Blessings of Phaedra
There are times I go down
until I am surrounded by yellow music
There is nothing beneath me
My mother’s dead lips smile and say, “See
there is nothing lesser than we”
The earth is my camp breath
her worms and the heat of my bowels
Night sweat means nothing
to those who do not sleep
It is a balm, an outside offering
Please take me to the circus
that I might witness the misery of other animals
the empirical majesty
and absolute dominion of man
where only the elephant is sadder than me
Lost in a sea of green money
and fingertip fishes seeking
greedy, sucky, moments of avarice
she has eleven open mouths
and swallows the whole of me
Did you see the frail lantern
alight in the window
and the name it was wearing
Yes, its message of Phaedra
calling itself home
Falling into a forest of a thousand guitars
whose root strings are tender
is the master of chord
and he hangs himself from the nearest guitar
dies on the music of the wind
“Meet me in your dreams,” she cries
the next best thing to being there
Shadow shapes call out to my name
I am blind in the periphery
and in all dreams I die
Like a wounded animal
I smell the rot of my flesh
damn the maggots for eating parts of me
left better to putrefy
and take me to the end land
Sleep is the kingdom of the healthy
where the strong go to rest
and the weak to escape
There is a madness between sleep
where pariahs such as I, alleys roam
In a pasture of lowing
moon-swept, pastoral and fine
I am the hunter’s lust to slay
with fang and claw, all that lives
to starve on a body of prey
The pretty boys were singing downtown
making heat for long-legged girls
flinging epithets at the old men
beggars and high roller winos
Midnight don’t mean nothin’ to strangers
I got one foot in Jesus
the other in the ditch
Spirituality is like ringworm
It makes you itch
digs down deeper than your flesh
Why don’t you take me out walkin’
until my feet are under water
and my eyes are full of sand
I’ll look down and wonder, all gritty
Where the hell did they go?
The man on the radio says ha-ha
talks to girls about their titties
and why don’t they join a swinger’s club
do it in front of their old men
breaks for a commercial about shaking babies
Life makes about as much sense as two nickels
rubbed together, don’t make a dime
You put it all up front and when it falls down
you walk away and wonder
Was it something you said or maybe you didn’t
I knew a man named Jimmi
He got real pissed when they took away one of his m’s
set fire to his instrument
and banged his head on the floor
Ah hell, it’s all in the letters
I loathe rooms with four walls
double doors and window mirrors
They see everything you do
look back, contemptuous, to remind you
of everything you don’t
Yesterday there was something in my soup
I believe it loved me
The prayer I said over it was beautiful
You are woman, you are my hope, my dream
and then I swallowed it whole
There may be enough pills in this bottle
to still the phantoms behind my eyes
that I might cop a few hours of death
leave this drifting shadow place
for the delight of ebon fantasies
Be kind to me, you damned night
Allow me acceptance, her invitation
and, with the blessing of Phaedra
whose death by her own hand
is the sleep death, a revenge of sons
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