after Loy
i
in pound psalt
aspersions
as pert
as
locutions—
a balm for the faux prince
confused for
for cannon fodder
with a dauphin daft
as can be had,
greasing an Occitan
flute of meth au
gratin,
flagellum off
curdled champagne—
he sees among the orgiastic
Rorschachs of brass an
ampersand in un-
common continuum,
labeled libelous bile
ii
fallen headlong into crater—
yeasty chaser of chancre—
under the watchful eye
of that traitorous
Cyclops, moon:
tells you which song,
nearing nadir, to
ring unto the loin-slung
day—making the caulked
rock of red Equator a
season in yellow—
a slow drawl on elbow,
withholding
of candlewick for the en-
flame of tonsil—
hold tight, Night:
your spates are purloined,
gossamer gone with talcum to
copulate in the cupola
of a nucleotide
iii
due fault for such trellis! led up
flights of chalk-
y scaffold on-
ly to meander
the lattice-patter of a slumberer
—a milk-moustache
of thrush
in the piss-venetian air
of morning,
frosting your matted hair …
reaching for mnemonic somn-
ambulance—reach for your-
self in reek of sleep-
lessness—an Onanist
has firsts and laughs last
…then again, coffee for
your cream; a seam
in the least seemly
of places—must mean we
were allover meant to be seen
iv
make me a doorjamb
in the puerile gatefolds
of Sodom, back arched un-
toward Bethlehem, in
slouch of pasture—
you have a hambone,
I, the ass’s jaw,
and our fricatives
and glottal stops
make plosive the logorrhetic …
lean here under the key-
stone Apathy
while marauders nod
to the humorless breeze
moving between the Sphinx’ haunches
…you and the doorway and
mystery: one aperture
in the quasi-rapture of
tonight that hath so far
more than pockets, mouths
v
returned to the scene splenetic,
frenzied in its orgy of
still lifes—stunt a common
pose, contrapuntal
to the sensual:
orange rinds in rounds—
milk’s pelt; days
glow in the shade
of remembered half-grips
or a chokehold
over the nine-to-five grope
of frigates dumb for a pier
—you’ve yet a twilit eye-
lid, cancelling the re-
calcitrance of humors /
spread now / the phalanx
of your flank’s defense—there
will be no recompense:
the sordid tooth, brush burn, tongue
forked, entendre doubly sore
vi
turned to muted canopies of brick—
(your collar, higher …)
to cellars of shtick—
to the liquorish wrought lines of stencil
the eye twines down …
you’ve a knack for inter-
continental drift—
fleet way of referencing the sartorial
(with some cheek—)
though the belt slits well still at each cinch …
roll us under the lush
light of irradiant fractal,
of cut glass, cutlass
at arm’s length
from this barstool …
dinner now is a minnow of heaven,
a half-hour at matins,
your hand in my mitten …
just as the barkeep sweeps
the dregs of us into taxis
vii
all mango martinis
find the codified esophagi
of night-streets
cobbled—they are clotted
in our most pasteurized vices …
O that Endymion would
shift a hip, let a gasp
pass the
inebriated nimbus of
his blanched shaft—
the tides laugh,
older than prostitution,
given over to
fruition, walking all
cads on the leashes Mab’s—
