Wet Dream


And now that the body is sated
The mind must have its share,
Like the summery sounds of
Children and rats scurrying
Underneath the stairs,

Tween the waking and
The dreaming, where
Dreams lie down to sleep,
Dead upon the reaching
Where expectations cease,

Scuttling through the
Air where downturned
Grins turn up in frowns
Of liquid lust, I tripped
Upon the maker and
Exploded on the spot,

Like the wild call of
Humidity o’er the slick
Veneer of the plump
Lawn chair, me and
The pretty pink
Flamingos and
The feral night air,
Hanging on to
the lightning

In a gob of fisted light,
Like the edge of hungry
Semen sowing a perfect
Night like rolling beads
Of sweat, rolling towards

The basement where the
Tapes are on full blast,
Bobby and the Band
Bending out notes
On a big pink spoke,

Where the wheels of
Rage tear just like joy
underneath the wild
cacophony of each
girl and boy, hiding
under the banister

Where the sun goes to rest,
inside the sound of crickets
And children playing
Underneath the stairs,

I wandered past the wonder
Til wonder took its course,
Like a discarded toy
Who’s outrun his worth,
Wandering through the forest
With batteries running low.

Down in the Well with Murakami

Based on the Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The cat left long ago.
The well dried too.
Now Kumiko’s gone
Behind the wall.

And I’m down in the well
with Murakami again.

Noboru Wataya has her.
Noboru Wataya is everywhere.
Noboru Wataya is on TV.
Noboro Wataya is on every screen.

This alleyway doesn’t exist.
Nor the old hanging house
Where there is no good end.
Nor the wind-up bird,
That I and only a few others can hear.

(two men dressed in black with hats
are digging in my backyard. I cannot
move. I cannot scream. I’m only 7.
Why can’t they hear the wind-up bird
that winds the world’s spring. It’s a heart.
It’s a beating heart. The short one climbed
up the tree. They’ve buried a live human heart.
I cannot scream. Why can’t they hear me scream?)

Down here the darkness is pure.
Down here I can think.
Down here I don’t question existence.
Down here, there’s only darkness.

May Kurasawa, the precocious 16 -year-old
girl from across the alleyway that doesn’t exist
is holding on to the squishy thing, the squishy
living thing that rolls away when the body stops.

Down here I do not know time,
Not the time we take for time.
Down here the stars. Down
here the light is real. Down
here the light is not some
decorative thing. The light
was so real that when it hit
Lieutenant Mamiya at the
bottom of the well, he
could no longer live in this
world; though his body
refused to die for many
years after, even after
losing several limbs
to numbness.

May is my angel.
May’s gone and taken my step ladder.
May’s taken my way out.
May’s placed the lid over the well.
May has been a very naughty angel.
May wants me to think my way out.
Or to cease thinking at all.

Several hats hang on the wall
like a prized moosehead.
Several hats that used to be
what i called me. But I am
neither me nor moose nor
taxidermist.

Creta Kano is a whore.
Creta Kano fucks me in my dreams.
Creta Kano is a psychological whore.
Creta Kano wears Kumiko’s clothes.
Kumiko is gone.

All that remains is this burning mark
on my cheek at the bottom of
a pure dark well.

The wall is squishy.
The wall is a living squishy thing.
On the other side, there’s a man
without a face.

A waiter carries a tray of Cutty Sark
whistling the tune to the Thieving Magpie.
In the lobby the well heeled gentlemen
and ladies are watching Noboru Wataya
on the screen. Noboro Wataya is an image.
Noboru Wataya doesn't exist. We cannot
help but fall under his spell.

I follow the waiter into room 207.
The waiter disappears.
A woman lies naked in the bed.
The room is thick with the smell
of pollen. Dead flowers suddenly
rise to the occasion. Thick and
sticky; though it is too dark to see.

‘You should not have come here.
You cannot be here. It is not time.
Go..before it’s too late.’

May Kurosawa knows I need her.
May Kurosawa is far away.

I’ve come for the cat.
I’ve come for Kumiko.
I’ve come for the well
That is dried up in me.
I’ve come for the squishy thing.

May Kurosawa stretches
Her naked body in the moonlight.
May Kurosawa cries real tears.
May Kurosawa’s shadow is
bigger than her small body.

May Kurosawa’s shadow cries
tears that are bigger than the body.

Only a few can hear the creak
of the wind-up bird. It’s a living
human heart. They’re burying
it in my backyard, where the
well once flowed.

Now


I need you more than the cancer cure,

I need you more than the need for eternity,
We’ve all to die someday and it’s always best in you.

I need you more than a good idea,
I need you more than the perfect turn of phrase,
I need you more than the need for hope,
I need you more than restful sleep,
I need you more than peace.

I need you more than desire,
More than my animal needs,
More than the flight of the soul,
More than the chains of the flesh,

More than the sudden epiphany
where paint and light and words
and skin combine to introduce
me to myself once again.

I need you more than the
darkness where hidden melodies
run under moss and stones,
babbling in endless brooks
in tongues I’ve yet to know,

I need you more than silence,
I need you more than belief,
I need you more than experience,
I need you now more than
I need you to go away.