I Never Write Couplets


I sleep on my left side
And dream on my right

Maybe my loneliness
While only apparent

Though profound & lasting
Is connected to these

Contradictory habits
Last night there were rats

The size of scorpions
Leaving my body alone

These were my allies
My ship must be sinking

My wife who is lovely
Lying there open-mouthed

Was of course unaware
And angry with my vermin

Blaming them on me
One of them stung her

Though actually, bit
Come to think of it

We do often disagree
Are our natures contrary

In my dream I was sad
At my reduced circumstances

The squalor betokened
Of the cockroach-riddled squat

When I sleep I am content
To be nudging towards death

Doing nothing about it
Not even waiting for the end

Yet sometimes I get turned
My son had come to rescue me

In a dream I never speak
To show my gratitude

For what use are words
Against images & twists

Of plots such as these
Prisons where the meanings

Stolen from my life
Are evidence against me

The Kafkaesque defendant
Sam or Charlie's tramp

Awake, one must act
Either farce or poetry

Bring in the terminator
Or sit before the computer

Asking, There was something
More, a kind of happiness

Vanishing into a hole
Of interstellar gravity

I do not believe in psychology
What did it ever do for me

Except provide a living
For doctors who cared less

But were polite to me
As one form of domination

A state I appear to prefer
Leastwise in my dreams

I follow witlessly
As if listening to music

And listlessly observe
As the magic mountain gapes

Then heals to swallow
Everybody I loved or could have

When I wake on my right side
My wife has already left

My left leg always hurts
But I can limp

Limp to the kitchen
Limp to the bathroom

Scarcely aware of the pain
Because filled with my dream

            *

Morning lights responsibilities
Concerning the society

That made one who he is
The human race that uses its

Endowment to resist
Through him as well, this hell

Overwhelming one unless
Fortunes of war discover

Till that night we'll be released
That night so long rehearsed

Some form public thus despised
Where, since more obvious, we hide

                 *
As they suck up light
It draws them out of earth

You who know I love you
as a dangerous construct

'The rest is picking for the crows
 And base inquity' 'darkling

Lumen' Look at me
The cry of the temporary

Huts where between us fell
Eternity at first sight

Whom I haven't seen since
These assumptions were delivered