Revolutionary Petunias Read Free

secret
    I must have.

I
    the gift he gave unknowing
    she already had
    though feebly
    lost
    a planted thing
    within herself
    scarcely green
    nearly severed
    till he came
    a magic root
    sleeping beneath
    branches
    long grown wild.

II
    and when she thought of him
    seated in the dentist’s chair
    she thought she understood
    the hole she
    discovered through
    her tongue
    as mysteries in
    separate boxes
    the space between them
    charged
    waiting till the feeling
    should return.

III
    but she was known to be
    unwise
    and lovesick lover of motionless
    things
    wood and bits of clever
    stone
    a tree she cared for swayed overhead
    in swoon
    but would not follow
    her.

IV
    and his fingers peeled
    the coolness off
    her mind
    his flower eyes crushed her
    till
    she bled.

Gift
    You intend no doubt
    to give me nothing,
    and are not aware
    the gift has already been
    received.
    Curse me then,
    and take away
    the spell.
    For I am rich;
    no cheap and ragged
    beggar
    but a queen,
    to rouse the king
    I need in you.

Clutter-up People
    The odd stillness of your body
    excites a madness
    in me.
    I burn to know what it is like
    awake.
    Arching, rolling
    across
    my sky.
    Your quiet litheness
    as you move across the room is
    a drug
    that pulls me
    under;
    your leaving slays me.
    Clutter-up people
    casually track
    the immaculate
    corridor/passion
    of my death
    and blacken the empty air
    with talk of war,
    and other too comprehensible
    things.

Thief
    I wish to own only the warmth
    of your skin
    the sound your thoughts make
    reverberating off the coldness
    of my loss
    to love you purely
    as I love trees and
    the quiet sheens and
    colors
    of my house
    my heart is full
    of charity
    of fair play
    although on other
    occasions
    it has been acknowledged
    I am a thief.

Will
    It does not impress me that I have
    a mind.
    Chance amuses me.
    Coincidence makes me laugh
    out loud.
    Fate weighs me down
    too heavy.
    When I can’t bear not seeing
    you another second,
    I send out my
    will;
    when it brings us face to
    face,
    there’s an invisible power
    I respect!

Rage
    In me there is a rage to defy
    the order of the stars
    despite their pretty patterns.
    To see if Gods who hold forth now
    on human thrones
    can will away my lust
    to dare
    and press to order the anarchy
    I would serve.
    The silence between your words
    rams into me
    like a sword.

Storm
    Throughout the storm and party
    you chose to act the child
    a two-year-old as distant as
    the moon.
    But our thunder and lightning God
    obscured the age,
    revealed the play,
    and distinctly your age-old glance
    shook the room.

What the Finger Writes
    Your name scrawled on a bit of paper moves me.
    And I should beware.
    Take my dreaming self beyond the reach
    of your cheery letters,
    written laboriously with
    stubby pencils and grubby
    nails.
    : What the finger writes the soul can read :
    All life was spirit once
    a disembodied groping across
    the void;
    toward the unknown otherness
    the flesh is weak and slow
    with luck I shall not live there
    anymore.

Forbidden Things
    They say you are not for me,
    and I try, in my resolved but
    barely turning brain,
    to know “they” do not matter,
    these relics of past disasters
    in march against the rebellion
    of our time.
    They will fail;
    as all the others have:
    for our fate will not be this:
    to smile and salute the pain,
    to limp behind their steel boot
    of happiness,
    grieving for forbidden things.

No Fixed Place
    Go where you will.
    Take the long lashes
    that guard your eyes
    and sweep a path
    across this earth;
    but see if it is not true
    that voluptuous blood,
    though held to the tinkling
    quiet of a choked back
    stream,
    will yet rush out
    to aid shy love,
    and flood out the brain
    to make a clean
    and sacred place
    for itself;
    though there is no fixed place
    on earth for man
    or woman.
    It will not help
    that you believe
    in miracles.

New Face
    I have learned not to worry about love;
    but to honor its coming
    with all my heart.
    To examine the dark mysteries
    of the