Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Poetry

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    12:50 AM Plush Palace – exhausted and bathed in sweat.
    Man tried to crawl onstage with me. He was in the mood to dance!
    Every dancer (except me and I guess him) is using Darla’s overdose
    death (suicide or accident? I say why not murder?) as an excuse to
    not dance. I like dancing. Passes the time faster and the tips are
    better. Steve managing tonight – he looks just like Dylan Thomas.
    I keep expecting a Welsh accent when he warns the old men with
    their balls hanging out. Great tales from new dancer Charmian –
    she has toured the entire country. Just dancing. (She has the body
    of a seven year old. Plasters pasties on her completely flat chest. )
    There’s a townhouse in New City I like the sound of but nobody
    EVER answers that phone. Tomorrow dinner with poor A and that
    awful Mason whom I loathe and despise. Couldn’t get through Babs
    Deals’ The Walls Came Tumbling Down – and Crystal Mouse was
    so good. Fortunately I have Steven Marcus’ The Other Victorians
    which is excellent. Pornotopia, indeed! Should have $1000 in savings
    by the 24th June.


    3PM Wed 25 May 77
    Weighed myself – I shouldn’t have. Lost two pounds but I
    can gain it back through thought alone. Reading Gore Vidal’s essays –
    like them better than his novels – unsettling man. A says Dad’s taken
    hotel rooms for everybody in NYC. New City townhouse a terrible
    shock – NOT to be thought of. R. called to invite me to the Emmys
    June 4. He had the nerve to say I’ll “always come back” to him. So
    I have to be careful not to, even when at night I howl like an animal.
    I can’t trust him to “take care” of me.


    7:45 PM Thurs May 26
    Who knew the worst was yet to come? I was talking to
    A at Broadcast Agency and a call came in and it was Ryder. “Hello
    Broadcast Agency”. I said, “You’re on the wrong line.” He said, “Your
    private line is busy and I’ve got to talk to you. Need to come clean
    and beg your forgiveness.” Uh oh.
    Yup. He invited another girl to the Emmys BEFORE me
    (that’s his story) she said she couldn’t afford to come, he invited me,
    then she contacted him to say she managed to get a plane ticket.
    So he’s disinviting me! I disconnected him immediately. He’ll be
    lucky if I ever speak to him again. I ought to be glad it happened –
    I was dithering. Needed a decision maker.
    I said to Charmian this evening, “Are you happy? I’m
    taking a poll.” She said, “Well, I feel all right. All that bothers me
    are asshole men.”
    So true! I think the pain is over if I decide it is. Struggling not
    to be feel ashamed of ever loving that man. Distance is required.
    Distance & discipline. Dancing makes me feel better. I kicked
    really high. Audience enjoyed it.


    3:10 AM
    Home dreading he would be here – if so I was prepared
    to scream the place down. He wasn’t. Just a note – saying I was
    “right to get rid” of him. Calling himself a worthless shit! He said
    he’s “sinned” ever since he met me by refusing to admit how much
    I mean to him. The problem is it doesn’t matter. We are the wrong
    people for each other.


    8:30 PM Fri. Plush Palace May 27 1977
    The only place I can sleep is work, dozing off between
    sets. Not even masturbation knocks me out. Tempting to make
    Mon my last day but I should last out the week – I need the cash.
    Still have so much packing to do. Keith in my office the last day of
    Broadcast Agency work – I told him about the Emmys – he said it
    didn’t sound like a deathblow. Men! I had considered inviting
    him to the wedding – this decided me against it.
    3 weeks alone in NYC house-sitting for Genevieve
    while she’s on her honeymoon. Parents will take dogs. The Blessing
    is an awful book. Nancy Mitford not cut out to be a novelist; she’s
    really not interested in motivation. Only wants a forum for her retro opinions.


    4:30 PM Sat 28 May 77 – Plush Palace
    A girl left early so Laverne and I are splitting her sets.
    Courtly Jim of the hush puppy body and the Elvis Presley hair
    realizes he has to pay us more to keep someone onstage. Good tips –
    holidays make people feel richer. Only 3 days left.


    7:30 PM Sun 29 May 77
    Packed for six straight hours, ate yogurt and chicken,
    walked dogs now I’m lying on mattress more exhausted than
    I’ve ever been. Shoulders has agreed to store my furniture –
    we don’t need a van since his house is right across the street.
    Told him he can use whatever pieces he wants. Jim will be in
    to pay me Fri so I don’t need to trust the mails. Called phone,
    gas, water, elec people. Don’t think I like EM Forster
    (where Angels Fear To Tread) – Henry James without the
    Henry James. Edwardian didacticism makes me miss James’s
    scrupulous objectivity. Why did he write this book? Because
    he’s “The Literary Type”. Compare with Woolf’s Unwritten Novel.
    Stagger about forcing myself to gulp Yuban. So enjoying throwing
    things away.


    Wed. 1 June 77 – 8:30 PM Plush Palace
    $770 to take off with – not bad I think. Ryder tells me
    I am “fleeing.” Damn straight. Mom asked me what was going on –
    I said I proposed to Ryder and he turned me down. She was
    squeaking on the other end of the phone like a gerbil but I couldn’t
    help it. It’s almost true – I didn’t take her advice but showed him
    my true self! Too bad!
    Reading Forster’s Longest Journey. Still feeling another story
    trying to get through. Pretty sick of the glory that wasn’t Greece.
    Everyone in book sanctimonious prig.


    12:30PM
    Forster so foul I reread this diary. Deeply shaming.
    Maybe Forster is right: whatever you do, don’t write about what is
    actually going on – nobody may ever recover.
    Opal took me out to lunch at Apple Tree – painless. Crab
    quiche and 2 Brandy Alexanders. An elegant poem unspools in my
    head about the difference between hummingbirds and hawks.
    Will I go round in circles? Or will I fly high like a bird up in the sky?

    Like me the hummingbird
    Transcribes inner space
    Half wingtip pinwheel
    Leaving outer reaches
    To the ragged hawk that flies alone
    The hawk is:
    I am what shall be

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    10PM Mon 16 May 77
    Finally got a reaction from agent to Secaire. I was
    physically sick when I opened it but she was full of praise. I could
    teach Poe, Verlaine and Mallarme a thing or two! She’s sending it
    to Harcourt but telling them it’s “too fine for a paperback”. Says it’s
    also readable, which is a thing more “precious than rubies”. I was
    really afraid of what she would say after our literary discussions
    and her poetry sneers.


    So elated! Hit the library today and hit it hard – Nancy
    Mitford’s novels, Hilaire Belloc’s Letters, life of Brontë. Delicious
    dreaming.

        5:35 Pm Broadcast Agency – 17 May 77 
    Enjoyed Helen Bevington’s The House was Quiet and

    the World Was Calm. In my bloodthirsty way would have preferred
    a better description of her husband’s death. Must make do with
    cuckoos and thrushes and loblolly pines.

        Bored to tears with this stupid job but you can’t say

    it’s “hard”. I’m the last happy dodo in a world of dinosaurs – all this
    equipment about to be ripped out. In 5 mins I get to disconnect
    phone, walk to Church St (parking’s free in Mafia territory). Drive
    to Arlington. Fish sandwich for dinner, read about Unquiet Haworth
    while wearing G-string & stockings. (So appropriate.) Expanding
    my house hunt to Rt 450. (Towards Annapolis; might need Dad to
    co-sign.) Obviously I can handle 45 min commute. (Don’t like rain,
    however.) Aware El Diablo is nothing but a hunk of junk. Future of
    American literature is fragile on some of these May nights.

        Broadcast Agency Thurs May 19, 77
    Only $134 in my saving acct and $7 in checking, curse that

    clutch. Crisis brewing with R. He is jealous and suspicious that I am out
    so much in the evening. He’s the one who wants to be non-exclusive
    so let him sweat. I have too many negative emotions about him – that
    he’s a coward, for example. Which would make him angrier – if I was
    dancing or screwing some other guy? (Which I have no desire to do and
    he should know me by now.) I think he sees my privacy and aloneness
    as infidelity. While he’s doubtless experimenting with “goofy chicks”
    who’ve “never been touched”; I’m only “unfaithful” with Shelley & Brontë.
    But that’s STILL too much for him.) After all this time if he still doesn’t
    realize I’m the best, the hell with him.

        Worry about the dangers of scars. They can seem to heal,

    but sometimes they re-shape the life beneath. All I know, is, contempt
    is the ultimate relationship killer. To love is to be happy with! Boy scout
    methods won’t work with me, the sabre-toothed tiger. Our relationship
    may already be fatally spoiled by resentment and revenge.

        Last night audience bored and hostile, but who cares?

    Bouncers won’t let them show it! We are goddesses to be revered and
    if they won’t worship at the shrine they’re out. Compared to the Shalimar,
    Palace is sheer joy. We are never hassled. God forbid if they try to
    touch us! They are bounced on their heads in the parking lot.
    If I have plain grits when I wake up at 9:30 or 10 (also coffee and
    orange juice) I can last till 4. Hunger peaks at 5. Salad, then rush
    to work – when I get there I’m not hungry anymore. Would like to cut
    the burger habit.
    Need to sew my G-strings but Merribeth can see me
    through the glass and she won’t leave. Reading Robt Fish as an
    antidote for poor Charlotte Brontë’s pain.

        1:00 AM Plush Palace – 20 May 77
    Four dancers tonight. Less work, more intellect. (!) Fred,

    the cook, insists I try his potato pancakes and they are DAMN good.
    Can’t say no. Long wailing phone call from Maeve this afternoon. Why
    is it we can see other’s relationships so clearly? “Dump him”, I always
    say. Am I telling myself something? R & I make date tomorrow night.
    Now wearing black velvet, smoky eyeshadow, black stockings and
    glitter I look in the mirror and am astonished by my own beauty. Take
    that, Ryder, you poor bastard. Eight mins and I’m up – One more
    dance and home. Front table of impressionable navy cadets eminently
    shockable.

        11:30 AM – Sun 22 May 77
    It’s all over, baby blue.  Getting up my strength for our date

    tonight by sunbathing in back yard – literally cooking in coconut oil.
    R. complained on Fri he called me “all night long” and I wasn’t home.
    Aww. Could have told him I was writing but lying just postpones the
    inevitable (because next time he’ll come over.) So told him I would
    explain on our date. A poem came suddenly :In the Butterfly Pavilion.

    This evening you said you wished
    I was more conventional.
    I bowed my head. I did not speak.
    Outside the animals leaned together,
    Breathing lightly; waiting
    For my answer.
    Cats-tongue ferns
    Swelled up like swords, pushed out a stink
    Occluding fields of vision while
    The rabbit-bloodied lawn curled away. 
    Phlox flamed  
      Sows littered in the cyclamen
    Dwarf stars broke free as
    Frazzled molten ore raced across a sky
    Darkening to night.
    Summoning my power
    My hands stay folded in my sleeves.
    Nighttime is my kingdom.
    .

    Exhaustion from the violent motions of the pendulum.
    I made dinner, but he refused to eat. He said, “I think
    I know what you’re going to tell me. “
    I said, “I bet you don’t.”
    “It’s another man.”
    “No. I’m dancing again. I’m living here alone. I need the
    money.” (I should have said “it nourishes me UNLIKE
    SOME PEOPLE” but I’m a coward too.)
    He said very dismissively, ”Well, if that’s all you think you can
    do.”
    He who read my novel! Bastard! He said, “Well, the ball’s
    in my court.” So I guess, that means “Game on!” (Was it ever
    off?) And he left! Put his dinner carefully away in the freezer
    (I’m not made of money) and took the dogs on an hour’s walk.
    Now I lie here again in Paradise – baking, basting, trying to recall
    every detail of the last time we had sex. Because that’s all I’ll ever
    get from him.
    11:30 PM
    Session this aft with Chloe at Pacifica and a young PBS guy
    named John about writing a radio play for kids. I threw out some ideas.
    Then out for dinner with Chloe who complained that her husband has a
    mental illness given to him by the Army – he only wants to fuck never
    kiss. He fantasizes about “swinging” with another couple. I stolidly
    drink red wine and eat bad doughy pizza. She says he’s always on
    the verge of suicide, but she would never leave him. Play around,
    OK, but never leave.
    And I think that I have problems. I reject “victim” AND “slut”. The
    poet alone in her lofty palace. Feels like an abscess has been lanced.
    Heard about a great apt in Takoma Pk that’s OK for dogs.

        Broadcast Agency – 4:20 PM – Mon 23 May 77
    Present tenant says do not mention dogs so I am out of

    love with Perfect Apt. Would rather have a house. Lots of calls today.
    I seem to be getting fat – but I look so good – much too good for 128.
    How I hate to starve but it’s the only way. Need to be a fine-honed
    racing machine.
    Considering entering Courtney in the Saxton fellowship.
    Can I get a readable copy? Lack of sex keeping me awake at night.
    Now I know why people take drugs. Devon writes to say he’ll be in
    Maine on the island but not at Genevieve’s wedding for “financial
    reasons”. I plan to do my best to seduce him. Reading Mitford’s
    Wigs on the Green – not as funny as it is sad. Pastiche, really –
    Wodehouse is better. But I feel that way about E Waugh’s humor
    too – that it is basically tragic – “this is all we can expect”. R. called
    this AM as I was rushing to get ready – I said I was surprised to hear
    from him, he said he “knew I was upset”. We could have had a little
    argument about who’s more upset but I said what have you been up to?
    Horseback riding out in Sperryville. (Doubtless not alone. What would
    be the point of that? He is such a pain.)
    Asked me when I was moving, when going to wedding.
    He couldn’t be hinting for an invite – if I show up with him my family
    will have me institutionalized for sure. They never could figure out
    what I was doing with this hysterical little man.
    We’ve said our fond goodbyes. If the ball is in his court,
    it died there. Need to buy a dress for wedding. Macy’s? My mother
    criticizes me for:


    1) Making money
    2) Caring about making money
    3) Needing money AND
    4) Buying inexpensive clothes. AND fake jewelry. A lady
    never – etc.


    You figure it out. Finished Farber’s essays – very bad book.
    He seems to regard the female orgasm as some kind of personal insult –
    “Now I’ve got this to contend with!” We’re not doing it to annoy you.
    Hopelessness on the subject of sex a grave inadequacy in a philosopher
    I would say. Merribeth sent me to the bank today – I was thrilled to get
    outside – when I came back Keith called down to say he was having
    lunch at the Hyatt Regency and had seen me walking and wanted to say
    hi! Nothing to say after that. I thought of inviting him to the Palace
    but what would be the point? Everyone would think he’s my boyfriend
    and it’s a tips killer.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    10:30AM Sun 20 Feb 77
    R and I went on ski weekend to Massanutten.

    Didn’t work. Never felt so far from him, and he realized it.
    Opal & Garrett over for dinner last night – their relationship is
    boring when I’m alone and don’t have R doing all the work for me.
    Drank too much out of sheer boredom and because I was
    depressed over R, then I get depressed over being depressed
    and drink more. Clearly he’s worthless and I must be too if I can
    get depressed over him. No good work on novel. Filing, cleaning,
    paying bills takes up all my time and my room still looks like a filthy hole.
    Hermiting seems only option (cheaper, too). Must learn to roll
    with the punches.
    Fantasizing about Devon because 24th is his birthday. Bad sign.

        1:00PM 21 Feb 77
    Dizzy from dieting. Not dancing very bad for my body.

    Current weight 122. (Opal says I have the perfect body. Glad
    someone appreciates it.) Ryder suggested jogging – bad mistake.
    Instantly attacked by colds & flu. Instead of eating go to library on
    my lunch hr to take out books. Went to see The Sentinel somewhere
    in the burbs with Avril and Mason, who drove like a crazy person
    (“I’m not afraid of death!”) Never again. Ghastly flick. Mason moving in
    – his money is good. Another secret to be kept from landlord. A guy
    at work (Keith Dalrymple) is courting me. He looks all right, though
    he has receding hairline. Kind of old. Asked to read my novel. I gave
    him my poems instead. He needs to hit the ground running.

        Tues. 22 Feb 77
    Mason trying to talk A into moving to Calif with him. Uh oh.

    Maeve also wants to move out because I’m critical of her
    “dating” her married boss (they have sex in the supply closet).
    She believes his tiredest lines. “Drop him – he’s outrageous
    and destructive,” I say. I’m one to talk. Will use her room for
    my study. Try to live without roommates. Sent Devon a long
    grey silk scarf for his birthday.

        3:40 PM Wed 23 Feb 77
    Keith Dalrymple amazingly told me he loves my

    poems. Wow. Having good literary taste definitely works with me!
    Having a drink with him tonight. Had to struggle to keep myself
    from hurling cash at a gorgeous $50 suit in going-out-of-business
    dress shop on Dupont Circle. Slogging through Mrs Dalloway –
    it’s her best book. But all this blind struggle not my thing. Require
    some consciousness. I guess we were reptiles in those days just
    turning amphibious.

        Thurs. 24 Feb 77
    Can’t seem to write poetry anymore. Cocktail bar buffet

    with Keith (A calls him a “dim bulb”. We are very critical of each
    other’s honeys.) He’s a Woolf novel – smooth glossy surface,
    violence and trauma beneath. He is intelligent – quoted Frost –
    38 yrs old – divorced (was married 15 years!!!) I sat swilling
    Scotch and giving him the hairy eyeball – do I have the strength
    for this? He blanched when I ordered escargots chablisienne.
    Wouldn’t even kiss him. I demand exceptionality and refuse to
    settle for less. Whatever else you can say about Ryder, he’s
    definitely one of a kind. I am in a unique position compared to
    other women writers. Given the chance to rise above sexual
    strictures. Bought an exquisite pair of very high-heeled boots.
    I tower over Ryder – in more ways than one. Heheheh.
    Fri. 25 Feb 77
    I fuss, I fume. I shriek and scream. I circle my
    desk warily. Cannot get into this awful novel. Stare hard at
    the clutching sisters in the Victorian photo for inspiration.
    None comes. Instead slapped together a first poetry collection
    – In the Vein.
    5:20 PM Sun 27 Feb 77
    Ryder will be here any minute. Driving straight
    through from Pittsburgh because he “misses me so much.”
    Flank steak marinating, turnips, parsnips & parsley, tomatoes
    & sour cream – everything ready but wine. Too lazy to drive
    to the Tick Tock. Day of ecstasy sorting books in new study.
    Sections are: crime writing, Victorians, Great Novels, the Occult,
    Women Writers, Cinema, Politics, Science, Children, History &
    Murder Mysteries. (Move those downstairs.) Hating Orlando.
    Why did Bowen write Afterword if she didn’t like the book?

        Mon 28 Feb 77 – Broadcast Agency
    Bad sex. Sore.  Feel like I’ve been run over. Something’s

    up with him. Mauled me again in the middle of the night. Guilt?
    Surprise visit from landlord – heard about “violations” from
    Montgomery County. Ha ha. Obviously only two people living here –
    (nothing visible of Mason’s.) Landlord calmed. Says he wants to
    sell the place. Would we allow to be shown? I said sure. Everybody
    happy. Sorry to lose such a beautiful house but it is too expensive
    for one person anyway.

        Thurs. 3 Mar 77
    Long talk with Avril about Mason. He is a racist.

    She says how is it possible to feel superior to and inferior to someone
    at the same time? Human condition, I say. Spring wind makes
    me long to shed my clothes! Poor Ryder! It’ll be halter tops
    and hot pants the minute temp hits 65. Finally got a V. Woolf poem –

    VIRGINIA WOOLF:
    The Membraned Sieve

    O bliss to be red admiral afeast
    Upon a rotten apple in the grass; she dreamed that guiltily
    Woke to Leonard bringing milk
    Nessa dancing bear-like on the lawn, woke
    To pain; cylindrical as seasons
    Burning white and burning blue like friends.
    The words fell fast, the blood fell faster;
    Split the membraned sieve.
    She raced the whitecaps out to sea
    Parting the waves with her mother’s hand.

       Keith and I still talk but he has made no moves. Relief.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

        Fri 23 July 76 - Tyler St, Chevy Chase, Maryland 
    R and I have seen each other every day since Fri –

    I think he’s in love. I could fall if I let myself but something holds me back.
    I like our relationship now – he drops by the house after work
    and we’re both in jeans. I think tonight’s the night for sex –
    first time – I’m nervous but since I love his body I expect
    to be all right.
    Adore these slow working mornings. I get up
    with A (depending on when her first run is – she’s now
    working courier) to have time to set my hair before leaving
    at 10. Beautiful walks up Tyler St. Early AM at the Shalimar
    such a pleasure – sitting at the bar with my diary balanced
    on my hipbones, watching the barmaids get ready, feeling
    like a character out of Toulouse Lautrec.
    Yesterday we met our across the street neighbors –
    one of them is a gorgeous guy named Larry getting a degree
    in Hospital Administration. Among ourselves we call him
    “Shoulders” because he has such a gorgeous pair. To see
    them dimpled with sweat on his way back from a run is to be
    in heaven. Invited Larry and roommates Garrett and Opal to
    dinner tomorrow night – if they can come.

    Thurs 22 July 76 – 9:25 PM
    God I’m in love. I love his fragile, tense blond body –
    love holding it. Love looking at his Lorenzo diMedici face. 
    Those blond Italians! He wouldn’t like to hear me say it –
    he has a black belt in karate and thinks he’s so tough – but
    he probably only outweighs me by 20 lbs. Made love all afternoon –
    he is very skilful – obsessed with my pleasure. Says he doesn’t
    care if he ever comes – wants to see what gives a woman  pleasure. 
    We fit together exactly – interlocking puzzle pieces even
    upside down. I can feel his feet with my feet – his knees
    with my knees – it’s like having a mirror body – only with a
    hard chest and penis. After the first time the relief of the orgasm
    was so great I wept.  I fell asleep with him inside me.  Wrote
    a poem about him but don’t know if I want to show him. If I
    learned anything from Bruce it’s that people misrepresent.
    He could be shockable and its early days yet. Today I want
    to buy a bookcase.
    Love equals, unfortunately, anxiety attacks – could
    he possibly love me as much as I love him?  Yesterday walking
    in the park I expressed fear about him going straight from one
    serious relationship right into another – but he says he refuses to
    limit the experience. Which of course was exactly the right answer.
    The worst part is his trouble with my job.
    He says he knows he can’t ask me to quit because
    he can’t support me – I pointed out he wants me to go on the Divers
    World expedition, and then to Cozumel, and I want to take him to Maine,
    all of which would be impossible if I had a regular job. He says he
    can deal with it only by avoiding the Shalimar – OK by me as long as
    I see him outside. He came in today – I got rid of him after a half hour,
    before my set.

    11:05 AM – Shalimar Tues 27 July 76
    Feel like throwing out all my diaries. Driveling gush broken
    up by gushing drivel. But I go right ahead and produce some more.
    Randy throwing ice and cases of beer, Bobbi cleaning trays,  Carmen
    checking paper towels and me writing. Perfect.
    We were lying in bed – me and Ryder – I have to lie on his
    right side because he only has one good ear – and he told me a long
    purposeless allegory about bullfighting. Can’t tell which of us is the
    supposed to be the matador. I’m the only one with a poetic license
    in this relationship.) He said I should just write, and he’s going
    to see to it. I said fine by me. I love this job but not as much
    as writing, love and freedom. Then he said, I love you.

    9:45 AM Wed July 28 76
        Anniversary of Toss Sheffield relieving me of

    my impacted virginity (as I relieved him of his.) R came yesterday at 2 –
    left at 3 – came back at 5. Another watershed in our relationship – Fears.
    He’s afraid to lose the hearing in his good ear. He speaks sign
    language but doesn’t want to live in a world without sound. I made
    him promise to go the doctor. He agreed to make an appointment no
    later than Weds.
    Reading Christina Stead’s wonderful Dark Places of
    the Heart. Considered inviting Ryder to live with us – rejected
    the idea. I need too much alone time. So important to establish
    amour proper. I am so impoverished from setting up the house
    (though I’ve made enough in tips to pay my taxi ride home tonight)
    I am barely going to make the rent. Need a windfall.
    Sweaty and smelly. I think I’ve boogie –oogie-oogied
    till I just can’t boogie no more.


    Club Shalimar– 30 July 76
    Cookout at Ryder’s parents – I met his folks – two
    roly-poly people who are nothing like him – one sister who is
    a lot younger.
    We had glorious talks on our way there and back –
    about having our own space – (we agreed he needs to live alone);
    our hopes and dreams (he used to write music, wants to do that
    again someday – I told him I have an agent shopping a novel around)
    first impressions (I discovered he was in the bar when I auditioned!
    Horrors!) He said what intrigues him most about me is that he
    can’t figure me out – still can’t – everything about me is a surprise.
    I guess I could say the same about him. 
    Wonderful abandoned sex – just crazy stuff – I came and
    came.  He told me he spent last night at his old house – he and
    his wife had to have a “meeting”. I was jealous until he told me
    that his wife is sexually dead – and always has been. He didn’t
    understand it when they married, assuming it was something you
    get over. I suggested she was probably molested as a child –
    he didn’t want to believe it. He thinks some people are sexually
    just asexual. I thought – but didn’t say – there’s a self-protective
    concept. He doesn’t want to think she is turned off of him but in
    my experience – such as it is – chemistry is a completely
    mysterious yet crucial factor women have a tendency to discount
    it when choosing a life partner. So they end up married to the
    “perfect” person, except they’re not sexually stirred.
    2:00 AM. He tucked me in – kissed me – left – then
    I was wakened with his hands all over me. When he got to his
    car he realized our clock had stopped and he didn’t have time
    to go home before work. So he snuck back in the sliding door.
    We had sex again, and the whole night became a snake
    eating its own tail. This morning got a wonderful poem:
    Love, the Magician.

    The Magician is a Capricorn
    Bleeding cock’s milk from nipples
    Pale like mine but
    Maler.
    Illusion, he says is memory
    Of things that should have been.
    Doves and rabbits he entices
    From sacred groves between my legs
    Placed by ruse, and freed by art.
    When he dies, passion turns his eyes
    To quarters.
    He hears the world but faintly
    Through his one good ear.
    The other turns to me,
    Safecracker’s daughter.
    Trust the magician, voices tell me
    He knows when to drop the dice.

  • In the Butterfly Pavilion

    A Poem

    IN THE BUTTERFLY PAVILION


    This evening you said you wished


    I was more conventional.


    I bowed my head. I did not speak.


    Outside the animals leaned together,


    Breathing lightly; waiting


    For my answer.


    Cats-tongue ferns


    Swelled up like swords, pushed out a stink


    Occluding fields of vision while


    The rabbit-bloodied lawn curled away. 


    Phlox flamed  


    Sows littered in the cyclamen


    Dwarf stars broke free as


    Frazzled molten ore raced across a sky


    Darkening to night.


    Summoning my power


    My hands stay folded in my sleeves.


    Nighttime is my kingdom.

  • #Haiku: Translation

    What could you become?

    #Haiku: Translation

    What the caterpillar calls


    “the end”


    Universe calls


    “a butterfly.”

  • Dream of Freud’s Wolfman

    The window opens of its own accord.


    He’s catapulted forward; waked.


    Outside, the walnut tree is hung with wolves


    Each to its branch; they watch him


    Blankly. Stillness has its


    Consequence. They are fat


    As lambs ready for castration; round


    As dogs; white as mother’s underdrawers.


    Such tails! Thick tails


    Perked and listening!


    Blue snow rumples up the bedclothes; stiffens


    Into plaster. This sky leads nowhere.


    The child’s eyes are frozen like the window


    They do not close; this tree


    Is butchered at the crown; it will


    Not grow.


    The wind that frosts the room is welcome


    Stirring like a scream and like a scream


    It alters what it sees.


    The wolves levitate.


    What they know the child


    Must discover.

  • Deeper Into Coleridge

    “Music is beneath me” wrote


    the fat man, angering his wife by stealing


    her broom for walking


    scattering the straw. He loved to


    pack a nightcap and declaim upon the moors.


    “I would have married a servant girl


    could I but be sure of her affection.”


    But be sure!


    Some men are never fated to be sure.


    Amidst politicking, pregnancies and


    penny-pinching, he found the time


    to fall in love with the Wrong Woman.


    No wonder he took opium to distract him


    from the faceless fiend that follows after


    most of us but specially him


    who knew so well to court it.


    In his mildewed study he sits alone


    clutching his bad heart and writing


    “Ours is not a logical age”

  • #Haiku:

    Anxiety

    Worried the future


    Stumbles


    Over Now?


    Chaos theory says


    Surprise!

  • Impure Women

    Between my breath and your breath


    Beneath the phallic philanthropic statues on


    The volcanic dragstrip of my city


    The wounded in the scorched earth policy


    Of love


    Muster, linger, await


    Embodiment.


    Pills to make their hearts race faster have


    Stopped their faces dead as clocks


    That witnessed crimes unspeakable


    To mothers versed in tabloid gore.


    Who will bring them


    Absolution now that I am gone?


    In the fresh wounds of a


    Seconal summer


    The stopped children meet


    And kiss.