Born of Diamonds

I was born of diamonds on a lazy Monday Afternoon,
wearing Ray Bans and a jean jacket and leather pantaloons,
marooned in a cocoon of placenta juice pushed
   from the loose caboose of my mother a little after two,
her abdomen tattoo stretched out of proportion
   and her nipple rings lubed for precaution,
Dad somewhere racing street bikes at auction
   while the doc filled out the forms for my adoption,
they offered me stock options,
a stuffed owl,
and a forgotten vile of assassin's toxins,
rubbed me down with a towel soaked in long barrel aged whiskey,
that delicious odor made me typsy
   and since the whole gotdamn affair was so gotdamn risky
   I didn't mind paying a little more for some dirty Sixth St kitty,
   some pretty Creole girl with tea cup titties from the inner city
   who could ride me like Sam Clemens on the Mississippi,

shifty John Cash songs coming out of the radio
   had me impatient to go,
but I had to wait an extra hour for that old Chinese nurse
   to shower my pink parts
   before I could be cleared to depart,

Mom kissed me on the head,
offered me some of her milk and a slice of bread,
said,
"dear boy,
I thought I had to shit,
went to sit,
and had a child instead."

TA

A Question From The Shadows

You still plan on marrying
that man?

in your bra and panties
pulling down on my hand
into the last strand of black hair beneath a clover-colored cotton g-string
clinging to the sharp bones of your hips
the blood once in my cheeks already streaking to other
parts of me
while
that man
sleeps somewhere in the night air
dreaming of wedding bells
and the hell of marriage
the devil disparaged because of the way
that man
cherishes the thought of being married
savage loyalty garrisoned in the swell of his proud chest
blessed as he is to spend the rest of his life
with you
blue blood between his thighs
love without lust in his blue eyes
your panties on the lamp shade
and your bra on the rose pattern drapes
and
my tongue slipping like a snow storm up and down your neck's nape
tasting your sweat under the pressure of my shark bite
the city and the stars and the souls of every living creature
are ours tonight
in the darkness
there is light
in the moment of death
there is life
that sleeping man has no idea how sharp is the edge of the knife

and he is right to be ignorant
rounders placing bets dog-tired and sly
oh how he delights in the dreams of his new found bride
the devil tried to warn him

he tried.

TA

The Old Tiger

who are you?
you asked

I am the old tiger
satin fur
sliding in and between and through the bamboo
your delicate skull beneath these killer's claws
holding captive the thoughts you refuse to reveal to us
such an interested audience
bent on loving you
on destroying you
on setting your mind as free as the blood that runs like rivers
   through this broken land
now soft claws padding across your night-time lawn
I watch you take your clothes off
holding your breasts in your tiny hands for the mirror
treating your skin in such a sexless way I find absolutely
palatable

tap-dancing along the shaft of the hunter's arrow
in the shade of gum-gum trees
where monkeys glide through jailhouse bars of moonlight
singing
hallelujah
hallelujah
the ol' tiger still has his stripes

it could have been any soul

wearing that skin like a blanket
crossing wooden fences after midnight
to steal through stranger's backyards
stepping among the intimate ensemble of their private lives
catching you in the glass
my firefly
in the bent crease of those dusty fading vinyl blinds

an opulent songbird snatched from her perch by the old tiger
on the prowl for perfect things
to feast
to sleep
by God this old man must eat!

and you've got the bones best gnawed on.

TA

Driver

His foot rested lightly but with heavy menace on the pedal beneath the dash
scars hung like war medals and his knuckles were bruised and gashed
she climbed from the back seat in sunlight and barefeet
into his lap
and laughed
curled lips wrapped moistly around a fresh cigarette
the smoke eloping from the open window
the seats covered in stolen cash
he couldn't be sure she was
sane
he couldn't be sure she was
mad
she grabbed the stick and bit his ear
as he crushed his boot onto the gas
heaven ahead of us, honey, and hell behind us fading fast
the world slipped away in a growling flash
she wiggled out of her purple panties and crawled onto his lap
his tight fists gripped the wheel of that octane craft
lashed to rubber and sheet metal
summer thunder and an alloy camshaft
he all but crashed as she sucked the sweat from the tips
of his curled moustache

she didn't have to ask
but pulled his jeans from his hips
and let the engine rip them into the future
of an already fading past.

TA

Nowhere The Island, Nowhere The Sea

The salt flats of Balustrino stand empty today
absent picturesque warm waves of crystals washing in from Pin Yong Bay,
the children's mosque is in ruins
and the children in their blue ribbons no longer come out to play,
misfits make their home in the rubble of the Oliphant Theater
huddled in circles around fires in the muffled tunnels
of the old organ's two hundred meter long loudspeaker,
the drug dens of the 8th century Leotard czars no longer wreak of the smell
of cocaine cooking in mason jars
nor of the sweet heated engine oil of their Primo Lixus high end cars,
the peasant's bridge has fallen and either sits at the bottom of the river Avren
or has been washed over Great Avren Falls where it is all expected
to have collected among the sprawl of boulders
at the base of the Falls
whose tall sheer slanted granite facade
the old order of Hispanic monks once used as a wailing wall,
Chyoro Peak is all that remains
shrouded in the cumulus clouds of mystique like
a father
who hides his face from children who seek,
snowdrifts on his cheeks become tears that turn into swiftly flowing creeks
smoothing stones and uprooting trees
becoming rivers at the old mountain's knees
eventually and endlessly emptying into the starlit sea,
tiny Avrill Ocean, the smallest of eight brothers but a wonder nonetheless,
caresses the warm sand at Bahow Beach blessed to be left behind
in a world rushing towards impossible duress,

but without regrets my toes tempt the clear water
and my clothes have been left where they cannot be bothered
and with a half shrimp at the end of a bobber
and with more than a thousand miles to anything modern
I am absolutely forgotten

like a single grain of pollen,

and right now
under the shade of this coconut bough
I would rather have nothing to which I had more in common.

TA