America, My Love (my serial poem continues)

I. 2 February 2007

There are many things I would say
to you but do not. That’s for sure.
And there are things I would not say
again to you and do. There’s a distance
between us. But not the distance
between me and every other.
You are every other no longer.
You are yourself naturally,
and you warm me, for sure.
You are yourself naturally, and
you are with me, and are yourself
with me, and I with you as myself.
And speaking therefore to the distance
between us, direct address is odd.

In fearing speaking directly
to the other and speaking therefore
to you, I include the other
in our private exchange.
That doesn’t keep us warm at night.
Nor do dreams of ducklings. But those
dreams are sweet though times they lack
warmth, are cold sometimes as death.
But I confuse memory and hope.
Confusion is my present now.
Confusion is I that include.
But it is made of the distance
and is made of ducklings.

I would have it otherwise, So gentle
you may not be my beloved
or may also be her if you are other.
In either case, there is an America.
I do dream many things, for sure.

There is America, my sky in fearing, for sure.
She stands as the distance,
and that’s an odd thing there!
She is made of gold wires and is
America, my newfound rope of sand.
She stands tall as the distance
from her ass to the ground
with the augmentation of the Indies
from her butt to the blue sky.
Or perhaps not quite so high.
She stands or lies in relation to me
for it is I who speak. And there she is
looking awkward while I do speak
thusly to you on her behalf,
the distinction betwixt we fixed above.

Must memory be cast aside for hope?
Manifestly no, but the one does run
from the other. The memory that stings.
So there is control, and there is release,
and that makes us happy. Still, afterward,
There is little distance and often
laughter.

II. 16 February 2007

Shoulder queer disposition
like a flag rifling bargain bins
once again O hot mama I open
my mouth to you!
Jet a door and stomp a floor
let’s get it on baby
the things you say about you
lordy lordy just ain’t true.
You fear snakes, while I fear them too.
Yet love is there in those scales
and the heavy laying in the sun they do.

III. 22 March 2007
I went out for a quick smoke. A man walked by
with a sandwich board of an aborted baby,
a baby seven weeks old, the same age.

A little flayed monkey. My insides cold and tight.
I float a bit, bobbing; head heavy and buoyant.
Distant voices of people come and go.
My experience pulsates.
I am bereft.
The ripping of this one from me.

Writing so much of it, so honestly, so artfully,
pushes me from myself. For the feeling
has no words or few words, never enough words.
No name but a change in everything so that
the world leaves me or I leave it
just a little to the left and behind.

Nothing is real.