The Semaphore Diary

Let us start with cliché,
For Truth is always tired from battle
And deserves its lazy rest
In the epicene shade:

Life is a journey.
Through hollow lands and hilly lands
And brooks brimmed
With flashing, silvered trout

We travel, ignoring the scenery.
Instead we munch on chips, drink Coke,
Browse through People magazine,
Reading ads for perfume, lipstick,

European water,
And anything about sex, not
That ours satisfies
Either our Ego or our Id.

My life is much the same
As yours, I suppose, too cheap
To buy a decent guidebook.
It would only be lost, anyway.

I have ridden waves of age and youth
More as sponge than seal,
Fortunate to be afloat, but drifting,
Soggy, dumb,

Yet as articulate as most.
(I can order drinks in French
Along with sturgeon roe.)
Emily would be proud

Of how gracefully
I wield her plaited fork.
Chew your octopus
With your mouth closed,

My son. I paid attention
And never embarrassed her.
She bade me stand knight,
An honor others envied,

Though I merely slept
Along her slim and elegant thighs.
My touch was always cold.
Poor circulation in my fingertips,

The fault of good upbringing
And better schools,
Is why her body lay like ash
In love's crematorium.

I am a skilled embalmer,
And know of tricks with wax
To make dead women quick
With almost life-like lust.

A small skill,
But a useful one. Consider
How much more pleasant
It is to travel

In the first-class coach,
With a fine view of the mountains
Where the air is cold and clear
And very, very distant.

I do not long for mountains.
My breathing is too delicate for pine
And I fear the chambermaid
Would be envious.