Stigmata I and II

I

And all these are fictions too,
In rolls of film, tuberculosis gray.
We recount and recall as if we were madmen,
Locked away in dresser drawers and folio bins,
Our black ink (-stained fingers) running down
                                these pale passages-

Waistcoats deep in the black soil,

Stroking our egos and straining our necks
To fashion our tongues as red neckties,
All to the rhythm of the doldrums.


II

In this city of poets and artisans,
I was but a fishmonger:
Selling cheek and tail from the daily catch,
Pulling my pushcart by and down the alleyways;
Caught against the current of the hungry crowd.
And there among the refuse I'd lay
In black sheets of the corner club
Writing line after line of my heroin heaven,
Never mending, forever crafting,
Always creating in pages and in cages,
For I want so much to be Zorro,
But everyone knows my face.

And here in this nation of harlequins and minstrels,
I am but a washerboy,
Washing away the stain of routine
With smooth, stigmatic hands,
Until even the patches were soaked in gasoline and regret.

And here, the river Lethe, I bathe my spirit,
As I too wish to set aside opium pipes,
And long to tickle the ivories again.