there is no innocence anymore
this much i know for sure

but god my pillows smell of you
and christ my hands make love to you

with just the slightest brushing touch
that i can no longer grant


there is no innocence anymore
there is only the greek chorus of truth

telling me its gotta end now
that real love has a taste not quite so toxic

i cant see you and i do not want to think
the only thing i want to do is drink


there is no innocence anymore
the touching of skins doesnt bring bliss but more and more questions heaped

like
am i better just drifting off to sleep
and
god why is it only now that you want me
and
christ are you only trying to own me like a thing
a thing
that you dont want but no more want to see set free

joan of arc

now the flames they followed joan of arc
says leonard cohen
in his darkest voice
with his coldest metal
hands


and who chooses to
alienate themselves
so entirely?


and who chooses to
burn for schitzophrenic
visions?


but they must have been
the most real things,
to her,
the most real things--


the loneliest girl in the park
feeding the ducks
with no pretty face
and no charm-bracelet lover
linked to her arm


just joan the virgin
all alone
and nothing bright
in the sky

it is interesting how the things that you never mean to happen inevitably do, and how, having happened, it is impossible to imagine that it could have been any other way.

he thought this to himself as he watched her laying in the half-light of the very dark evening and one weak lightbulb. he thought it again as she looked at him with that particular expression that he could not avoid and could not seem to let be. it moved across her face like a curtain (the dusty ones, crimson and heavy, that hid the theatre stage in high school), that expression of bemusement but of entertainment as well. It introduced her as partly resigned and partly enthralled. It seemed to be her saying,

"Well, shit."

She lay on her back now, and she stared at the ceiling. Or rather, at the black sky, beyond the roof, beyond the ceiling. Her hands were at her sides, her black hair waving about like night on the bedspread.

He knew, watching, that there were not words for the ideas that were arranging themselves in her head. no topography for the landscape of feelings that branched from her chest and filled her up like water.

i fall chasing

about sixteen
in my journal i scratched
"like an axe
i wait for blood"

for the punishment
that comes
from taking in that
wry face that boy's face

the beach water eyes
and sandy skin
the sunburnt nose
those white doggish teeth

knowing that
each study was a curse
a prayer to the
revolving earth

a scream of
let me get what the fuck i want
for once lord
or maybe twice

and now i guess
the blood has come
but not in the way i had begun
to expect

not a river i am not
smote
by some strict
father god

just occasional
drops
as if i fell and
scraped my knees on the road

as if i fell chasing

occasional drops that
smear and spell
time is not here, only now
and sex and laughing

time is not here
but we smoke in the bed
we scrape our ash into a coke can
and we stick together with sweat

and time is not here
even though i reckon
i would marry you
i know in a second i would

and time is not here
baby
you do not think
time's around here

you say i suppose
ive got a crush
without any hunger
for a ball and chain

and i suppose
ive got a crush
and a prison cell
and a bleeding knee

from falling
chasing
from begging
the revolving earth

The Snake Charmer

The Snake Charmer

Snake charmer put a spell on me

Took off my shorts and

A hand on my knee

Snake charmer kissed my cheek

Not enough to pacify me

Completely

Snake charmer lying on his back

And he’s got a tattoo on his arm

Green and orange and his own skin

Filling in a map of Ireland.

Snake charmer through a haze

Of smoke

From that last hit maybe

An hour ago

Eyes closed and

Shoulders glow

I am unprotected

From harm.

I got bit on the collar

By a snake

Charmer.