Once Read Free

steak,
    Vivaldi
    and
    No
    Wine
    For God’s sake
    Let’s not be traditional!
    But I,
    Unused bed
    All tousled
    Sing nursery rhymes
    Chant
    Strange
    Chants
    Count stray insects
    On the ceiling
    and
    Wonder—
    Why don’t you shut up and
    get in?

MORNINGS   /    of an impossible love

On the morning you woke beside me—already thinking of going away—the sun did not fill my window as it does most mornings. Instead there was cloud and threat of snow. How I wish it could always be this way—that on mornings he cannot come himself, the sun might send me you.

Watching you frown at your face in the mirror this morning I almost thought you disapproved of the little dark shadow standing behind you its arms around your waist.…

Two mornings ago you left my little house. Only two steps from my fingers & you were gone, swallowed down swiftly by my spiral stairs.…

Why do you wish to give me over to someone else? “Such and such young man you’re sure to like” you say “for he is a fine, cheerful fellow, very sensitive” one thing and another. Sometimes it is as if you’d never listened to my heartbeat, never heard my breathing in your ear, never seen my eyes when you say such things.…

This is what you told me once. Must I believe you? “We are really Easterners, you and I. The rising of the Sun brings with it our whole Philosophy.”

SO WE’VE COME AT LAST TO FREUD
    Do not hold my few years
    against me
    In my life, childhood
    was a myth
    So long ago it seemed, even
    in the cradle.
    Don’t label my love with slogans;
    My father can’t be blamed
    for my affection
    Or lack of it;
    ask him.
    He won’t understand you.
    Don’t sit on holy stones
    as you,
    Loving me
    and hating me, condemn.
    There is no need for that.
    I like to think that I, though
    young it’s true,
    Know what
    I’m doing.
    That I, once unhappy, am
    Now
    Quite sanely
    jubilant,
    & that neither you
    Nor I can
    Deny
    That no matter how
    “Sick”
    The basis
    is
    Of what we have,
    What we do have
    Is Good.

JOHANN
    You look at me with children
    In your eyes,
    Blond, blue-eyed
    Teutons
    Charmingly veiled
    In bronze
    Got from me.
    What would Hitler say?
    I am brown-er
    Than a jew
    Being one step
    Beyond that Colored scene.
    You are the Golden Boy,
    Shiny but bloody
    And with that ancient martial tune
    Only your heart is out of step—
    You love.
    But even knowing love
    I shrink from you. Blond
    And Black; it is too charged a combination.
    Charged with past and present wars,
    Charged with frenzy
    and with blood
    Dare I kiss your German mouth?
    Touch the perfect muscles
    Underneath the yellow shirt
    Blending coolly
    With your yellow
    Hair?
    I shudder at the whiteness
    Of your hands.
    Blue is too cold a color
    For eyes.
    But white, I think, is the color
    Of honest flowers,
    And blue is the color
    Of the sky.
    Come closer then and hold out to me
    Your white and faintly bloodied hands.
    I will kiss your German mouth
    And will touch the helpless
    White skin, gone red,
    Beneath the yellow shirt.
    I will rock the yellow head against
    My breast, brown and yielding.
    But I tell you, love,
    There is still much to fear.
    We have only seen the
    First of wars
    First of frenzies
    First of blood.
    Someday, perhaps, we will be
    Made to learn
    That blond and black
    Cannot love.
    But until that rushing day
    I will not reject you.
    I will kiss your fearful
    German mouth.
    And you—
    Look at me boldly
    With surging, brown-blond teutons
    In your eyes.

THE SMELL OF LEBANON
    in balmy
    iconic
    prague
    I offered
    my bosom
    to a wandering arab student
    who spoke
    much
    of
    Lebanon
    and
    his father’s
    orchards
    it was
      near
      a castle
      near
      a river
      near
      the sun
      and
      warm
    &
    where he
    bent
    and kissed
    me
    on the swelling
    brown
    smelled for
    a short
    lingering
    time
    of
    apples.

WARNING
    To love a man wholly
    love him
    feet first
    head down
    eyes cold
    closed
    in depression.
    It is too easy to love
    a surfer
    white eyes
    godliness