This place is a dull pool; a lonely mir with my name scratched on the dry stones, splendorous as a blood clot. Here might I recline, chapped by old songs and quiet in desolation; solitary as hell. I have only this dim mechanic ear with which to exchange sorrows.

Here's to you, my electric familiar.

You! hypocrite lecteur!--mon sembable,--mon frere!

Goddamn.


LOVE SONGS

I often wonder what it means
when they play a song over and over
and expect you to love it just as much every time.
Doesn’t it lose some flair and flavor
the more you suck from it
with a voice that’s never as good
as those firstly uttered syllables?

SILVER SYLVIA

Had we met
In some darkish club
We could have danced mightily,
Between musky gins,

Our eyes
plying.

Your breath is on the carlights
when I trickle through the streets on urchin heels—
The smoke flapping to one careless side,
umbrage:
a door.

Had youth teemed in my chest I would have asked
And we would have lingered
In the damp footprint of the spin light.

But then—
these other two
in the other room,
and the furious gas—
and I recall these things too
that I have felt.