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.

Go

I used to travel more than I do now—
Take trips, take pictures, take the long way home.
It seems the times have changed my schedule. How

Did I lose flexibility—allow
My legs to lose their muscle—turn to bone?
I wonder what my skeleton does now?

A backpack always bumping my elbow,
Through forests, foreign cities, we would roam.
I know there is a world out there. But how

Many sandwiches to pack? You know
If you’ll be coming? Will I dine alone?
Answering this question’s harder now.

So much depends upon the weather. Show
Me a barometer. Should we postpone
Our trip until a better day? How

Would we recognize it? Lack of snow?
No rain? No clouds? That is the great unknown.
The sky is full of emptiness right now:
Just mercury is falling. Fast. And how.

The Idle Brain.

Not much to report today--at least not here, my friends--not here in River City.

The world is surpassingly beautiful. The sun is out. The azaleas are out. There is a white cabbage butterfly hovering over the horseradish patch. And the fiddlehead ferns near the air conditioner have started to unfurl.

A zen-like Zephyr is sprinkling sakura over the flagstones leading from the porch into the backyard. The rusty core of an apple sits on a small plate to immediate right: my passport out of Paradise.

Before the Heavens alter these details beyond recognition (there are thunderstorms in the forecast for Tomorrow), I thought I should try to capture at least the furtive flavor of this moment before the rains arrive. The air is thick with the intoxicating odor of lilac.

Yes, the lilacs, with their deep green, heart-shaped leaves. They have us practically surrounded. Aren’t they lovely? I have just come back into the house from clipping a cluster. They now sit in a crystal vase on the dining room table.

While I was busy with the shears and the bushes out back, I put the finishing touches on a villanelle that rubbed his eyes open yesterday morning. It all began quite innocently enough, as many of my projects do: as a very ordinary, very commonplace hard-on.

While I cannot say what happened to that hard-on over the subsequent 24 hours, I can assure the curious reader that I dedicate this poem to no one’s anatomy in particular, just the glorious, transformative power of Music!


Variations in the Key of C
A Baroque Masterpiece

When I consider the curve of your cock—
In even this mild, mathematical way—
I notice strange images start to knock:

Sticky things, mostly, things made of rock—
A petrified marshmallow showed up today.
He either was stale, or scared by your cock,

So, I sent him away. A while back Bach
Appeared at my door. He started to play
A sort of pipe organ. Bach did not knock.

Nor did his friends. He arrived with a flock
Of cherry-faced cherubs and a golden bidet
With the weirdest fixtures—curved like your cock.

Now, very few stores keep these in stock:
Which is why I thank God for Bach and eBay
Whenever strange men with strange instruments knock...

Speaking of knocking, I think I forgot
To mention something. What I meant to say
Concerned a key, more than it did a cock:
This is for you. No need, you know, to knock.