ARTISTS AND LOVERS

They say that Hitchcock got his kicks
shooting on the set,
by slyly humiliating his virginal chic blondes—
not from the gritty films that stressed and drained
the rest of us.

Thrills and catharses are not for the artist:
What poet or composer knows the quick
intake of breath, the delighted shock
his music causes? —Beethoven’s explosions,
Mozart’s soaring luminous voices, or the oblique
harmonies of Chopin?

And while our eyes, tongues, noses, hands
explore the transitions
from smooth to rough, and in between
the folds of skin
the dissonance of ginger, cinnamon, and clove,

while straining joints, the thrust and slide
of hips and thighs create
sure, syncopated counterpoint
around a core of pleasure,
I might wonder
whether you are ravished as I am
by the naked progression from dominant
to subdominant
and back again . . .
and back again . . . .
Many things I might ponder
as we play together
with our bodies
making variations
on their own
suspensions
and
delayed

resolutions . . . .

I might—but I am taken beyond wonder.

So Little Gets By

So little gets by
This petty customs inspector
Who scrutinizes the border
With eyes like bayonets
And the undeviating will
To lay bare and destroy
Every secret
Threat
To his security.

Avid hands
Rifle my clothes,
Shoveling them aside.

He interrogates:
"So. Whose agent are you?
"What is your true identity?
"Your covert agenda we already know.
"You will not, here in the Fatherland,
"Your disorder propagate.
"This will we not permit."

And I am required to answer,
"No one's, Sir," and, "None, Sir," and,
"No, Sir, I will not."

I try, I try to look straight in his eyes as I declare,
With my most candid wide blank gaze,
"Sir, I have nothing to declare."
_

A ROSE

opens,
unfolds

a small
ecstatic
explosion

a hole
in the
fabric
of space

red vortex

coral
and
amber
staining
the air

petal
bright lips

part
in the
sexual
pout

swell
to the
caress

puff out ...

your mouth
_

The following is a Spanish-language version of the original poem above. One of the challenges of writing it was the production of short lines, because Spanish has relatively few monosyllabic and dissyllabic words.

UNA ROSA

se desdobla

una ínfima
explosión
extática

agujero
en la tela
del espacio

vorágine roja

llamarada
virginal
de corales
y de ámbares

en el aire
estremecido

se hinchan
los pétalos
húmedos

alrededor
de la íntima
herida

... ay tu boca
_

Elegy for a Forgotten Poet

In Memoriam Hart Crane

You might have known,
When first your serpent's eye of wisdom
Lifted up to light,
You might have known your final luck,

A flawed heart hurled like a broken die
On the altar of a prodigal quest
For the sperm whale's fabled ambergris,
Among the scattered seamen of the world.

You might have known
There is no salvage from a sacrifice.

An alien constellation led
To Vera Cruz. Night lay in wait,
A tangle of orchids rank with blood.

Below the steep swell of the Gulf,
The Inverted Cross, beckoning onward,
Rose and fell.

Whirled from the Zodiac then, scarred
And pitted knuckles recoiled and struck,
And your myth collapsed, a House of cards.

Into the dark obsidian sea,
Into the dark sea, wave and stern-wake,
White with phosphor, arched and flung
Your long and whitely tossing bones.

Sleep now, poor castaway, and rest.
What's cast away can't be called lost,
And no dreams break
In the sea's bed or the belly of the shark.

O master and original, most rare
Mixed metaphor! -- Among
Galaxies of islands your fantasy was spun,
In flights of stars and drifting foam.
_

Without Beauty Is No Beast

In Memoriam Thom Gunn

He doesn't look at you
as if you were some strange
animal alien to his kind, a grotesque
appendage dangling
or bobbing between your legs.

He is not repelled by your hairiness
or the hard
angularity of muscle, cartilage, bone.

He is not afraid
of your brusque touch
or frightened by the size of your
body.

He does not nurse the hidden rage
of an offended child,
nor does he accuse you of rape,
or attempted rape,
or fantasies of rape.

He welcomes you as a fellow creature
who shares his needs and his ways.
He knows you as he knows his brother.
He trusts your trust and your good faith.

This is the ground of your love for each other.
_

The Closet

I'm so far back, I can't hear,
I can't breathe for the musty wool
In my lungs instead of air,
I'm stumbling all over my shoes,
Hangers tangled in my hair,
And I can't see--

But this house is not a home,
And I know what's out there:
It's no place for me.
_