1_ porous fire smoldering in soft water

i read will alexander’s tender poem

today

dedicated to the wondrously mad genius 

of antonin artaud

& i felt the kind of love

you feel for the first time

for something

you know

you’ve always held dear

& the words helped me peel a silence

from myself

out of an oval form

nested inside my imagination

a form as porous as

water or fire

like the gentle but relentless

smoldering of deep-deep 

longing

for something that will never happen

yet has happened

so many times before

in the distant future

2_ the dead nightingales 

for our cute little microbial dictator 

it is said 

when you hold back tears

springs in your eyes may burst 

i was all too familiar

once

with the tears’ journey

out of the stomach 

up into the heart

throat 

trying to pierce 

through the eyes

throbbing inside the skull

like a lonely sobbing bird 

quarantined in your mouth

the old nightingale

buried yet fluttering 

its wings of water

in your chest 

as if 

bombs of song

were about to spark 

out of your eyes

that same bird

gave birth 

once 

to my winged parents  

black angels 

quarantined 

inside my chest

like that virus

what’s its name again?

freud called it 

the unconscious

but plato knew 

it was the soul

isolated inside 

the corpse

i’ll catch that virus

one day

grow an unconscious

grow a soul 

& i’ll chew up

the last nightingale 

i’ll grind it with my teeth

while it sings gaelic songs

celtic tales 

sung in the language 

of the dead 

its fading melodies 

cracking

inside that freudian thing

as my parents 

at very last 

spread their wings

& fly out

from your mouth

high up

free

like only  

dead nightingales

can

3 _ amphibian she-wolf apparition 

crawling on eight legs 

For “SPIDER WOMAN” Louise Bourgeois 

to those 

who assume

i am one

like xx or xy

or hyphenated 

like greco-roman

or french-american

i declare 

i’m neither one

or two

i am at least 

three or seven

bodies without mind

amphibian 

she-wolf apparitions

the one true body

my mental fangs 

shine 

like a bouquet

of weeping spider orchids 

& my howls 

they grow

inside in the bleeding crotch

of an endangered language 

i am

that oblique 

martyr of thought

the underwater crow

crawling 

towards you

during one of your unique 

alchemical dreams

on eight legs 

there

my arachnodactyly utter 

promiscuous decibels

kachina melodies 

tunes in sync 

with the molecules of desperate water

& like your utmost faithful nationality-slut

my allegiance evaporates

as fast as one 

guttural gonzo glance 

like my tresses of synthetic wind

or your plastic genitals 

all hide     

inside the same hollow consonant  

& chuckle 

understand 

my dear queer friend

i’m not like 

your next-door normopath 

i cultivate 

parasites in my brain

& my body-parts 

are partially 

sonic

partially visual

i flourish 

in that 

festering wound 

where morally right 

& morally wrong 

overlap 

so understand  

i’m not hyphenated 

i’m eight-eyes 

MADAME LOUISE BOURGEOIS  

the amphibian she-wolf

apparition 

crawling towards you 

on eight legs  

during one of your unique

alchemical dreams