on some sybaritic vessel to Gehanna? And am I
never allowed to taste quiet calm of Notre Dame, lest the candles tilt
and burn me alive? There is sweat in me to mark the learned guilt,
they have made locutions to question the nature of my condition.
They say there is no salt in me and perhaps I am not salty, 
but I do not want the clasped hands,
the bloodied teeth,
the stink of a lamb too torn by circumstance to walk in a straight line, 
the weight of a wretch
in the mask of John the Baptist.
It was many things, the Holy Death.
It was clean eyes and dead eyes; it was to pour milk over my feet,
to step off the pier, look Dante in the eyes and deny his inferno, 
to delight in those castigated pleasures of flesh.
Mostly though, it was to nod at Toklas,
and know that what will be remembered at the end is not the carvings in a pew
but a woman with her tresses clipped,
wrapped in cubist paintings.

Words for a woman in stripes

Small hips Ro with your stripes and velvet hair, with your paint-flecked cheeks
With your prayer book shut and your crosses clean
Soon you’ll be clasping hands with Him in New York City, in the low east of New York
You’ll be waiting at the cusp of the Atlantic, willing bigger things to happen
You'll have left us all behind, coughing up sand
I can see you on West 23rd Street now, sucking on a pen and winking at the sky

Misdemeanors

I’d eaten it accidentally of course, that cucumber. How was I to know there existed any tangible aesthetic variance between the organic vegetable variety and the generic, supermarket drudgery I had supposedly bought; that a great sickly stench hung over my own purchase? It had just seemed like an ordinary cucumber when I sliced it thinly for a salad; when I poured a little balsamic over the top and ate it alongside a TV dinner. What’s more, it was sitting in my spot (or sort of) in that bottom drawer of the fridge, right there with the tomatoes and the eggplant I bought on a wild culinary whim. Surely a frivolous cucumber accident doesn’t necessitate a two-day verbal stalemate between you and I? How long must this punishment last? I didn’t mean to let that slick green center slide past teeth and tongue, into the welcoming arms of my throat. I swear I never wanted to cause such callous pain.

I've been thinking about Big Sur, California lately, where the Santa Lucia Mountains meet the blue of the Pacific. I think I'd like to be there.