CONDOLENCES

I keep dead flowers for my cruelty.

Inconsiderate me, and thousand dead flowers.

Consider this:

Dancing on a dying man’s heart and sleeping

That joyful slumber of the cats while you watch them.

God, if thy claims are true,

Thou must be angry with this unruly child

For I am not thy sheep. Silly sheep.

I am an unfeeling lady with interests.

Passions, preferably.

It is not a habit.

It is my eyes which stare,

Eyes carved unskillfully on objects which see me.

You won’t call me cruel

Because you love me, and I know it

Even while I watch you

I know it

Even while I kill you, die

My widow dance would be an event

Of the highest scale

So I will walk free,

Sly criminal, covered in flowers,

Walking free.

Yes, the price one pays for freedom.

UNWRITTEN

Serenade to ruins and rubble,

Play in muddy water.

Light eclipses my dread, sorrow, pain...

I must wish happiness

While I walk on earth and forget hell.

Call it an obligation of wistful smiles

This threadinng of life,

owes life to its morbid provenance.

Lay, lay, my poems, my souls;

I will write you still.