Fixing Cars

These callow young men who work under cars

all summer with eyes on the girls passing by

billboards of flesh, attired as if to please.

Wanderings of flesh, whose pale youth beckons

to tease and torment, their pleasure as if

just an image and perfume is enough.

For  callow young men who work under cars

their white t shirts stained with copious sweat

cool mirror shades reflect metal workings

iron tools of the trade only rearrange.

When summer’s over, the cars remain ghosts

but the girls return for a final pose.

Then driven to nowhere in borrowed cars

these callow young men reserved all along.

Death Of Language

Out of body

even as our eyes

focus/our

fingers interlocked

with familiar

detachment.

She takes

photographs of

herself, of me

countless birds

that leave us

without crumbs.

All, as it

should be until

with succinct

innocence she

mentions a friend

whose obviously more.

A montage of

images gather

to assail/accuse

with inviolate

clarity. Her

recent furtive

moments…

Calls made

with surreptitious

candor. Late

nights and

now its too late

to ask why.

On a busy street

she wants to explain

all I feel. As every

artery rushes blood

to my skull with

dizzying effect.

At a restaurant

she cant explain herself

nor can I.

The death of language

all we know.

Waitress gives us

menus but English

and love  are now

languages-

I no longer understand.

For Lydia Lunch

They’re all guilty

said Lydia Lunch

of her predators.

Cracked mirrors

who left each                               

sharp shard

of  hate deep

to draw blood

frequently in

nightmares framed

with forbidden

detail from assaults

of childhood incest.

It’s been her life

to wake scathed

from these or

lesser indifferent wounds.

Later documented as if

from  a mirror

in too many ways not

to be her life’s work.

A  timeless art

from trauma her shadow

at home or hospitals

as they stitched her up again.

Trauma of being set loose

with havoc and revenge

the only words to live by.

Seldom having

enough disdain to aim.

Her targets all

varied players…

some merely accidents.

In lurid yet beguiling

ongoing adventures

she half hypnotizes

even the casual to read…

or hear on stage.

Where still

no one is ever safe

especially not her.