CConrad5

Brush of thorns
(a song for Stoneking)

who braids your hair
who braids your hair

not your lover
not your lover

vanity braids my silver hair
with toothless comb
brush of thorns

when i look in the mirror
i see
death
straddling life
i see
drowned ones
clutching
my silver hair
a headless man
in a horse hair coat
drags the pond
with a blood red net

who braids your hair
who braids your hair
not your lover
not your lover
why vanity braids my silver hair
with toothless comb
brush of thorns

shoes and buttons
(for the librarian in woodstock)

the lady daphne
doth admire
my shoes
&
buttons
i long for her to gaze upon
the gasping slits in my sleeves
the tortured horns of my silver braids
the horror of my bloody parting
etched into my scalp
with tortoise shell comb

the lady daphne
is distant
in the vincinity of
my teeth
the wieght of jade necklace
doth cause me
to
bow
in supplication

spray gun
(for mr n )

every two years you paint
your car silver
same colour as the sardine tins
i coveted as a child

the key
always
got stuck
in the sardine tin

you park your car
outside my bedroom window
you shut my bedroom window
you nail paint rags across the glass

my bedroom
is
plunged in darkness
outside you rattle your spray gun
the smell of turpentine pierces memory

i grope in darkness

i remember how i first saw you
your tail of gold hair
your coat of corduroy
i was on heat
with a proclivity for crushes

you led me on
hastening away
at crucial point

a friend, startled by my obsession with you
informed my mother

she said
you always get crushes on men
you live in a dream world
this time you shall face reality

outside my bedroom door
your spray gun rattles

Poem for two voices

if money dosen't come soon we'll have to leave new york
i hate it anyway

but you hated australia

not the desert... i loved the desert
i love florence. i love paris.

you hated tuscany.

the shops were too far away.
i walked miles in the sun.
there was no bathroom,no water.
i tell you, there was no water

you never invited me there.

you didn't have any money.
there were too many serpents.
i went to florence.
i stayed in a hotel.

whilst i was dying of love for you.

you went to paris.

i stayed at shakespeare and co.
i gave readings there.
it once belonged to sylvia beach.

you never asked me there.

i went to santa cruz.
i stayed in a caravan park
with my professor from college.

you never asked me there.

there was no room.
there was just enough room
for ed's computer
and my computer.
i hated it
i nearly died there.

i was invited to mexico.
i lived in a rooftop apartment.
i couldn't work.
the humming birds hummed all day.
they thrust their beaks
into flowers.
i hate mexico.

you bathed in the sea at mazatlan.

the shore was lined with palm trees

you never invited me there.

the sea was a bitter yellow.
i read my poems with indians
when you finally came to mexico
i was finished
finished.

the streets were full of ghosts

i smelt blood

death.

you had no bosoms left.

i prayed over my teeth

so they would not fall out.

you looked like a skeleton.

the mexicans loved me.

i hated mexico.

mexico

ah mexico
your blood
doth
seep
into loves crack

a sewer runs under the market place in relox street
the body
dressed in holey clothes
hung
in serpentine
and
turquoise

the
feet
embalmed
in
red
dust
ah mexico
your
blood
doth
seep
into loves crack

the day of the dead
hath passed
sugar skulls
still
stare
at skeleton brides
and
grooms
laid
out on black
velvet

ah mexico
your
blood
doth
seep
into loves crack

in relox street
fat ladies
flap
feather dusters
over
suppurating honey combs
singing with bees

ah mexico
your blood
doth
seep
into loves crack

black cross
(to stoneking)

i am jealous tonight
i am jealous of
a white stone
i am jealous
of a black cross
iam jealous
of a moon
i am jealous...

leaf.


	*NEXT*


	*INDEX*