THE PETTY DEMON

Stigmata’s

Christ Himself
Or a Jesuit

Is living behind the plasterboards
Of my kitchen wall

Stigmata’s like paintscabs
Red pomegranate red

A tribute to Michelangelo
Or Bruegel perhaps

Tabla Rasa

I wish your brain were a tabla rasa
A cleanliness so prophylactic

That for a moment (perhaps more)
I could rewrite all your sullied thoughts

And convince you to suck my cock
(perhaps twice) without closing your eyes

The Cremator

The cremator wears gloves to keep the bones and teeth
From working up under the moons of his nails

His wife has a duster made from twills of hair
For scalloping up under the clips of his thumbs

Block and tackling what little remains of man and child and gods and faith

The Alsatians

The Alsace and the Louvre are two places I will not soon visit
Not having a Visa

Nor the wherewithal to convey a motor car
I am stuck sitting in

Pajama Bottoms
Eating jellies and jams spread evenly

On Toast
Sitting thinking About the Alsatians and the Louver

And Counting the Toast
Cut into ribbons like my dear mother used to do when it was cold

And Inhospitable
Outside the window of our house In Alsace or the Louvre

The Flats behind Our House

I rode my bike on the flats
Behind our house

My brother’s hair choused in the clip
Of my spokes

Whites’ (over)

Borges’ (oysters) whites
Skinned over left to

Touch smell bumps
And (mind’s eye)

Rotten Apples

Scarab beetles lay their eggs
Underneath my fingers

Carapaces rotten with apples
Like Kafka’s back

Of The Leg

In the camps it was not uncommon
To incur a phlegmon which had to be incised

From the skink of the leg bone
So deep had it burrowed and infested

That no ferric or compress of either lye or iodine
Could scour free the stink that opened into the tissues and marrow

Of the leg

Monk’s Wool

The skive I keep in the ruff of my trousers is for scuffing the grim
From the knuckle of your face

White and bony from monk’s wool dry biscuits (curled tongues) and blood

Black Earth

I drank strong whisky cupped in the palms of my hands
Sod-spades driven heel to toe cutting clods of wet peat

And men with strong backs and gray cricks of hair
Bent over hoes cutting stokes of black earth