March11poem: Song

variations on a previous theme

Bring me
more to fill the channel between
my thighs that extends empty from here
to my breastbone, through the spasmodic pit
of my stomach – the drying sinew of
my hollow ribcage is thirsting
for something I look for
in books - I fill it
with ravenous intake of blades, and flesh
ripped salt-flecked and raw
from white bones of bathers, the pink meat of
prostitutes, butchers, madmen, and sleepers.
I am sucking on daemon birds baked four and
twenty into shapes shy, drooping,
unseen, and still I’m
dissatisfied. No more, bring me
touch – my belly is distended
painfully. Bring me
the all-American sod that diffused my bard-
I shall bury myself in it, naked, mad to be
In contact with it and
weeping for the want of exhalation.