Killing Time is Murder

Raymond and Paul called from Vancouver during dinner to say for the sixth time that they were leaving for Japan. I hate them with a furious boredom. I want to punch, cut, chop. I feel tall in my boots and stompy. I stare at my fists and forearms. I’m reading an intelligent bitchy book about intelligent bitchy people by an intelligent bitchy author–adultery the theme. I can tell how much J. resents my breaking off the affair, that she’s frustrated, that I cant satisfy her. The woman I knew while he was here–awakened, threatening, magnificent–has retreated behind a mask of resigned drudgery. The baby, the farm and I seem to mean to her what the Mill means to me.

I need love. I need love. I need love.

graveyard shift

Last night I dreamed that J. was making love with Lynn who was six months pregnant, and she wouldnt pay attention to me. Then I was taking a piss and I discovered I had two penises, one hanging out of the fly in my briefs, the other out of my long johns. Only one was pissing but the other kept getting in the way. This morning I took a Compoz with my coffee.

Yew Street Basement

Here is a still life: the wheel thrown pot
Amidst the grids and graphs and charts
Scales and rule, calendar and clock
On the steel top desk in the pulp-test station.

There is still life in the centered cup
That holds the instant coffee I must drink
To keep apace the thrumming frequency
Of the sprawled electric death machine I serve.

There is still life in the ceramic mug
The elemental spirit of the hands
That mold with Nature’s art the water’s flow
The glaze of fire, the earthly body’s clay.

Still life
Soft frozen
In stone
With thumb
I feel.

4-12 shift

1

Your love is more than I deserve
Let me learn to treasure it
Without greed
Like the sinner loves his God
Who punishes
And cherishes his pain
Let me cherish pain
To purify my heart
That it may be transformed
Into a worthy sacrifice
To you.

2

Love me dirty, love me lewd
Keep your clothes on in the nude
Turn me inside out with lust
Send juices flowing through the crust
Of frazzled nerves and leathered skin
That locks my languished spirit in.

3

The worker’s goddess is his wife
The only meaning in his life.
To dignify his slavery
He raises her to high degree
Surrounds her with a million things
Home and kids and diamond rings.
When he’s about to lose his head
He remembers her in bed.
Lost his soul to please his Lord
Wielder of the mighty sword.

January 8, 1972 graveyard shift

Winter Dance

The spirit flows freely when the vessels are cleansed by pain
The heart pours forth music from suffering it cannot contain
The pleasure we treasure when scratching the itch of desire
Can move us in circles but lacks the refinement of fire.

La da da da da, da da da da
La da da da da, da da da da

Love is our crime and our trial and our punishing scourge
We trespass our limits and violate time when we merge
That explosive fusion erases the rest of mankind
And when it is finished the vacuum leaves nothing behind.

La da da da da, da da da da
La da da da da, da da da da

The sins of the father are visited upon the son
And each generation will bury the preceding one
When Adam and Eve stole the apple from off the green tree
They crucified Jesus for all of eternity.

La da da da da, da da da da
La da da da da, da da da da

January 8 1972, graveyard shift

Song

Pursued by a question
I found a closed book
That said on its cover
Don’t open and look.

Like Eve at the apple
I gazed a long time
While the serpent of doubt
Egged me on to the crime.

I spread forth the pages
I took the sweet bite
But the morsel turned bitter
As the words came to light.

I couldn’t stop reading
Despite the hot pain
In the slash those words burned
From my eye to my brain.

I love you, they screamed
To the man sent away,
It was just for the others
That I made my display.

But I know and you know
And they know it too
All trapped in a lie
We must live to be true.

January 6 1972, graveyard shift

Smokebreak

Now I remember
Your dancer’s head suspended
Your hands composed and slender
Your tongue tip
Tracing tender
Tendrils on
My lower lip.

January 6 1972, graveyard shift

Husband’s Song

I wish that I could love you
With a boundless energy
I wish that I could move you
Like the storm wind moves the tree.

I know that every morning
You meet the other man
Who takes you on a voyage
To a distant foreign land.

Though I often try to follow
I’ve lost hope for the chance
To slip free from my burden
And join your silent dance.

When you two are departed
And I’m left here behind
I search the mirror for my face
With fear I’ll lose my mind.

I wish that I could love you
With a boundless energy
I wish that I could move you
Like the storm wind moves the tree.