Collected Poems

Interior of the Poem 1971

Interior of the Poem 1971 217 My hair is black, my eyes are black, I am the dictator of the poem. The poem is in front of me I am writing on its face. The soul of the poem is inside the soul which is inside the poem. There is no mystery to me because I can be seen. I am five foot one, can almost be called dark. My forehead is high like a nude African. My body is nude underneath this dress. The skin is lighter than a hard-on. If I move, my dress will move. Underneath this dress are openings. They are used for purposes. I am not mysterious. In my own way I am a star, a galaxy of temptation and denial. My eyes are wide, even a deer would stop to look. I am a huntress; my game is man. Behind my ribs is a heart that can be eaten. I am an animal.   No! No! I am an animal There is a dictator of the poem. I removed is that dictator. Beneath my dress, midway beneath my dress are lips that have been bitten by the poem. If I remove the dictator, I become me, which is the poem removed. 218 I’m a huntress of the soul, but I’m gentle with my fallen prey. I am misused by my prey and my poem. The poem can reveal itself through me. If I say that I am more intelligent than the poem, do I mean that the poem is less intelligent than I or do I mean that the dictator is less intelligent than the poem? The poem has no weight. The poems has no value. It is not for sale. Where do I end and where do I begin? The poem is talking, I am not. When will it stop so that I can talk? Does the poem love me or does the soul inhabit me to love the poem? If I kiss the poem or fuck the poem will it then love me? There is no guarantee. If I charge like a bull with fluttering wings will the poem laugh at me? I command the poem to let me in.         It throws shit in my face. And in my own way, I deny the poem the fruits of life, independence, freedom, and happiness. 219 I steal from the poem its energy, its humor, its eccentric stability. I place the poem under a microscope. I look at it through a telescope where its magnified soul explodes in my face. For all this it sees right through me. Where is the key to the poem, the opening that will make me see it as a bride, a mistress of the open seas? I used to write letters asking for forgiveness. There was never an answer but I learned to love the poem even more. It was bright, intelligent, imaginative. warm and sensual and completely dominated me with its words, its ideas. The longings of the poem scare me, and its challenge will destroy me from what I am today. But why are you so new, so young, so full of innocent obscenities? Your glance full of the sweet poisons I ask for, is too quick for my eyes. Everything leaves me too fast. How can I reveal myself to you? If I paint, if I become more sculptural, you say I might reach you. If I undress, there is still my skin, 220 my flesh, my bones hiding me from you. If I attempt to be honest, I reveal my weaknesses and lose the poem. If I wear a mask, you ignore me. When I work, I’m too shallow When I rest I’m too secretive. What’s left but to go through the forest knocking on the trees with my prick, sighing through the woods with a nude body, feeling every little thing on its skin. O, where is the interior of the poem so that I can stab it with my prick? Where is my bride to whom I promised I would come?         (Some thing’s missing I can’t continue. The poem’s become too real. I’ve lost myself.) The poem does not give up. It teases me and taunts me until there’s no brain left. It sees my face in the...