Scream

After I cried, after the millionth time I died,

The slime, the sloth, the sinking ground

Of hell, or hate, opened its chaps,

And took me in for a ride.

No, am no Dante, or even a Joyce,

As my learned colleague said (who

Wrote a paper with unholy poise),

That afterlife is a bucket of crap.

And gee, how true was she !

I found for one how close it was,

The rivers of blood, the storms of lust,

All swirl within the men of dust. 

The murdered man

My skull is an empty canvas, Isabella,
Upon which now fond trellis grow,
The roots and shoots of basilico;
Like a copse covered shrine,
Where no body comes or goes,
To offer flower or mead any more,
But a maiden’s libation  of tears
Still feeding the lips that once
Rose to kiss and fell for wrath.

Mourning

I thought the pain would go,
thought life would not be so hollow.
And wished in vain to breathe again,
oh,  why did I not know.

All travels had reached their end,
and walls now rose in their stead;
The night he left, past all regret,
save the gathering dust on marriage bed.

Wishful death

At times I feel so cheated,
 cheated by life,
the old whore passion,
a yearning for light.
The iron hand of time
sealed across my chest,
the thorns I bear,
for ages hence,
will not die, dear,
until am dead.

Alone

The roses of pain bloom
In my garden forever,
No mystic crow brethren
Stand sentinel on my door.
I mill this path from birth,
Nor have I known any other,
Grief is my only bed,
And Misery, my sad witch mother.

Pomegranates

Acrid sweet buds crush
against the rude mouth of May,
who hurls the ripeness to dust, 

discarding the skin now sordid,
like love rumpled sheets,
after the hungry semblance

of love, is done to death.

Passing

Somebody died here, right in this room;
someone hung her clothes on the bracket,
where my umbrella folds its ominous bat wings.
Someone sat on that porch each rainy evening,
with a bowl of soup in her folded hands.
and may be sang with a sad face
to the terrible mirror woman.
Someone wrote, sang, cursed and quaked,
to break the numbing curse of steel,
the absurd fear of white walls and pills.
Even somebody before her
who hated this wallpaper,(my once removed ancestor)
 must have been scratching these walls and paper,
 in a smitten frenzy, with a stolen pen.

Bobok

Death is the only loyal friend,
privy to all sad, secret, keepsakes,
closing all wounds without grace,
causing no excess of pain,
but a gradual loss of two unities
into one indefinite, dark room
of negligence.

Ocean

Tears of salt, flotsam,

ripple with the tangled reeds

languid in the sun,
like a woman's tresses
unbound in death.
 .
You wouldn't wish to go
near those shark deep, iridescent sands;
to the dinner of oysters and crabs
on posh coral plates,
or admire the rope of pearls
hung on a deck of bones.

Il Girasole

Il girasole, la mia stella gialla,
staring all noon,
come to my tired, tired,
hot Indian summer room.

La mia stella brillante,
bring a little love,
when the moon has sunk
like the folded wings of dove.

Odiare è umano,
O il girasole, beaming all day,
who loves the sun so much,
hate you not the clay?