Requisition Article 7

I love you like the paper clips I’ve arranged
into the shape of a heart on my clandestine desk
which was given to me by the prime governor
of Sufrani during my deracinated trip to Africa
while working on several not unimportant projects

I like the way you kiss me,
it reminds me of how egregious girls
used to kiss in Nebraska farmyards
when the winter was coming
and they were hungry dogs

I enjoy the dances that you do
and the way you insist I only
give you dollar bills
even though I’m exceptionally rich

I love the deregionalised morning after
in grand hotels which they pay for;
that amelioration of categorical joy
and the epic liquidation of the individual.

I like your eyes.
they never look at me the wrong way.

I enjoy you.

I love the adventure of creeping off to mountain huts
and the 6 a.m. petit mort blues, when you sit there
in nothing but your shoes.

I like the way we smell together,
that mix of woman and cigar.

I enjoy being your representative in government
during these historic epoch-making times,
you serve your country like a soldier down in Alamo
providing veritable ease to the governors

I love telling you what to do
to me.

Shoes

when you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.

Epistle To Be Left In The Earth

...It is colder now,
                               there are many stars,
                                                                                 we are drifting
North by the Great Bear,  
                                                            the leaves are falling,
The water is stone in the scooped rocks,
                                                                 to southward
Red sun grey air:
                               the crows are
Slow on their crooked wings,
                               the jays have left us:

Long since we passed the flares of Orion.
Each man believes in his heart he will die.
Many have written last thoughts and last letters.
None know if our deaths are now or forever:
None know if this wandering earth will be found.

We lie down and the snow covers our garments.
I pray you,
                               you (if any open this writing),
Make in your mouths the words that were our names.
I will tell you all we have learned,
                               I will tell you everything:

The earth is round,
                             there are springs under the orchards,
The loam cuts with a blunt knife,
                                                                             beware of
Elms in thunder,
                                                      the lights in the sky are stars——
We think they do not see,
                                        we think also
The trees do not know nor the leaves of the grasses hear us:
The birds too are ignorant.
                                               Do not listen.
Do not stand at dark in the open windows.
We before you have heard this:
                                                               they are voices:
They are not words at all but the wind rising.
Also none among us has seen God.
(...We have thought often
The flaws of sun in the late and driving weather
Pointed to one tree but it was not so.)
As for the nights I warn you the nights are dangerous:
The wind changes at night and the dreams come.

It is very cold,
                            there are strange stars near Arcturus,

Voices are crying an unknown name in the sky.