The Dance of Shiva

Before this world was formed, I played a role
Hitherto reserved only for darkness:
I was the void in which you poured your soul.

I am the first, the last, the beautiful
Truth—Keats’s amphora—I shall outlast
All other vessels. Nothing, that’s my role

In the great cosmic drama. I’m the whole
Of time itself set spinning by your presence.
I was the void in which you poured your soul

So long ago—before a god could hold
A paltry thing like man and love him as
His equal. Let’s give warmth a larger role

In this new universe. Space was so cold,
So lifeless, dark and empty in the past.
I was the void in which you poured your soul—

The mouth, the Milky Way, the gloryhole—
Ten thousand other gods have used. But that’s
The past. I am nothing again: my role
Tonight is infinite. Come fill my soul.

Pan and Poet

After Yeats


A sudden violent seizure: from behind,
The pitiless priapic scent of goat
Thrust in so deeply that it stabbed my mind.
Grunting, hairy, hard, around my throat

A filthy human bicep bulged—crushed
My trachea. We tumbled in the mud,
Joined at the hip, man and myth, in a rush
Of terrible ferocity. The blood,

The brutal music Pan abandoned there,
Did not depart with those receding hoof
Prints in the woods. This was just our first

Real encounter. Matted in my hair
One animal remained. And, with a shove,
Forced me to couple, crying, with the earth.

Red Eft

I felt his heartbeat flutter as we rose
Above the leaf mold on the forest floor,
Half-way to Heaven for him, I suppose,
Where no salamander’s gone before.

I held him in my hand, eye-level. He
Lifted a frail, florescent, three-toed foot,
But hestitated going forward. We
Would meet as equals—on his terms. He put

His scarlet foot down gently on my palm.
I hardly felt the pressure—like a kiss
Leaves on your head when dreaming—calm,
Cool, amphibian—one that persists

After the thin film of moisture dries.
This is the imprint love leaves on the skies.

Mata Hari

Mon cher—forgive me if I am a little vague on dates,
but by the time I lay back on my pillow, I was already welcoming our appointed hour:
the shabby shows of justice, the firing squads, disgrace—death—these tedious old fools
no longer concern me. I accept their flowers with grace, but their predictable, impotent, palsied advances I dismiss.

What is this music
Stuck in my head
And who is this beauty,
The lady in red?

Consider this, my dear, while you’re inspecting my—how delicately can I put this—my credentials.
Invite the doctors in. As witnesses. I am not the green, unsifted girl I used to be.
If the cold hand of science—the sight of pale thighs in a speculum—sent shivers down her spine,
be kind enough to note that this reflex belongs to the past, not to me.

Perhaps it’s the whiskey
Just gone to my head.
She looks like this girl
I once took to bed.

Come to my dressing room after the performance. I shall leave instructions.
All will be arranged: my hair, the divan, and luxurious sensations—like limitless power.
Come to the stage door and knock three times. The porter, Patrice, will admit you.
Marie will take your coat and hat. The nation is waiting, cherie. You have

but to knock,
and enter.
I shall be there.

Her lips were sweet as honey,
Her eyes looked more like lead:
As icy as Pluto, so
Distant, dark, and dead.

Five Months

The last time it was sunny was the first
full day we spent together in Japan.
It started with a cigarette, a burst
of flame, a yellow lighter, your right hand.

Another puff at Denny’s. Maybe two
o’clock we stopped to read a sign inside
Shinjuku Park: “shin” meaning “new.”
I pointed to the character with pride.

You laughed. The cherry blossoms were not gone:
beneath those black, twisted boughs there lay
these soggy little pastel piles. How long
they looked like crumpled Kleenex, I can’t say.

To me, that afternoon seems like the last
nice day on Earth. It’s been so overcast.

Magnetic Fields

A snowflake falls,
a dick flops out,
across the globe
the headlines shout

about hot weather.
Let it come.
Right now I hold
a chilly bum.

My compass spins.
You do not speak.
You seem to wink.
I kiss each cheek.

These data points
remove all doubt:
The Northern lights
shine in the South.

The huskies pant,
the sled we ride
glides through the wastes
where love resides:

magnetic fields,
electric folds,
which congregate
beneath our poles.

Nude at Noon

The waves too feeble for a surf,
We half consider going home,
Filling the gulls with cries of mirth
Hovering above the foam

Rolling slowly down the beach.
You hold your hand up for some shade,
Watching someone eat a peach,
As if he held an ass made

In Heaven: juicy, ripe and sweet.
“I wish we brought some fruit,” you say,
“And an umbrella.” I repeat,
“Some fruit.” I pitch a peach your way.

You catch it as a mermaid catches
A naked swimmer: with a kiss,
Pearl necklaces and emerald flashes,
Mingling her salty mouth with his.