HOW MY FAMILY SURVIVES:
ON HUMAN ADAPTATION TO HARSH HABITATS
If you’ve imagined
vast sandy ruins
you should intuit
there are Bedouins.
And icy wastelands
would seem to imply
there are Inuit
who would there reside.
BORN FOR TWILIGHT
Today’s worlds lose their edge.
Sharp light softens with age.
Silhouettes turn vague.
Colorshapes gray to sludge.
Horizon slides to sky.
I was born for twilight.
My seven senses smudge.
THE SILENCE MAY BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE NOISE: AN ILLUSTRATION
--Duane Vorhees
FOR LOVE
You wanted to share my life;
time kept you from my past; the future hasn't come yet;
today is just for laughs.
Sometimes I know i bored you,
and other times ignored you.
You know how I felt toward you.
But to say I wanted no one but you would not be true.
I auditioned my actors, and you weren't in the cast.
Fitting out my clipper life replaced you with a mast.
You know that I adored you.
But once I had explored you
I just could not afford you.
Many a man has decayed and gone to bugs – but not for love.
THE BEAST
And now who's going to drool at your beauty?
Who's going to bark through the night?
Who's going to bury
his bone for you today?
and howl for your exclusive delight?
My head has become a slow white dove--
no match, I'm afraid,
for the swiftsweet addersss of your fingersss.
Just a flikflik of the tongue,
one whiplash embrace--
and
already
the rich delicious poison
invades my heart.
Imagine our bodies in braille,
fingertongues perusing,
teasing out nuances,
weighing every significance.
We turn over
sheet after sheet.
Each climax foreshadowed,
we read ourselves to sleep.
I love your body's several smiles
as I press my name on all your mouths.
I love the way your body smiles
in some of your most surprising places.
I love the several smiles your body hides.
I love the hidden ways your body smiles for me,
The Easter Egg Hunt of your passion. The gift at your Christmas Tree.
No music's only one finger on one string.
The ocean wants a moon to make a tide.
Left foot needs right to create a stride.
And flight requires flow and wing.
It all makes a kind of bawdy sense:
Selfish soliloquy, no substance.
sticky nights
with a peppermintcheeked wonderchild
gumdrop breasts and licorice thighs
and acres of sugar cube smile
(even sweets will turn sour
if left for overnight;
too many lonely long hours
between the passion and delight)
and now who's going to drool at your beauty?
Who's going to bark through the night?
Who's going to to bury his bone for you today
and howl for your exclusive delight?
I've had my wine,
my kiss and my cock,
my garden and my trial.
I've got my thorns,
my thief and my hill,
my boulder and my style.
Where are my ring,
my fief and my rod,
my halo and my choir?
...
