The Problem of Number

Three of us sat together,
Chatting and laughing.
We felt a kind of rift developing,
Showing, opening up
A fissure in our cohesion.

Two against one, a little amused;
One against two, a little aggressive.
A pair of glances against a lonely one
Wayfaring, lost and pregerine
Looking for a mate in equal desperation.

A third in relationship is always troublesome,
We thought together.
The loner thought,
Perhaps there should be
One, two, four, or how about more!

A Sculpture of Our Time

"Crazy," said she,
"Do you mean me?"
A dark mood came over the two.

Eyelids slid down
Like fine silk of milk
Over her watery convexities
Like the curtain fall on a parting scene.

Eyelids rose like folded drapery
Such as was carved on classical stone
Such as Rodin had done his kiss
To bring life and bliss to lifeless stone.

Their sharp words like fine chisel cuts
Chipped away the veneer of the overspent words
Showing now the true image of love.

My Wardrobe and Utensil

While reading Derrida

Shards and shreds

are my puzzler mind,

Tears and tatters

are my body’s rind.

Shards and shreds

are my cups of mesh for milk..

Tears and tatters

weave my fabric of holes for wholes.

Ask me to pour tea

in the pieced-up cup

There it runs out

spoiling my trousers and shirt.

When I put my body

in my Sunday best

It undresses me rather

leaking my nakedness.

Precision

A micron feeling picks its way along

On the snail’s narrow, wary path,

Merely a fine point inching

In the saint’s laden stare.

The body poised on needle point

Is the mind’s dark matter

Like the cosmic lens

You see the far stars far better.

It’s paucity all out of breath.

A feather balanced on edge

Stands quivering from windmilling fall

Like a wraith on the mind’s tightrope.

The nerves keep tautening

Until they are gleaming white

Lethal like fresh slivers of glass

Chilling in the hard sunlight.

Scales of Water

This water

This cool serrated water

Feels like scales of fish on me.

I stand on the boat roof.

The air feels cool and pure

Like virgin water

For ever secure in the sunless deep.

I stand firm and fearless,

An Adam fish with steady fins,

Beyond net or hook,

In the fisherman's dreams.

Fishgirl, hook me up

With your heart

And take home your precious kill.

Water World

Deep under

No air

Water water.

Fish are the citizens

Now the rightful denizens

Who were once humans

Like you and me.

Palaces, courts, bazaars

Peaceful homes of placid populace

Thoroughfares of endless footsteps

Of an ancient date

Now lie under layered gunk

Of excremental tourist lake.

Trophy

Make a woman of me,
You prayed to a dark deity,
When the virgin seed crisply cracked
Between you and me.
Your eager body leaned,
You couldn't help,
Like a tree bent back
In a strong ripping wind.
The mountain shook,
The earth floor moved.
You craved and moaned,
Scratched by the fingers of the dark.
You came like a vicious sin
Bursting banks at the vital seam.
The seed crackled to leaf
And we giggled ourselves silly,
Thanking our accomplishment,
We walked off with but a tinsel trophy.