At an Ostentatious Funeral & Others

AN OSTENTATIOUS FUNERAL

The world is within us
And without us
And we are it, as it is we;
Do not suppose I speak doubly
As the words that hiss
From serpents’ tongues,
For you and I, too, are one.

We are caught outside
In the rain of pain,
Clouds dark and tentative,
Trees huddling and grass
Like ocean waves
Wavering and crashing
In the gathering dusk
That heralds this stormy night—
None of these phenomena
Frighten me, for I have seen it all,
As one who has been a pall-bearer
At an ostentatious funeral.

We have a fortnight’s journey before us
And then an endless summer
In which to stretch and dream;
The familiars at their sides, the witches
Ride, seeking us, knowing we are near,
Knowing that, at any moment now,
We shall be there, as, now, we are here.

ART FOR ART’S SAKE

Breasts become pinwheels,
Coins, cups, domes, toys,
Decanters, even butterflies,
Sparkling and glittering,
Objects of new desire
Or of desire renewed,
For all things are possible
In paint and in stone,
Breasts, like women, reduced
To visions and the artifacts
That are wont to ensue.

DEATH WARRANT

One becomes two,
Two becomes three,
And before I know it,
There’s a mob
Out to crucify me
For having missed
An unknown mark
That wasn’t there
Just yesterday
And isn’t there today
Except in the minds
Of those who would
Judge, sentence,
And execute me
For my high crimes
Against poetry.

FALLACIOUS ENTERPRISE

Want attention?
Do something outrageous;
Classify an ordinary poem
As erotic, if, that is, you can
Find an “ordinary poem.”

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

Tits whose nipples have become lips,
Licked by forked and salivating tongues,
Enemies within, nursing at the sexism,
The chauvinism, the misogyny
Of a hundred thousand images of women
Seen through the cruel lens of masculinity,
We women are transformed into cunts with teeth,
Assholes whose raison d’être is to be impaled,
That our asses may be occupied and ravished
At will, anytime a man’s fancy turns that way—
We are soulless bodies, disembodied souls,
Mere artifacts of flesh and blood and bone;
Oddly, more than a few of us happily accept this role,
Becoming all things to our men, and nothing
To ourselves, each of us an abductio ad absurdum.

A NIGHT OUT UPON THE TOWN

We are marked women,
Marked by our mascara eyes
And our lipstick lips
And our cheeks of blush,
Our breasts and labia,
Our clitorises and vaginas;
Even our buttocks, sleek
And full and round, are traitors,
Marking us for roses and candy,
Dinners and movies, night out
Upon the town, and, most of all,
Lying on our backs or belly down
Legs spread, assholes or cunts
Wide open to receive
Our benefactor-boyfriends’ cocks
As our way—our only way, it seems—
To express our gratitude for roses,
Candy, dinner, a movie,
And a night out upon the town.