Poem XVIII: Dies Corpulenta Martis

NOTE TO EACH OF BELOVED ONES:

I AM NOT HERE
I HAVE GONE TO PHYLLIS AND DAVID'S RIGHTEOUS SCHOOL-NIGHT MARDI GRAS

IF YOU WILL NOTICE THAT ONE OF THE HENS
IS GONE
WIG NOT I AM RIDING
THAT CHICKEN
STRAIGHT INTO VALHALLA


your loving,
Tammuz

Poem XVII: Be careful who is helping you throw up

Be careful who is helping you throw up

this is important

because if it's not Dionysus

whispering sweet nothings in your ear

whilst through purple lips

you hurl like a cat

it might just be Apollo

if it is the former

then the solace you will have received

whilst beneath the trees

you purpled the ground
with your guts

is free

it’s forgotten

but if it is the latter

you’re going to have to pay it all back 

Poem XVI: Ars mentis

i'm not crazy:

we can increase our awareness of reality
by likening things which are not
associated by habit
or by Nature,
but which we by doing so
augment, as by development.

It is a practice I practice.

It is a dream I have.

Poem XV Neo Catbus: Feles Improbus et Aegrotus

I'd like to tell you a little bit
about my gato peligroso:
first off
he is loco en la cabeza
he is a nuisance and a hazard
with his busy paws
and inquisitive claws
he is a lunatic and means to seize power

he hath a perennial head-cold
his habitual sneeze
covering everything in sight
with his perpetual discharge
above all he cherishes the taste
of human flesh

yesterday he drew blood
from Augie's leg
in a dramatic ambush

the children fear him
the goats won't go near him
Argos is over him
Molly adores him beyond measure

I don't know what his problemo grande is
but you have to admit
for being such a total pendejo
he's got panache.

Poem XIV: MR. SQUEAKY

Mr Squeaky
has escaped!

It's been three days.

The farm has not been the same without him.

I mean
he was kind of a pervert

but his song was like
a serrated knife
every morning
tearing the sun
a new one.

Poem XIII: FOUR-LINE ORPHIC MYSTERY

Fates clothed in white

through many a workless night

bring forth the little flower

in Aphrodite’s hour

Poem XII: Warning from the Grail Hermit

Warning: few meanings are spiritual
in the literal sense of the word.

You can see through transparent symbolism

the details twist together

to form a bloody spiral.

Orthodox? Nay:

arising from the damaged memory

of an aureate demigod

are the things it rescued from oblivion:

things cut from the papers

and blogs usurping love and reason

a square of cloth, a sweet emulsion

retaining forged a physiognomy,

or else a misplaced spear, a bowl of blood.

(The hermit crashes into the wood

running through the night in crazy clothes

stomach crammed

with  voles and mice and nightingales

and unspecific bits of cloth

never to be seen or heard from again.)