POEM

       I’m a slaughtered lamb, one would think that I had gone under the knife.
I let the blood of my body empty-out, becoming a crimson river,

what soft allure, what grotesques we all are? We all want warmth, 
but foul water, foul, sickening, sickly, air particles sucked into our lungs

is all that we have—timorous toadstools sprout, charming me like a woman 
that has forgotten how to charm but instead proportionately chooses to “hate”—
 
I know of a woman much older than me who truly loved me, years ago—
old enough to be my mother—Georgiana. She loved frogs & had frog statues
on her front porch.
       One hot, muggy summer afternoon I helped her move away from the boondocks
& her dog nearly grated my leg into repulsion— Thus Spoke The Angry Dog! 
She told me that she wrote a lot of poetry but was always hesitant
to let me read any of her work. I felt that she was lying to me, but I did not 
reveal those feelings to her,
       & one day—a hot, muggy summer afternoon—she brought to me a scrap
piece of paper with a poem by her on it. “Finally!” she said, as if it were a relief.
I could discern that her poem had been written quickly, perhaps even the day before.
       Later, on a hot, muggy, summer afternoon, she said to me: 

                                                                                “If I were 
                                                                    a younger 
                                                         woman, 
                                      I’d definitely be 
                                                                 chasing you!”

       Georgiana made spaghetti with sugar mixed into it—she called it her 
“New Hampshire special”—when she was younger, she was a hippie,
& she hung out with the Hell’s Angels & also rode saddle with
Mafia gangsters in New York City. 

                                                                         “One of them 
                                                              wanted me, 
                                        but I just wanted 
                                to be friends—
                                                  but he wanted me 
                                                             to be his girlfriend, 
                                                                          but I never 
                                                         took it that far.”

After she overheard one of the men discussing a plan to knock-off a fellow 
on the East Side, she knew that it was time to hit the road, 
& what a rocky, turbulent road it would become. . . . 

                                                                         “I was beaten 
                                                                  by a pulp 
                                    by all of my husbands. 
                                 I would call 
                                                   the police 
                                                           on them,
                                                                     but the police 
                                                       would tell me, 

‘Ma’am, that’s not our problem—

  that is your problem that you will 

have to deal with on your own.’”

       Release the RoboBees! I’m waiting for 
espionage to hop-along-Cassidy beside me,
make a long war with robots & watch everyone beat one another to a pulp. 
Well, this is what “they” want.

       In the Age of The Sage, my crown would still be devoured by migraine attacks—

& when L. & I were in a café one evening, the older, attractive woman
who would tilt her head down so that her eyes looked up at me sensually,
said to us: 

                                                                         “Oh, you guys 
                                                    are such intellectuals.”

       L. said: 


                                                                         “I don’t know if it’s 
                                                                                   that, 
                                                          or if we just have 
                                                     too much time 
                                                                    on our hands.”