Experience

I heard a cat bark like a fox
Because the car’s larger purr
Didn’t soothe her, locked in a cat-box
And the hitchhiker said We keep a snake
To eat our rats! For heaven’s sake.
I’ve heard a snake hiss like a man
I saw a goose sail like a bark
I heard a man wank like a goose.

Les Murray

Conversation

A full moon always rises at sunset
and a person is taller at night.
Many fear their phobias more than death.
The glass King of France feared he’d shatter.
Chinese eunuchs kept their testes in spirit.

Your brain can bleed from a sneeze-breath.
A full moon always rises at sunset
and a person is taller when prone.
Donald Duck was once banned in Finland
because he didn’t wear trousers,
his loins were feather-girt like Daisy’s
but no ostrich hides it’s head in sand,
The cure for scurvy was found
then long lost through medical theory.
The Beginning is a steady white sound.

The full moon rises at sunset
and lemurs and capuchin monkeys
pass a millipede round to get off on
it’s powerful secretions. Mouthing it
they wriggle in bliss on the ground.

The heart of a groomed horse slows down.
A fact is a small compact faith,
a sense-datum to beasts, a power to man
even if true, even while true—
we read these laws in Isaac Neurone.

One woman had sixty nine children.
Some lions mate fifty times a day.
Napoleon had a victory addiction.
A full moon always rises at sunset.
Soldiers now can get in the family way.

Les Murray

Fame

Thousand Kisses Deep

for Sandy 1945-1998

You came to me this morning
And you handled me like meat
You’d have to be a man to know
How good that feels how sweet
My mirror twin my next of kin
I’d know you in my sleep
And who but you would take me in
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second-hand physique
With all he is and all he was
A thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
To pose all hot and high behind
The veils of sheer deceit
Our perfect porn aristocrat
So elegant and cheap
I’m old but I’m still into that
A thousand kisses deep

And I’m still working with the wine
Still dancing cheek to cheek
The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
The heart will not retreat
I ran with Diz and Danté
I never had their sweep
But once or twice they let me play
A thousand kisses deep

The autumn slipped across your skin
Got something in my eye
A light that doesn’t need to live
And doesn’t need to die
A riddle in the book of love
Obscure and obsolete
Till witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep

I’m good at love I’m good at hate
It’s in between I freeze
Been working out but its too late
It’s been too late for years
But you look fine you really do
The pride of Boogie Street
Somebody must have died for you
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
But you don’t need to hear me now
And every word I speak
It counts against me anyhow
A thousand kisses deep.

Leonard Cohen

True Self

True Self, True Self
has no will –
It’s free from “Kill”
or “Do not kill”
but while I am
a novice still
I do embrace
with all my will
the First Commitment
“Do not kill”

She comes from somewhere

probably from the belly button or from the shoe under the bed, or maybe from the mouth of the shark or from
the car crash on the avenue that leaves blood and memories scattered on the grass.
she comes from love gone wrong under an asphalt moon.
she comes from screams stuffed with cotton.
she comes from hands without arms
and arms without bodies
and bodies without hearts.
she comes out of cannons and shotguns and old victrolas.
she comes from parasites with blue eyes and soft
voices.
she comes out from under the organ like a roach.
she keeps coming.
she’s inside of sardine cans and letters.
she’s under your fingernails pressing blue and flat.
she’s the signpost on the barricade
smeared in brown.
she’s the toy soldiers inside your head
poking their lead bayonets.
she’s the first kiss and the last kiss and
the dog’s guts spilling like a river.
she comes from somewhere and she never stops coming.

me, and that
old woman:
sorrow.

Charles Bukowski

The lisp

I had her for 3 units
and at mid-term
she’d read off how many assignments stories
had been turned in:
“Gilbert: 2…
Ginsing: 5…
McNulty: 4…
Frijoles: none…
Lansford: 2…
Bukowski: 38…”

the class laughed
and she lisped
that not only did Bukowski
write many stories
but that they were all of
high quality.

she flashed her golden legs
in 1940 and there was something
sexy about her lisp
sexy as a hornet
as a rattler
that lisp.

and she lisped to me
after class
that I should go to war,
that I would make a
very good sailor,
and she told me about how
she took my stories home
and read them to her husband
and how they both laughed,
and I told her, “o.k., Mrs. Anderson.”
and I’d walk out on the campus
where almost every guy had a girl
I didn’t become a sailor,
Mrs. Anderson, I’m not crazy
about the ocean
and I didn’t like war
even when it was the popular
thing to do.

but here’s another completed assignment
for you
those golden legs
that lisp
still has me typing
love songs.

Charles Bukowski

Buffalo Bill’s

Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus

he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

e. e. cummings
From “Tulips and Chimneys”, 1923

I'm so lonely

I’m so lonely
I let
Jehovah’s Witnesses
through
the front door
I’m so lonely
I go
to the Greyhound Bus Station
and wave goodbye
to strangers

Greg Johnson