a cataclysm in repose

Here in the electric dusk your naked lover
tips the glass high and the ice cubes fall against her teeth.
It’s beautiful Susan, her hair sticky with gin,
Our Lady of Wet Glass-Rings on the Album Cover,
streaming with hatred in the heat
as the record falls and the snake-band chords begin
to break like terrible news from the Rolling Stones,
and such a last light—full of spheres and zones.
August,
       you’re just an erotic hallucination,
just so much feverishly produced kazoo music,
are you serious?—this large oven impersonating night,
this exhaustion mutilated to resemble passion,
the bogus moon of tenderness and magic
you hold out to each prisoner like a cup of light?

—Dennis Johnson

Not long ago, or maybe I dreamt it
Or made it up, or have suddenly lost
Track of its train in the hocus pocus
Of the dissolving days; no, if I bend
The turn around the corner, come at it
From all three sides at once, or bounce the ball
Against all manner of bleary-eyed fortune
Tellers—well, you can see for yourselves there’s
Nothing up my sleeves, or notice even
Rocks occasionally break if enough
Pressure is applied. As far as you go
In one direction, all the further you’ll
Have to go on before the way back has
Become totally indivisible.

—Charles Bernstein

I got a twenty-dollar bill
that says no one’s ever seen you
without makeup.
You’re always made up.

And I’m sick of your tattoos,
and the way you always criticize the Smiths
and Morrissey.

And I know that you’re a sucker
for anything acoustic.
But when I say let’s keep in touch,
I really mean I wish that you’d grow up.

This is the first song for your mixtape.
It’s short just like your temper,
but somewhat golden like the afternoons
we used to spend
before you got too cool…

In the first kingdom
of the stars,
everything is always
half-beautiful. 

Your fingernails
are angels
sleeping after
a long night
of making love. 

The sound of
your eyes: snow
coming down
the stairs
of the wind. 

Your hair
is the color
of God picking
flowers. 

In the second
kingdom of the stars
there is only 

you.