>When poets don’t have a thing to say
In the way of segue or ending
They talk to trees: Oak, Pine, Poplar, Spruce
Doesn’t matter what they meant to say
Anything that shudders and drop seeds
Will attend, fetishizing Whitman
The metaphor gets contrived, conceited
& the direct rebellion against it, solipsism
Shoves the reader into first person’s moth-eaten closet
A philosophical realist there will thrive
Where he can thrust his hips toward the lips
Of the unassuming eye of you know who.
>There was something I meant to say
About how my sexuality is like your sexuality
About the rusty, blood-warm nails pounded through
my sexuality, your sexuality
But I cannot remember precisely what I meant to say
Beside that bit about my violence, your violence.
>Clam his fat purple question
In the bag rainbow cereal flowers stale
Recently shaved and though he carries
A new bathroom mat, folded and tagged
I doubt
He shaves in the privacy of his own bathroom
A menu and a paint pen, a cup of coffee
From somewhere else, black and olive drab
Match well, and does this concern you?
Have the implications of matching been considered?
Somewhere around the equaline nose explodes
Whispers and histories, fine
I’ll leave
You all alone, allow your chewing & glancing
And unscrupulous, unfair, feeble flirting.
Be plucked, a gummy charm
on their fingertips and at least
someone will leave this
fragrant pine box smiling.