It seems fair to say I’ve made my stuff,
my own kind coming from the kinds of others—
a dressing made from heart, liver, sage,
family laurel. Celebrating I stuff
duck, turkey, words, and wild goose—
pope’s nose and neck, my cavity.
I prefer the food of love to food for thought.
I sing unaccompanied, I try to play a ukulele.
I’m better on gongs, dipthongs.
I’ve visited the goddess of fertility,
women who represent the goddess
in their temples, those whores,
consecrated women who represent the goddess
so commoners like me can have communion
with the divine—especially holy the bacchanal
at the festival of the New Year.
Elsewhere, tallest guy around,
I was afraid I would be spotted in a crowd,
shot like a twelve-point stag killed in the forest,
so I did not cross the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama,
I watched my kind. I nursed the wounded a little.
It is good to laugh but it is better
to speak, lend my voice to any borrower
who wants it. My long-term interest rates are love.
Reader’s interest is not usury.
I’ll bring wine and a book to your marriage bed,
Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell.