—In the minor city of black joy you lay awake.
And, you could just about
go out there, couldn’t you,
torn shadow.
Part that was almost loved.
But who would have noticed you.
Would the wind with its nada nada,
or the moon with her acne scars, would she,
or the tulips, whispering too loudly
for you to join them
or the mommy darkness? Not really.
You went out to the night city,
you went suffering again. You called
to the night city, you called suffering again,
and midnight came with its twelve dancing princess type of thing,
the dark boys brought their shadows past the bed,
: the daddy the brother the drug-boy
the hunger the meaning
junkie who read magazines standing up for free
the nice scholar the not-nice scholar
the wild boy of suppose
poet one poet two poet B
and the dream pirate who loved night so well
he wore his bracelets like the moon
and stirred the afternoon into his tea, and
you asked them why
wasn’t I loved and the dark boys said, nyeh
nyeh you didn’t want to be.
But the dark boys loved the won’t part, didn’t they.
You know the won’t part:
won’t work won’t shit won’t love
serene gifts round beaches the so-called
light of day. Most of the universe is filled with it,
it seems like. Dark matter, lamb fat,
Tuesday night television.
The won’t part won’t go away.
(So you asked again why wasn’t I loved,
and the dark boys said
we had a torn shadow, how could we have been.)
Nights at the marina, thick with fishermen there,
their buckets full of pliant perch,
you can fly over the city,
see the rejected shadow, the him and the not-him.
Marlboro smoke makes pewter fences between the men,
beer bottles with paper bags bunched down
around the mouth-places,
and the shadows lie faithfully flat beside their owners
in the medium neither;
what could be darker than the male shadow at night
before it is plucked up by gulls, (, all
both of them) and dropped into the famous sea—
(So you asked again
how can I love if I was not loved
and they said, you can lie down in your emptiness now
if you want to.)
At night the prison glows like the back of the Mona Lisa.
The men make sexual deals with each other.
The beautiful swagger„ (as if that’s bad)
the locomotive tattooed
on the back of another (as if that’s bad)
the man bends over the sink spitting,
the hurt and the extra senses clouding his blood,
they want to televise his execution,
televise his face as he slumps down,
they show the picture of the man he killed,
he says he would do it again, over and over . . .
dark boy,
doomed male energy,
you spoke well when you were young,
you blended in with the night
when they told you to; you acted strong,
so why didn’t they. Why
didn’t they love you.