Arts & Labor, Marconi Beach

Hand me the towel, darling.
Questa è una bella scena
and drawing the magic cap down over our eyes
the mood, erotically buoyed
we speak of the oracular weather
and why Wallace Stevens has fallen out of favor,
the jism of late capitalism never far from our lips
hand me the towel, darling
the sun hangs like a lactating clock,
the sale of the commodity is not the beginning;
once I saw your pussy flirt with gardening
and as a balloon operator slicked in heaven
then playing chess with General Franco
in the Canary Islands—
lately, we’ve been averaging down
decanting Cantos
pounding profit,
chasing nickels around dollar bills
and selling it
back to each other
like a crown of ice cream.

the psych ward at Fox Hospital doesn’t have yellow wallpaper

the psych ward at Fox Hospital doesn’t have yellow wallpaper
none of the women are waiting to be put to the rack
when I visit C. on a Monday, in February  the needlepoint
in this joint can cure heartache   and the spiders weaving baskets
in your ears   of course Jones was there, like Faustus
paying for an inn with gold coins that turn to bits of horn
after a fortnight    he’s grown his hair like Manson —a real cuckoo’s nest

did I   Heathcliff you, did I  light the oven like Ted Hughes
you were playing solitaire like all the girls with long blond hair—
without commitment, scotched and sleep sunk, not found out.
And now your head is fire. Now your dreams spider in the soup pots
cluttering my cupboards. Now you are the dragging clock   each eye
like a circle of hell  plunged with Seroquel. The train and its baggage
pulling up short