Last Bender

Vulcan
 
his grief erupts by the molten cul de sac
for dying seams of rose and burlap
wipes the weeping stitches clean
and hammers out the mailed sleeve
turned from injured silk to infernal suit
 
below the bursting ingot blows
the silver chestplate smokes against the anvil
charred and broken the mortared saint
his faceless helmet bent in concentration
 
selfmade beneath the rough monk’s hood
his [...]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
          I slipped the waitress fifty bucks, paid the check and left her pausing for contractions, delivering plates with the help of other waitresses. The way to David Watts’s house was still a mystery; I asked for directions from some guy at a gas station who insisted we were there for the fishing. “Finest [...]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
 
          In a series of identical rooms I was handed back my clothes, keys and wallet, but not the guns. I signed blurry forms and endured the removal of the U and thunderbolt from my hand. It left behind a faint white scar. “A souvenir of your stay in Tudor Caravan,” the technician said. [...]

 
Pax Americana
 
Silenced not by laws
By guns or bricks or accolades,
Insensate to all
But the self-selected music
This creature creeps around
In its abyss of mirrors, while
Sorrow’s police stand guard,
Army bright, their stellar shields
Held high, petrified in triumph.

The Rice Economies
 
By Francesca Bray
 
Basil Blackwell Ltd 1986
 
http://www.amazon.com/Rice-Economies-Francesca-Bray/dp/B001Q1YHAG/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233256698&sr=1-6
 
 
Just as any study of Vietnam in some way begins with Chinese written sources, any understanding of Vietnam must begin with rice. And the book on rice I started with is Francesca Bray’s The Rice Economies. Bray is not a great stylist or anything, but she is concise [...]

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
          The cell was a cage in the middle of a large white tiled room; it was a cage in a tank. Three people sat under the blinding lights. There were no beds or chairs. At one end was a metal pail.
          I entered the cell and they shut the gate. The tank [...]

 
Tantra
 
Today count pearls in the game
tomorrow your teeth.
There will be no new dames in your life
married man
stiffen your resolve my friend
spelunk the familiar hole
evasive detail creates novelty
ejaculate collects in the cup of her hand
she secretes doesn’t squirt
no spooge accumulates
absorb thought through the flesh
of tongue and lap
female feral in the grasp
male by osmosis mates
no one initiates
apparent [...]

Belly Song
 
watch them belly grow
some with meat
some with child
but boy girl watch them grow
 
some in hunger
some in wroth
they writhe in slumber
watch them belly grow
 
those in sloth
those in time
watch them belly grow
 
in shame
blow billows made
of frost and grime
exhume the rotted
castle time
 
some for succor
some for change
and still they talk
until they tell
of how them belly grow
 
how buboes stretch [...]

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
          The Guernsey town David and Wanda Watts lived in is called Tudor Caravan. On the PaCificATolL Rd. it’s called Exit 49.
          They weren’t kidding about the Tudor either. Every third house was sided with recycled vinyl stucco-and beam panels, even crappy, two-bedroom bungalows. And the stores had wooden signs that said things like [...]

Robert Herrick 1591-1674
 
Herrick is a poet I have loved since my early twenties, but I’m not sure how I found him. Perhaps in a Norton Anthology? Or Ezra Pound’s ABC of Reading? Who knows. He’s often crossed with his emotional opposite, austere old Herbert. I admire Herbert as a poet, but I love Herrick. Herrick [...]