Old manu: p. 54, last indent note: “Keep 1-4 stacked.”

1

bloody mary and burger and pen

careless on a friday afternoon

candle, menu, page and ink

out the window and lifeless in dust

rot the hours and uniform, the burning

of waste and heart and index.

the hot shame and flames and fire

burning and

twisting

and

screaming

I raise the drink to my stupid mouth

while across the ocean

a lion mounts his female.

2

my dog sunbathes in the

tall grass of my backyard

he has one blue eye, which is electric

and see through, and he has a partial

blue eye, so I called him Chico.

Not very writerly of me. I guess I

could have called him Capote,

or Mailer, come to think

of it. He's a macho one, but also feminine

on a few levels. I think if Mailer and Capote

fucked, though, Mailer

would have been on bottom.

Not for loss of control,

but for total control.

3

I don't know you anymore,

but I will call you Alexandra

I will hold your body without

weight or breath or bother when

the branches break in the northern wind,

while death dangles ugly

while the warfare harvests its dead, its

brown leaves

while the sorrow usurps loneliness

I will call you Alexandra

for no other reason than you are nameless

and I am alone and destroyed

but maybe

I will call you Alexandria because

in a novel you were sweat upon

and shot upon in the back of an

old green van

I would call you Bronte or Joyce,

but you are far too beautiful

for them.

I will call you mine, here, for no

other reason than you can't exist.

4

sunday 5:45 p.m.

burning, dragging, a break in the blinds

shows the breath of Gauguin

with the metal grip of

Geiger, but not the taste

of ash or fire.

liquid screams pour

onward

leaking and

burning

and

dragging poor Gauguin

away from Tahiti

and through

the ages.