A craven of cronies stood Between us & God God hated short skirts And demanded obeisance. A damnation of judges stood Between us and Knowledge; individuals exist only To provide service to others. A clowder of cretins Stood between us and Art; “don’t be disturbing” They said and ”Never trust instincts.”
You drank the koolaid Became prince of their Oubliette; Mustered the passion To rescue me; I who grew up To send them this poem.
A Bruise, A Cut, A Fever
i. With matched & monogrammed Tartan luggage You swept West Pulling the Atlantic behind you Over you Over us both To swim nude In the rapture you created Divesting Corduroys, wingtips Tweed & leather vests Posing for a Swedish love manual Under the falls.
ii. I missed everything: Disliked you on sight Loathing your masculine privilege; Teased your editorials Written by An antiquated Mencken; Insulted your proctoring Missed the whorl of platinum fur At the base of your pubis; Not till I smelled you did I want your Clove-scented ecstasies Kindling my fevers At the same time Of quenching them.
iii. From my tree perch I watched them Bored by their game Uncaring of their rule Making instead Mind patterns and Writing them down In gold crested diaries With fairy-tale endings And augur beginnings.
iv. Pole-axed by Europe I didn’t believe them “This stuff matters frightfully” And I was affrighted; Culture-Mother Couldn’t say why She forced us to look Then forced us to blink; Her timing was off. Our Dad sought the ocean In history, in pictures The madness of Nature the Desecration of History A Dutch sloop encapsulated By unsinkable Fiberglas The captain lied when he said We were all going home.
v. you peeled off my shock-pants dusting the bed with glitter and asked me to marry you