Arielesque
“It happens.
Will it go on?”
—Sylvia Plath
Paralytic
The air’s full of fish-hooks—
Lots of questions & answers.
I don’t feel very Ariel-esque
The Archives are unraveling.
I remember too much—
The Zen garden on Bainbridge.
The Friday nights at Blue Moon
Getting ditched by my lover-boy.
Now he’s in LA—
Running off with a rich divorcee.
She dies & no he’s wealthy.
Been down there ever since.
Without any of him left—
Not a toe, not a finger, a kiss.
Just some dirty, winding sheets
And some hangover blues.
It seems like just yesterday—
Even tho its ancient history
In this noir city without tears
Beneath the crummy sky.
The Gymnast
“I hardly knew him”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
He’s a gymnast.
King of the rings.
Prince of high-bar.
Trampoline royalty.
My lucky animal.
I follow him.
Up here to Seattle.
His Boeing dad.
UW sophomore.
Sunny armpits.
A dunce-cap kid.
Monkey-brain boy.
Blowing me kisses.
Breathing hard.
I get to know him.
Cross-eyed, spaz.
Charley-horse, jerkoff.
Sky always falling.
Caught in his pubes.
Slug-tracks on my lips.
My kept-boy lover.
Worthy of an Emmy.
Me Duchess of Nothing
Comets & mollusks.
I hardly know him.
Little Fugue
“Lopping the sausages!”
—Sylvia Plath, Little Fugue
Seattle’s black clouds oozing—
Overhead like scudding snot.
Which I try to ignore but
After awhile I get depressed.
I like sunny skies—
Not film noir featurelessness.
Moody weather all the time
Makes me feel blue inside.
My gymnast lover—
I can’t stop feeling him up.
Even tho he’s helplessly hetero
All his anxious girlfriends.
I can hear young chicks—
In his voice when he loses it.
High-pitched like Maria Lopez
Or needy-greedy Isabella.
It really turns me on—
At least at first but then things.
Get very femme fatale for me
Hanging around all the time.
Like in The Waste Land—
The girlfriends who come & go.
Speaking of my meaty Michelangelo
Built so nicely a brick shithouse.
All the horrible complications—
My bulging eyeballs at the keyhole.
Fingering the tumult of runny Trojans
Full of his runny Grosse Fugue.
Deafness is another curse—
I can’t stuff my ears with enough
Wax like Odysseus to avoid going
Crazy like Sirens do to my crew.
My red badge of courage—
It isn’t pink, it isn’t pretty.
It’s blood red like a big thick
Delicatessen veiny sausage!!!
I should’ve known beforehand—
It wouldn’t possibly ever work out.
The sinister noir clouds overhead
Like vacuous dirty sheets.
I remember him eyes-closed—
Tangy as tangerines & groaning.
Letting me make him lame
Limping with his voodoo hickie.
I survive thwarted love—
As best I can living with him.
I get lots of babypaste tho
I even feel pregnant…
Blue Moon Tavern
“The wax image
of myself”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
If you live long enough—
And don’t burn your
Candle at both ends
You might survive.
Funny how time works—
A thicket of shadows
A dartboard for love
All those lost lovers.
Can I survive them—
Along with Nixon
And the war in Nam
And the war now?
The back-burners—
They’re always hot
Ring after ring
Turning up the heat.
Uncut
What a thrill—
Pealing him back
Like a nice Onion.
Skinning it back—
Like a nice scalp
Savage Apache desire.
Squeezing him like—
A bottle of champagne
Ready to fizz.
A secret door—
Nice & cheesy with
A greasy hinge.
A hum-job—
For my cute
Homunculus man.
A last shot—
For my young
Cute Kamikaze kid.
How he limps—
Dirty boy with
A thuggish grin.
Lady Lazarus
“Dying is an art”
—Sylvia Plath,
Lady Lazarus
I’ve done it again—
Each night ten inches
I manage to get him off.
I pull the phone—
Outta the wall so that
None of them can call.
His distended face—
Like a hanged man
Banging the headboards.
Who needs a napkin—
To clean up the mess
To dab my dainty lips?
His bedroom eyes—
Cross-eyed for me
Going totally spaz.
Soon, soon his flesh—
Will be part of me
Deep inside me.
He’s like a cat—
With nine lives to
Lose each weekend.
This is my fate—
Being white trash
In a trailer court.
He’s my Hercules—
I’m Baclanova
Queen of Trapeze.
I peal him back—
The big strip tease
His lovely foreskin.
Others may object—
But I only crave
His cheesy smegma.
The second time—
He squeals like a pig
Porky Pig sticky pearls.
He loses it nice—
Dying so very well
Squirting his brains out.
I do him to feel it—
It feels realer then real
Real to the last drop.
It’s easy enough—
To make him theatrical
His babypaste baritone.
Comeuppance cums—
In broad daylight
His brute face weak.
It’s a miracle—
Each time he shoots
The back of my head off.
There’s a big charge—
Blue veins & voltage
Lots of male electricity.
He’s my socket—
I plug him in
His flesh & boner.
I kiss his ass—
I kiss his pouty lips
I eat him some more.
The Courier
The slime of a snail—
The mucous of a mollusk
The snotty track of a slug.
It’s better than a gold card—
Better than American Express
It’s genuine, I accept it.
It’s the royal seal of Icarus—
The blue wedding band of light
The key to the swanky penthouse.
It’s all to itself way at the top—
Like snow & ice on the high tips
The Alps stretching up to heaven.
It’s a sudden disturbance—
Smattering, shocking, sinful
News from a rude young courier.
Tim
“That loves me, pumps”
—Sylvia Plath, Paralytic
I can still taste him—
My Tri-Cities trick
Thick as my wrist.
A draft-dodger—
Refused Viet Nam
Spent a year in jail.
Wife divorced him—
Left for Hawaii with
His 2 young daughters.
Such a hustler—
Back in the Seventies
He needed some love.
Sleeping in bed—
My mouth full of pearls
I did him again.
Eyes, nose, ears—
A Greek korus smile
Just like Kritios.
Statue of an ephebe—
Archaic athlete in marble
My Pasco boyfriend.
Kyle
“A palace of velvet”
—Sylvia Plath, Gigolo
Gigolo godzilla—
He tricks rather nicely
For a cul-de-sac kid.
Stuck in Zillah—
Down by the Columbia
His lizardly smile.
His father owns—
Vineyards in the hills
Kyle’s his youngest son.
Spoiled, lazy—
I gulp down jellyfish
His aphrodisiac squid.
Bored as sin—
I give him some time
Staying in town awhile.
Rings thru his nose—
Ears, tits & cock
He’s so primitive!!!
A gigolo palace—
A house of mirrors
A hush in his pickup.
The Godzilla Church—
Has a Lizard in front
I’ve got one on wheels.
Dwayne Jerome
“After whose stroke
the wood rings”
—Sylvia Plath, Words
Up in the woods—
There in Seward Park
Echoes travel far.
Thru cedars, firs—
Lake Washington below
A mirror, Alpine lake.
Ditched by his girlfriend—
I see her running away
Down the path past me.
There he is standing—
Morose on the hill
Smoking a cigarette.
If sap could cry—
They’d be like tears
I feel sorry for him.
Words are useless—
I solve his problem
Up against a tree.
Ronnie
“Color floods to
the spot, dull purple”
—Sylvia Plath, Contusion
He bruises so easy—
The color of bruised fruit
A purple hickie tells all.
I see him in the shower—
At the local YMCA gym
Guileless young animal.
His queer roommate—
Gives me the evil eye
I thought I was invisible.
The kid’s so proud—
Like a peacock in a zoo
His lover over-protective.
I really can’t blame her—
Fat, ugly fag who stares
His vampire lips tremble.
The kid so vulnerable—
The garish purple blemish
His uncut young manhood.
Eddie
“Stiffens and odors bleed”
—Sylvia Plath, Edge
He’s not perfect—
Not accomplished yet
Illusion of Greek necessity.
No folds flow down—
From his nonexistent toga
He’s bare-assed instead.
He’s got big feet—
Pimples on his forehead
Incomplete coiled inside.
He’s got a lot of it—
That unfinished look
But nothing to cry over.
He stiffens, odors bleed—
He blushes in the garden
Next to the clematis.
He’s sprained his neck—
Maybe it’s his funny bone
Or is it his charley-horse?
Eddie limps a lot—
He’s at the edge of things
The chaises-lounge knows.
Joe
“The doom mark”
—Sylvia Plath, Contusion
The pit in my stomach—
It growls & sucks obsessively
Makes me crawl up the wall.
I’m all washed up—
No more deep sea pearls
Words so dry & riderless.
The blood jet is poetry—
But it’s petered out for me
Mere dribbles my cup of tea.
I yearn for fluidity—
But my days of oozing are over
My bilge pump is drained dry.
What then is the remedy—
Praying at Chartres Cathedral?
Crawling on my hands & knees?
I’ve already tried that—
I’ve been doing it for years
Wanna see my knee-cap calluses?
I jest, of course—
It’s just fake pantomime show
To make Joe sorry for me…
Douglas
“Morning has
been blackening”
—Sylvia Plath
Sheep in Fog
The Seattle hills—
Steeped in foggy whiteness.
The people & staircases
No longer disappointing.
The busses cleave fog—
Leaving a trail of exhaust
From far away one can see
The blue-brown trails above.
Streetcars once cleaved—
This morning darkness but
Now the ferry’s down below
How they come & go.
Here I am left alone—
Beneath viaduct stillness
Where he once met me
Welcoming me home.
Forty years later—
Past Pound, Olson, Spicer
Elliot Bay is still there
And I’m still here too.
“It happens.
Will it go on?”
—Sylvia Plath
Paralytic
The air’s full of fish-hooks—
Lots of questions & answers.
I don’t feel very Ariel-esque
The Archives are unraveling.
I remember too much—
The Zen garden on Bainbridge.
The Friday nights at Blue Moon
Getting ditched by my lover-boy.
Now he’s in LA—
Running off with a rich divorcee.
She dies & no he’s wealthy.
Been down there ever since.
Without any of him left—
Not a toe, not a finger, a kiss.
Just some dirty, winding sheets
And some hangover blues.
It seems like just yesterday—
Even tho its ancient history
In this noir city without tears
Beneath the crummy sky.
The Gymnast
“I hardly knew him”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
He’s a gymnast.
King of the rings.
Prince of high-bar.
Trampoline royalty.
My lucky animal.
I follow him.
Up here to Seattle.
His Boeing dad.
UW sophomore.
Sunny armpits.
A dunce-cap kid.
Monkey-brain boy.
Blowing me kisses.
Breathing hard.
I get to know him.
Cross-eyed, spaz.
Charley-horse, jerkoff.
Sky always falling.
Caught in his pubes.
Slug-tracks on my lips.
My kept-boy lover.
Worthy of an Emmy.
Me Duchess of Nothing
Comets & mollusks.
I hardly know him.
Little Fugue
“Lopping the sausages!”
—Sylvia Plath, Little Fugue
Seattle’s black clouds oozing—
Overhead like scudding snot.
Which I try to ignore but
After awhile I get depressed.
I like sunny skies—
Not film noir featurelessness.
Moody weather all the time
Makes me feel blue inside.
My gymnast lover—
I can’t stop feeling him up.
Even tho he’s helplessly hetero
All his anxious girlfriends.
I can hear young chicks—
In his voice when he loses it.
High-pitched like Maria Lopez
Or needy-greedy Isabella.
It really turns me on—
At least at first but then things.
Get very femme fatale for me
Hanging around all the time.
Like in The Waste Land—
The girlfriends who come & go.
Speaking of my meaty Michelangelo
Built so nicely a brick shithouse.
All the horrible complications—
My bulging eyeballs at the keyhole.
Fingering the tumult of runny Trojans
Full of his runny Grosse Fugue.
Deafness is another curse—
I can’t stuff my ears with enough
Wax like Odysseus to avoid going
Crazy like Sirens do to my crew.
My red badge of courage—
It isn’t pink, it isn’t pretty.
It’s blood red like a big thick
Delicatessen veiny sausage!!!
I should’ve known beforehand—
It wouldn’t possibly ever work out.
The sinister noir clouds overhead
Like vacuous dirty sheets.
I remember him eyes-closed—
Tangy as tangerines & groaning.
Letting me make him lame
Limping with his voodoo hickie.
I survive thwarted love—
As best I can living with him.
I get lots of babypaste tho
I even feel pregnant…
Blue Moon Tavern
“The wax image
of myself”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
If you live long enough—
And don’t burn your
Candle at both ends
You might survive.
Funny how time works—
A thicket of shadows
A dartboard for love
All those lost lovers.
Can I survive them—
Along with Nixon
And the war in Nam
And the war now?
The back-burners—
They’re always hot
Ring after ring
Turning up the heat.
Uncut
What a thrill—
Pealing him back
Like a nice Onion.
Skinning it back—
Like a nice scalp
Savage Apache desire.
Squeezing him like—
A bottle of champagne
Ready to fizz.
A secret door—
Nice & cheesy with
A greasy hinge.
A hum-job—
For my cute
Homunculus man.
A last shot—
For my young
Cute Kamikaze kid.
How he limps—
Dirty boy with
A thuggish grin.
Lady Lazarus
“Dying is an art”
—Sylvia Plath,
Lady Lazarus
I’ve done it again—
Each night ten inches
I manage to get him off.
I pull the phone—
Outta the wall so that
None of them can call.
His distended face—
Like a hanged man
Banging the headboards.
Who needs a napkin—
To clean up the mess
To dab my dainty lips?
His bedroom eyes—
Cross-eyed for me
Going totally spaz.
Soon, soon his flesh—
Will be part of me
Deep inside me.
He’s like a cat—
With nine lives to
Lose each weekend.
This is my fate—
Being white trash
In a trailer court.
He’s my Hercules—
I’m Baclanova
Queen of Trapeze.
I peal him back—
The big strip tease
His lovely foreskin.
Others may object—
But I only crave
His cheesy smegma.
The second time—
He squeals like a pig
Porky Pig sticky pearls.
He loses it nice—
Dying so very well
Squirting his brains out.
I do him to feel it—
It feels realer then real
Real to the last drop.
It’s easy enough—
To make him theatrical
His babypaste baritone.
Comeuppance cums—
In broad daylight
His brute face weak.
It’s a miracle—
Each time he shoots
The back of my head off.
There’s a big charge—
Blue veins & voltage
Lots of male electricity.
He’s my socket—
I plug him in
His flesh & boner.
I kiss his ass—
I kiss his pouty lips
I eat him some more.
The Courier
The slime of a snail—
The mucous of a mollusk
The snotty track of a slug.
It’s better than a gold card—
Better than American Express
It’s genuine, I accept it.
It’s the royal seal of Icarus—
The blue wedding band of light
The key to the swanky penthouse.
It’s all to itself way at the top—
Like snow & ice on the high tips
The Alps stretching up to heaven.
It’s a sudden disturbance—
Smattering, shocking, sinful
News from a rude young courier.
Tim
“That loves me, pumps”
—Sylvia Plath, Paralytic
I can still taste him—
My Tri-Cities trick
Thick as my wrist.
A draft-dodger—
Refused Viet Nam
Spent a year in jail.
Wife divorced him—
Left for Hawaii with
His 2 young daughters.
Such a hustler—
Back in the Seventies
He needed some love.
Sleeping in bed—
My mouth full of pearls
I did him again.
Eyes, nose, ears—
A Greek korus smile
Just like Kritios.
Statue of an ephebe—
Archaic athlete in marble
My Pasco boyfriend.
Kyle
“A palace of velvet”
—Sylvia Plath, Gigolo
Gigolo godzilla—
He tricks rather nicely
For a cul-de-sac kid.
Stuck in Zillah—
Down by the Columbia
His lizardly smile.
His father owns—
Vineyards in the hills
Kyle’s his youngest son.
Spoiled, lazy—
I gulp down jellyfish
His aphrodisiac squid.
Bored as sin—
I give him some time
Staying in town awhile.
Rings thru his nose—
Ears, tits & cock
He’s so primitive!!!
A gigolo palace—
A house of mirrors
A hush in his pickup.
The Godzilla Church—
Has a Lizard in front
I’ve got one on wheels.
Dwayne Jerome
“After whose stroke
the wood rings”
—Sylvia Plath, Words
Up in the woods—
There in Seward Park
Echoes travel far.
Thru cedars, firs—
Lake Washington below
A mirror, Alpine lake.
Ditched by his girlfriend—
I see her running away
Down the path past me.
There he is standing—
Morose on the hill
Smoking a cigarette.
If sap could cry—
They’d be like tears
I feel sorry for him.
Words are useless—
I solve his problem
Up against a tree.
Ronnie
“Color floods to
the spot, dull purple”
—Sylvia Plath, Contusion
He bruises so easy—
The color of bruised fruit
A purple hickie tells all.
I see him in the shower—
At the local YMCA gym
Guileless young animal.
His queer roommate—
Gives me the evil eye
I thought I was invisible.
The kid’s so proud—
Like a peacock in a zoo
His lover over-protective.
I really can’t blame her—
Fat, ugly fag who stares
His vampire lips tremble.
The kid so vulnerable—
The garish purple blemish
His uncut young manhood.
Eddie
“Stiffens and odors bleed”
—Sylvia Plath, Edge
He’s not perfect—
Not accomplished yet
Illusion of Greek necessity.
No folds flow down—
From his nonexistent toga
He’s bare-assed instead.
He’s got big feet—
Pimples on his forehead
Incomplete coiled inside.
He’s got a lot of it—
That unfinished look
But nothing to cry over.
He stiffens, odors bleed—
He blushes in the garden
Next to the clematis.
He’s sprained his neck—
Maybe it’s his funny bone
Or is it his charley-horse?
Eddie limps a lot—
He’s at the edge of things
The chaises-lounge knows.
Joe
“The doom mark”
—Sylvia Plath, Contusion
The pit in my stomach—
It growls & sucks obsessively
Makes me crawl up the wall.
I’m all washed up—
No more deep sea pearls
Words so dry & riderless.
The blood jet is poetry—
But it’s petered out for me
Mere dribbles my cup of tea.
I yearn for fluidity—
But my days of oozing are over
My bilge pump is drained dry.
What then is the remedy—
Praying at Chartres Cathedral?
Crawling on my hands & knees?
I’ve already tried that—
I’ve been doing it for years
Wanna see my knee-cap calluses?
I jest, of course—
It’s just fake pantomime show
To make Joe sorry for me…
Douglas
“Morning has
been blackening”
—Sylvia Plath
Sheep in Fog
The Seattle hills—
Steeped in foggy whiteness.
The people & staircases
No longer disappointing.
The busses cleave fog—
Leaving a trail of exhaust
From far away one can see
The blue-brown trails above.
Streetcars once cleaved—
This morning darkness but
Now the ferry’s down below
How they come & go.
Here I am left alone—
Beneath viaduct stillness
Where he once met me
Welcoming me home.
Forty years later—
Past Pound, Olson, Spicer
Elliot Bay is still there
And I’m still here too.
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