LARGE WORDS
"Consider the words Love,
Hate, Death, and Murder"

Fat words engineer stopped skies while
we assemble on the ledge of kingdom come
dangling genitals to rush fast streams
towards source and beyond the grave.
He thought the exit was open, not closed.
Escape had been planned by moonlight
and he switched a dry leer for sweet
transsexuals at the corner of 74th and Amsterdam.
He sat above at his window watching the street
thinking how pizza or some beer, or fucking
and some other poetry would sweep him away

It was 1975 and those luscious dressed
sang love and closed exits. He had remembered
them open and had meticulously planned return
only as a tourist would, and not take on large
words. He felt compelled, no anger. He might
murder the light by morning but he didn’t move.
His hate and that relief from hate closed over him;
love made long spurts as stains over sidewalk.

Looking back in his room at his lover, sitting
cross legged on his bed, He could not guarantee
what she required. She was a bitter wall,
and he had known her rage when she sat
on Daddy’s knee almost a cliché listing
decrepit Humpty-Bumptys as signs of the cross
while he played the kazoo and Morrison sung
the under song as his lover pushed him back
to an almost forgotten wild night of love and fear,
hate and will you marry me honey, so help me
its true. Love strangles love. Just open up the hands
and count the cycles of your palm as she rubs
your neck pushing back further into the wall
until time disappears in a second or two.
It is no longer then, but now; when is forgotten.
How do I measure hate in a river of silt and flood?
Measure my tongue. Find the dimensions of my hands.
Kiss where I can follow the inward suction of your mouth.
Yes, this is sex more than love, so help. I have not
forgotten how day becomes night when a child is born.

After Edward was born, she said no, “don’t use it,”
and I didn’t knowing that would change the maps,
dim the nebulae observed by telescope.

Buzz goes the dragons; fire erupts from love.
Yes, she was a bitter wall. He had know rage
when a child. Papa sat her on his knee
playing games with a crooked plot called it love.

Yes, I do believe in miracles and foundation
myths caught in throat. Can you speak that way? Can
you imagine the etymology of words – family trees of
misfits, saints and heroic soldiers navigate the labyrinth.

One wall animates “love” rushing out of the mouth
into ears over the babble, but stopped
when hands reach out and grab, twist,
deform the foundations, window frames.

Yes, history is the human liar. We witness
the rape of love by angry politicians who
walk into Biergartens arrested for propaganda.

He says: “We are pushed by hate into love
when it is torn from our scabs.”

Cruelty will draw great cartoons; all become
photographs for kingdom come.

Did I say Come? That is not permitted in clean rooms
near our pristine sanctuary-- or by the humble dead.

first draft 2/05/06