Songs of Madness

Songs of Madness

2 88 Axle Grease D'ailleurs Lux Perpetua NEON LIGHTS Thirty-Nine
Reflections on Some Paintings of Salvador Dali

2.
The Bo'su'n's Mate

Stay thou on the boat, mate!
Run thy banner aft.
Think not on the bo'su'n's mate
for he is naught but daft.

See, he says he loves thee not
Yet, he takes an axe
and cuts thy body artfully
in forty tidy whacks.

If this be not proof of love
i will unfold thee more
if i can find a spatula and scrape thee off the floor.

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88

Taking a trip
on sorrow and madness
inside out i catch a glimpse
of memories inverted.
i never understood the shifting
and the rushing together
that, viewed from the other side
come clear as standing between three mirrors.
In them, there is only a giant puzzle
that i can see only when the pieces turn,
for an instant, when the earth shakes.
i see it coming,
smaller and faster
the pieces
shift toward the center.
Trying to make it last
until i can learn the words
i lay dismembered, pulling myself through my fingers
to the tune of a Beethoven scherzo, profaned and writhing
blended with the street noises
that do not necessarily exist.
Seized with new horror
every time the pieces move
each part a part of itself
drawing apart until
i pass out.

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Axle Grease

i think a storm is blowing in
the wind is blowing very strong
they've put a poison in the wind
that chills my body all night long.
They've greased my brain, i know it's true
my mind keeps slipping, heavy head
there's nothing, nothing i can do
but numbly watch the poison spread.
The poison and the night run long
and very strong, yes, very strong.

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D'AILLEURS

Et voyez le monde, un reflet dans tes yeux,
tournant pendant que nous jouons nos jeux.
Riez, en face de ces grands évenements
au lieu de froideur de la nuit frémissante.
Si bien, le tache sur mon âme, j'ai caché,
le trou dans mon coeur, fait comme par une epée
Mais avant que je meurs de cette cause,
je te jure:
Encore je suis heureuse, honnête et pure.

And look at the world, a reflection in your eyes
turning while we play our games.
Laugh in the face of these great goings-on,
instead of the cold of the trembling night.
So well, this stain on my soul i have hidden,
the hole in my herart made as if by a sword
but before i die of this cause
i will swear to you:
Still i am happy, honest and pure.

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Lux Perpetua

The police came to cut the body down
that everyone else refused to touch
or even look at-
It had been there for days,
its heavy black tongue
thick in its mouth
and dark eyes
that scorched anyone daring to look in on this scene:
An overturned chair
tangled in the endless sea
of last year's newspapers
sticky with the heavy smell
of turpentine and coffee grounds,
dirty dishes, overflowing
the sink and table
where dinner from the Tuesday before
sat, growing mold.
The window had never been cleaned,
and the potted begonia on its sill
died long ago of thirst and despair.
There is no dignity in that room,
and none can be brought in.
There is only the glare
from the naked lightbulb
that burns,
hanging beneath cracked plaster.

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NEON LIGHTS

I PYRAMID THE MOURNING OF MY MINED
AS THE RISE, SOW IRE EYES
WITH THE SETTING, SO'S TILL IRE EYES
STILL RYE, SING TO THE MORNING!
A PEERING IN THE MORNING OF MY MIND.

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Thirty-Nine

This is the kind of night
that i pray to die in my sleep.
Waiting for somewhere to happen
up so far as i can.
Sitting high on a wall
sitting up on a high wall looking down
with no strength to jump
and no will to jump
no will for anything,
so i listen halfheartedly
to the little songs
buried deep in my breast-
the tiny, frightened noises
that i do not dare understand.

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Reflections on Some Paintings of Salvador Dali

My toothbrush melts into my hand
and forms a blade with which i cut
my own limbs as if loaves of bread
i slice and laugh and slice again.

And ants come swarming through the hole
where once a spoon scooped out an eye
and wound my tongue inside my scull
with claws that scurry, itching, dry.

My pocket watch is melting on time's violent wings
because time flies and poached eggs hang
from chartreuse skies on thin black strings
and vermin creep through fearful truth
i almost dread to think
that

Life imitates Art, and
Art imitates Lower Manhattan.

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