Machine-Gun Assassins

you are relentless

like a machine-gun in the trenches

your words splash off

my falling body

fuckn going and going and going

I think I’m dying

or absorbing truth

…

everyone quotes Corinthians

at weddings

but no one sees the desperate pupils

dilating

gasping at stars

beneath his bloody dagger

love is gentle

love is kind

O give me light

not flesh

or its mangled desires!

…

Give me something

anything

anything

that sings

and yet provides

give me passion and precision

give me meaning but not pain

let me bloom but not decay

i want to feel

to feel

beauty

beauty that never shocks.

…

love hath loveth bitterly

he’s fucking now god who knows

yet he begs for me

once I wore a ring

a ring

it meant eternity

like the sun itself

round, fiery and old

yet it too will dim

and eventually grow cold.

X-love with a shotgun

Sun, heat and sweat
and what remains but the bone
the indecipherable whisper on our ear
the bitter aftertaste of a potent drink
you show me your tattoo, I show you mine
you show me your scars, I show you my poems
you show me your breast, I show you my
sun, heat and sweat
the ghost of a body that has not yet died
pill after pill till the stomach is pumped
till the brain swims in endorphins, nirvana, heaven
till the night screams to be heard and the moans fade
till the bone-sun rises and clobbers our throbbing skulls
no more
for once i want to sleep by 10:00 pm sharp
for once i want to know what the birds sing
what maria callas means by “vissi d’arte”
for once i yearn to be silenced
by another’s dream
dissolve in the radiance of a pure syllable
vanish beyond the confines of light.