Nobody Sends Me Mail Anymore

write me a letter,
made of paper-machier words,
covered in sweat and come and tears.
spit on it as you fold it up,
and put it in an envelope,
and send it by moonlight
to my eyes alone

i'll be lying here
with swollen lips
and open arms
and bent knees
thinking about the meaning of home
and how i haven't got one
and how that's okay
as long as somebody out there will still
write me
a letter
made of newspaper cutout phrases
and clippings of eyeballs in magazines
and dip it in tabasco sauce,
and roll it up and fry it
and eat it
and miss me too.

Monday

everybody is sighing monday sighs

and drinking monday coffees

on monday trains

to monday desks

with papers stacked like sunday pancakes.

I go to work

hungover

and sore-

there's a bruise on my elbow shaped like Kansas-

and drink my soy latte

for the protein

and the caffeine

and to have something to do.

I'm staring at my monday stack of sunday pancake papers

and sighing

squinting

and getting white-out on my thumbs.

Somebody is yelling at somebody else on a phone in an office and

I'm pretty sure the entire building can hear.

So it goes. A ticking clock, and a cold coffee, and the words

that I keep in my head all day.

At least come 5'o'clock,

I'll sigh another monday sigh

and get on another monday train

and crack my knuckles all the way home thinking of Friday, and beer,

music and smoke

and

the sad irony of Mademoiselles: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

rolling 3: the drop

I am an emotional bruisejob

Living a devotional chess game

And playing both sides.

Drinking Perrier and eating oranges,

And masturbating in the shower,

And crying into my pillows,

My aches hurt as prettyblue as

The bruises on my elbows

And the crooks of my arm

(That you left behind)

And the bruises on my

Melting ice-chip throat

(From the bitter white shouting)

And the bruises on my

Squelchy- heart

(As soft as a bruised apple)

I want to be left alone

With everyone else—

In the city

In the supermarket

In the bars on the corners

In the bedrooms fucking

Together brightly.

rolling 2: for a dark-eyed girl

I want to kiss you

With my teeth

Bury the knife pearls

Into the tender pink

Of you

And leave the purple-berry

Fruit marks

In constellations

On your inner thighs,

And the half-moons

Of fingernails

On your rounded shoulders.

Beer-drunk and wobbly

Fall into a pile of limbs

And in gentle darkness

Rip holes into the

Very core of you

And weave myself into them.

rolling 1

And the colored girls go

Doo doot doo

I am black and blue

Bruised and beautiful

Inside and out

Flying higher

Crashing lower

Doing lines off the kitchen table

With lou reed and a pair of white high heels—

Waiting for the sun to fall

Waiting for the man to call

And say

I need you

On your knees

Right now.

Open up and hold my

Babybird soul

Between your fingers

And kiss it on the eyelids.

And the colored girls go

Doo doot doo doot doo doo.

Bedtime Story

peeling oranges in my bed
in underwear and a baggy sweater--no socks.

It's cold in here, and I'm relishing the
goosebumps rising like leavened bread
over my legs.

I like to run my fingers over them
like braille
and read the story of my skin
which begins

once upon a time
on a rainy october night
just a bit after midnight
a girl ate an orange bit by bit,
and tossed the peel in the bin
with an empty beer bottle to keep it
company
and felt
uncannily lonesome.

I've been sick, but here we go again.

It might be cold outside

But it’s warm in here

In between my two peach-fuzz breasts

Where beats my heart

Which tonight

Is pumping to excess.

Filling up the corners of my eyes with heat,

And leaving my face a ruddy red,

It is dancing an African tribal dance

That catches my bruised and bandaged toes

In rhythmic tapping.

I could run up four flights of stairs tonight,

Catapulting off the railings like

A little boy on Christmas,

Just to get to the top where

The stars might be

Just a little bit closer.

If I could fly

This is what flying might feel like—

Like the most ordinary feelings of loveliness--

Of hot blood in your ears,

And wind against your cheeks.

After a Long Day

No pretentious shit tonight-

Just two-hundred envelopes stamped and mailed

To various celebrities, nobility, the filthy rich, and the

Theatre bigshots

In and around the London area.

A salad and tea- earl grey with milk, no sugar

Eaten outside when the weather is

Just slightly too cold.

An American man is at the table to my left

Teaching an Italian girl

To bastardize English.

I’ve had enough

Choices and commuting

And answering telephones.

I want to be tied up tonight

With silk scarves.

Climb into bed, take a pill,

Wishing I had a place

To float in

(A bathtub

Or a chemical high

Or both)

Check the email.

No important messages,

No unimportant messages.

To Balding Men

Live while you're young

and charming-

in your good looks

and striking eyes.

Fuck a lot, and drink a lot.

Because you've seen

the future

in the shining heads

of your bald dads-

those crystal balls do not lie.

And once those long locks

are no more

no amount of stylish shoes,

or expensive cars,

watches, ties, or briefcases

will save you

your middle-aged

thinning terror.

So decide-

to side part or not?

to crew cut or not?

toupee or not toupee.

Or,

make the bold decision

and lather up like a

foamy frosted cupcake

and shave it all off

and be like the happy old men

before you

like the ones at bus stops, or diners,

who drink black coffee with three sweet-and-lows

and smile in nostalgic lechery

at the young girls

going by in denim shorts.

Edinburgh II

Ghosts are throwing

an all-night

vodka-shot

disco

RAGER

in Old Town tonight.

We walked through the haunted

Scotland

city

night

recounting torture-treason-plot-and-plague--

it was quite cheesy and fun

until the candles went out

underground

in the shuffling, shifting

airthick caverns,

where we thought at any moment

a man

with a mask

might jump out

and shout--

and this was the most frightening thought

of all.

So we skid over stones

through the raging

town of ghosts

and drunk girls with short skirts and great legs

And shut the door tight

against the backbeat screams outside the window

and the German girls next door

will not

shut the fuck up.

Glasgow

In Glasgow

all the coffee-shops close at five.

And the weary workers-

the cumbersome commuters-

hop the trains home to suburbia.

In Glasgow

the city is empty by half-five.

The occasional penguin-footed businessman runs by-

"late again, the missus'll have me!"

In Glasgow, the station is full to the brim at half-six,

Pulling away in a hot-sauna car,

and the city whispers to itself,

"alone at last."

Dublin II

Here's to feeling unattractive

in a beautiful city

belly full of boiled egg

weary and tousle-haired

and better on the move

through uneven streets

and aging townhouses

down the coast to seaside

tinglemouthed and toeworn

pock-faces and worn out

and sleeping nights in a bare room

as the young and hopeless

wage their wars

on the streets.

An Irish Drinking Poem

I am a speck in the sky.

An hour ago, patting down my face

in the ladies' toilet,

it occurred to me that from the ground

I would be invisible in the infinite.

So I think I'll have a strong drink,

and idly watch the ground go by,

vast and tiny,

all at once.

Another pint here.

Another red-haired man here.

Another tongue, another bite,

Another button-down shirt.

Another pint.

Dubin: Wanderer

Hostel with hospital sheets

sterile white

thin walls-- thin enough to hear the talk next door

but not to speak the language.

Hello Dublin--

cobblestones and guinness

and meat in every meal.

Blistered feet-bleeding adventure,

this jet-setting heart is beating something

syn

co

pated

It's suppertime in New York--

A starch, a protein, and a vegetable.

Early yet with eyes fast shutting,

I'll wake tomorrow

wondering where I am

in this submarine of a bunk-bed

with aching toes

and a strange man in the bed

across the room

and fight onward.

To the next drink,

the next shop,

the next field of the greenest grass I swear

I've ever seen.

And feel

alive

awake

electric

A wanderer with shutter-eyes

and a dully aching, full and marvelous

heart.

Dublin 3/Bray, Ireland

the jet-black drowning

of the lady in the

water

bobs against the cool sun

the window panes are cracked here.

house full up.

tea and violence in the

late morning--

across the green she goes.

guinness and potato in the

early evening.

Bandage wounded feet.

Empty the slate-brain dusted chalky.

An early flight tomorrow.

Edinburgh: Whiskey

I run out of everything- money, clothing, drugs, friends, love. I've got a heart of hot rock-- from the mouth of a volcano, and legs just shaved in a cruddy bathroom.

Brushing lips with another unremarkable man-- because a night with a boring stranger is better than a night alone.

Whiskey doesn't burn like the first time I tried it-- in a New York flat, with a bible for a coaster, and hothouse hair. I was feeling sweat cool against my temples and papers scattered, damp with boozy gold rings.

Whiskey over ice-- smooth and cold and hot all at once.

And my stranger was a cute drunk--

But I didn't ask his number,

and he didn't get mine.

Countdown

Countdown

The hours

In six the sun

Will rise up slow

And sweet

Eight

In the air above

London

Watching the runway winking

Farewells

Countdown the days

Tomorrow in Dublin

Friday in Glasgow

Saturday the highland grasses

Swallow knees and wave

with gentle sharpness

And there might be a man

With a lilting voice

Breaking like waves

Over me

And there might be a girl

With copper hair and

A body like a boy.

And I’ll still be counting down

To someplace warm

And safe

And drunk

And happy

Pacing

pacing the floor

in my pumps

pulsing the light

in my veins

shaking me down

I am fistfuls of wild hair

and tomorrow

i will still be a pair of eyes

and a pair of tits

and a pair of feet

that take me across city streets

and subway stairs

surging the heat

in my thighs

with hands outstretched

and lips half-parted.

This is Not an Innuendo

this is not an innuendo,
she suddenly whispered,
from under the covers.
this is not a come on.
this is the quietest cry out I can make.


Maybe on some level
I will always need
someone's hand
between my thighs.

Someone's mouth on mine-
for silence's sake.

Curved

i want the man with the chilled hands

up my shirt

and the soft wet lips and the

teeth

i want the man with the

mischief eyes and the

whiskey mouth

and the words that toss me down

and keep me there.

and that could be any man

but i want you

to curve up into me.

I will lie beneath you, like Eve.

And I will lie upon you, like Lilith wanted.

And I will lie beside you, with my cheek upon your chest

and my wine-filled eyes will close to stroke you with

silken lids.

In Which Words Come Together

original desire

seems still.

she saw

young language

in bare-breasted excitement-

don the styled winds,

in which we are lying

(laughing actual) clothes disarranged,

little smiles expensive.

not one lunatic creates

this lady.