lupercal
(a carnival of wolves)
(1)
. . . nascitur )nascitur( nascitur, again
is propagating
another newborn'n other son'n'nother sons
'n'til one's twinned sons rebelled
sold downRiver, bought the flag
stole the needle, took the gun
'n'til first a twin raged mindless drunken hurricanes, he a heroin borealis
edge-twisting razors double-helix down sick South Texas highways
sucking LoneStar from his can
driving a boxMetal uninsured Japanese fuckUp-truck
down garterSnake's yellow roadStriped back
the hermetic windows stewing goatpus clingering dirty T-shirt up fetid hollows
half-an-arm above a rancid, tracking scab
Tattoo, blue, below his hairless wrist
where he's tapping out arrhythmia against his denim dick
while JimiHendrix fucks his head
he's bedding mother MaryJane and Camel Lights
with one weak headlight, a six-pack, and his trusty knife
Gone,
forever 90 in a 55.
Only,
he occasionally refeuling beats the baby/wife, rapes the planet, makes a living
makes an occasional stop at prisons run exclusively for men
too ashamed to beat it off to
too scared listening to his longing
Gone smokin'cokin'gettin'loose ahead fullLibertine, again
on the same road, with
occasionally an occasion to make( A siren-stop, in back of a red-and-white speeding
cherry-on-top flashes, calling, "Clear!" before ionizing zaps aCross
the brother galvanized! What mother taught us dying means
in the sign of father, son, the holySoul
he's crucified alive.
An emerging momently among chrome electric trauma teams
An emergency unhearing beeps a cold tone, flattening
for, "five minutes--maybe more," --they said no blood, no hope remained
brain metamorphosized, an OXyless adjustment, breaking frame.
In his postmortem epiphany, Jesus says
the twin showered, shaved, set aside his shit
to peddlar Father's tardy parables door-to-door
packaged in a Gideon of hotel-room proportions
Having seen a light between those bright electric flashes under CPR
Having sucked another tit than MotherMary's, mother cried
herKeeping counsel home
and somewhere
shoveled into the space between his twin
shoveled into silence
he found a word to speak
and it was hollow.
I, smiling
nodded, folding brother's testament
my brother's death
Made proper ritual acceptance, paying feebly brotherMine
as if to pence Peter, forSake Of Time
but, when he had left the room( and me
alone, a smile strapped( a condom to my face
I unbuttonned the long dark, double-duty line
my uniform enhanced my prick out into air
above my brother's words, and pissed
Because he was a lobotomy in action
his seamless plastic sermon pounding down some pulpit
a HurlyBurly thrown backwards, a pitiful distraction
Because his words were every bit of ARTificial as my smile
Because his words weren't even his
( my hot stream spirals down on steaming, slaggish, I hissed crackleingly splatters
Thankyou God, who made my brother( bladder meet your challenge
. . . 'til nothing remained of the best from the worst a whole damned generation's
suffering, but's decomposing morals, puddling
slow.
(2)
So, I left to go on with my
left to get on my life
Because they'd already squeezed me toothpaste dry
By Godknows Damned priests, instead of fathers
wearing uniform and smokin', drinkin' incremental wine
By cousin's flabby sins of pride, distending them porcineSelves, grotesqueries
flesh masking milk-carton innocents flaunting streets-sophisticate
laced, her sex & cigarrettes
in the tongue of a thirteen-year-old virgin kissing stale beer breath
beneath Hymen's banquet linenTable, sweat
clothing ourselves in our own saliva, an exotic showing-off of pets
in Family( linguese, I never learned
palaver.
So what?
So they let me sit on the ice creamFreezer underneath my peachCockballs
while cranking my machine
they winnowed by, cotton-topped smiles cleavageing
cranked zesty cogs, gearing mesh made ice
cream
and they never caught on, 'cause
Oh, My Brother( twin
I was the wraith in your hallway, greyrabbit-fashioned from closet darkness
dreaming dinosaur shadows from my nest
screaming naked, trees against my walls( Oh
Yes! I was the one reduced by all your violence
to lasting glacial dreams
who you, constipating rage, inflamed
They caught ME by Your fucking balls, rackedRaw in Belial
a hating you created.
(3)
Naive', too
Volunteering a winterFall upon brief childness
of my revolution's Spring( an opposit-attract-ion
I, fettered genitally to the AmPer of your rage
obeyed potential difference, volted mercuric
filling father, warships
losing. starting from the gun.
For my Sinbad7 voyages charting wild nucleic oceans once begun
my memory brother faded, a Kodak half-life, chemically degrading
as I, exposed to ion radiation, found fitting forms of supercritical recursion
uncontrolled, a breeder meltdown
echoing your alchemy
Why,
we were all orphaned meatBabies lubricating daddy's death machine
uniform, brothers
twinned by government decree
But this was no IvyCollege, flattering Halo-Sin-O-Gin smiles
paint-by-numbers in the portraits sofabound behind
This was no Geek fraternity, engaged in cottonPanty enfilade
This was the maze( gravid with crawlTime
quayTabled in bloating madness, feasted on a cannibal of days
And out there
rabid silence caged us in a cloud of desperate desire
clung to marble at our isolated showers
icy, sharing needles, gamed we killing
feral demons dancing past the cold green pyres( our radar screens alive
reports of friendly fire( miasma, static
served a world's botched suicide, the 3rd
Which left no succor, stranded sailors captive desert
IsLe( be coming home again, if they exhume me quick
Enough, I need to breathe . . . .
(4)
In a break with the( breaking past
In seek of feeling I
slip that steelgray grateing
skating where hyperbole mirrors queerly carnival reflections
Bow
applauded for my Dopplered idShift( only a run of the show
of being less Thomas, twin
more other men, fictitious
who, acting before a painted backdrop of deflowering
PanFlute maidens enveloping among my more-than-mouth
I burrowed, nesting, yet slept canaried, stilled
by very dinosaur brigades come bruising all my love, ladies
losing loving( gone down the same
Same road again, brother.
but here appears
a rip( the veil of labyrinth revealed as stone
by sun, bright colors off my unaccustomed prism
which, in scattered cameos revered
on ivory carvings pray to answer Him
whose silence lies( not skyward, but of mind
so much more consonance with life
I found dark a green mountain, a light
she kissed familiar strangeness, cried quiet cold streams
privately( filling grottoes, mine
by perspectives facets( windowing, as they do
in the stop of flowing( time.
(5)
Full circle, brother
as Canon bell, worn Vespers chime
Awaking flouresced in sudden white asylums
fighting nightly dying under Loxapine( a morphous, manic prisoner
being eaten by my own machine
Become a Matador
connecting, brother, cord by Gravitas our family
BlackHole, blackSheep blossoms
drumDance howling wholey writing
paint poet's bronzed near thresholds labyrinthial
Boundaries found.
Anticipating deathRow rictus, lips imitating smile
I diving airBurned certain canyon vectors, embarked reconnaisance of Why
I'm up here yet, brother.
A stitch through sky, still wanting reason
Grown wise my crystalline toxicity of blood
plastic 'neath the pressure in my 'hood
an Academy survivor, camouflage encoding escadrille
performing DeCon-struction, only ) killing self
So, if you are the twinson, brother 'come prodigal returned
Then I am a( symmetry, your anti-spin )one dutiful
who learned by swallowing the belly of my father's dragon
Lost to see, at last, my blindness night
rejecting models worn
of memory
I am the yang within you( twin you
yin without, to balance
Laying claim upon your unresisting I
unholy basket at your door, come lately duty's other castle
crying, "leave the maze behind( yourself before
because to learn it's( never too
never too late to( late
to go inside you( never too late to
change is( happening all the
change is( time
again is propagating( nascitur . . . .