Gas

March 10, 1978

My imagination

Shapes sound

In the night

The creaking plank

Outside my door

Footsteps climbing

Stairs I know

Are not my neighbor’s

Too silent a wraith

For souls for whom

Silence is a sin

And I huddle closer

To the storm for warmth,

And the soothing

Sound of gas

And it’s always

Enticing whisper of sleep.

Is that the door handle

I hear rattling?

Is that a stranger

Seeking to come in

Out of the cold?

Or seeking to steal warmth

I’ve already convinced

Myself to give up?

Seduced

By the whisper

Of gas

Key to the kingdom (from notebooks -- though significantly reworked)

 I touch the hard spot with the soft side of my forefinger

Lingering with the tip on the lip of a keyhole I ache to invade

A spot shot with warmth and wet from excess

And the need to go deeper to reach the keep

Beyond the frail veil that of wailing and wonder,

Beyond the shuddering and the cries of the dark of night

Beyond the moans and groans and feigned protests

Or the shrill cries of pleasure pain raining over me

Down deep beyond the veiled promises and seductive rites

To that place where all real secrets reside,

To that place where all life is ripe

Down where all pain turns to pleasure,

And all pleasure to pain,

This key to that door, that wondrous gate

I ache to swing wide and enter,

To forsake all else for paradise

That wonderful, amazing, irresistible,

Gold mine

of your mind.

Yet another notebook entry -- very recent

"Nobody can tell you how to live your life but you," that savvy nun once told me on the sly when I got dragged to the office again, a constant petitioner for mercy I long ceased to deserve, she thinking I would rethink the direction I was already steered in, the shadow of prison bars showing on my face, long before I ever saw the inside of a jail cell, God showing in her eyes with the flashes of lightning and judgment I did not reckon with, preferring to steer my life in which ever way I wanted with nothing written in stone, writing my life with a number 2 pencil not pen and ink, hoping that when I got to the pearly gates God had an eraser. "Nobody can tell you how to live your life," the nun said again just as the ruler cracked me across my knuckles.

More notebook -- undated

She tells me she is like the wind and I believe her, breathing her in and out as if jogging through a hurricane, every part of me fully engaged, touching and being touched, flowing up and over, under and around, falling deep and rising high, my head pounding with the impacts no hurricane warning could prepare me for, mother nature -- if that's who she is -- humbling me, forcing me to my knees, making me breathe deep with hope that I don't drown

Notebook stuff -- undated

I taste blood, but I don't know which one of us is bleeding, or if it comes from inside or out. I don't even feel the pain of it, having rubbed so long the same spot until I would either bleed or explode, love rubs whole lives together with hope to spread fire, stirring coals up inside, heat making me breathe flame out of the intensity of pain, shaping a point where pain and bliss meet and make love.

Unicorn (reflection on Hudson County)

I’m too long in this game
To believe innocence exists
Skeptical when I come
Nose to nose with it
Refusing to believe it
The way I refuse to believe in
UFOs or Big Foot, or even God,
Shattered when finally 
I see it wilt,
Its hard shell cracked open
by reality’s hard knocks
like seeing a unicorn drowned
in polluted water
I swim in without harm

 They say: give a man enough rope,

 he might hang himself,

 tied up, gagged, unable to move

 or do except what he is told

 ordered silent and to submit or else

 this intense twice

 tied up inside and out,

 pulled tight from the groin,

 though it is really the heart 

that binds him

 twisting the hemp ever tighter

 each time he disobeys,

 waiting for the moment

 when he is relieved, 

a kiss, a cuddle, a sign of kindness, 

he aches for or explodes

willing to do just about anything

 to make it happen, 

and as the gag ties up his tongue,

he generally does.