BAD BUTTERFLY

it’s butterfly
effect blended with
Divine vengeance
he
would have you
believe and

just to look at him
you would not imagine
such causal silliness
as mask
for holy wholly
evil

labeling the caprice of
the Universe with
every ounce of
our tender species’
malicious spite

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BY NEPTUNE

you took
the temperature
of my love

found it
too tepid for
your solar tastes

O
if only you
asked, given
me
your hand

then, by
Neptune, I would
have shown you

love’s
depth

AS AN EEL

I came upon you
cooking calamari
in the kitchen

instantly, the thought
popped into my mind
that for you,
my beautiful,
I could become
as streamlined as a fish
twist, turn,
flex
wriggly as
an eel

be as juicy as
a ton of berries
or oysters that you slit
from their shells let
slide down
wherever.

WHAT DOES IT MATTER?

what does it matter
if I am
duped and
deceived?

these are
flesh wounds merely
will heal quickly
and what
if they don’t?

I can live with that
it’s not like they are the kind of
small retaliatory scratches
that turn so bad
for you, fester
bring you crashing down

YOU MAY WELL SNEER

You may well sneer
look down your nose at me
but not, I’m afraid,
at my poetry,
unless

you elect to
feel a distinctive sting
(satire has that drawn-steel ring)

all those years
in the industry
those banking degrees
have taught you
jackshit about poetry

the human race
being the sadder for it.

FAR FROM

I am too far inland
for the sea to reach me

far
from the feel
of its rhythm

I will never be
a tough, resourceful
man of the veldt
living
off dust, rock, gnarled bush
and sand
making my home
by scorpion stone
in places too
small to be found on a map.

FROM THE HIGH GROUND

the Universe
broke the code

invented itself
contrived a plan
to bring
me here

convince me
to place my faith
in a world of
cells and
dead rock

enough high ground there
pinnacle
to fight for

ZERO GRAVITY: you should read

SUN GIRL

she was the
Sun girl
my
Sun girl

but then a huge chunk
of Moon came
between us
shut out
her light

eclipsed everything
left a
feint pinpoint
of light as
if a
far collapsing star

SEX BLINDED ME

sex blinded me

deer in
headlight

white rabbit snap-
shot caught in the
middle of
a floodlit field

wondering
what to
do
in that situation

how to
turn to advantage
that sudden exposure