from Voca Me (3)

  * * *

“Because nobody loved me, I ate.

  I stuffed myself as though the food

was me, and that satisfied my hate.

  Make no mistake, I tasted good.”

“For months on end I’d barely move,

  wouldn’t do a thing more than eat

or piss or shit, or roughly smooth

  the bone from my stiffened meat.”

“I watched my son become a man,

  not me, envied his youth and vigor,

wanted what he could give a woman,

  not me, so I pulled the trigger.”

“Belief was my hunger, my need.

  A god collector, I was obsessed

with every man’s faith and creed,

  feeling nothing if not possessed.”

“Twelve and trembling behind the fender

  of my Olds, he wagged the twelve-gauge

at his father.  He cried at my tender

  scolding.  He fired at my rage.”

“I’d dance with old Death’s mother

  the dance we do on knees and chest.

I’d explain I was his brother

  and she’d clutch me to her breast.”

“Suns sit on the shoulders of the sky

  no more imperially than my head

floated above all others.  Asked why,

  I’d have told you why not instead.”

  * * *

“He-Who-is spoke and I obeyed,

  until a second voice, my own,

louder than the one to which it prayed,

  commanded, ‘Listen to me alone!’”

“I loved a bust of Beaudelaire.

  I understood its smile—awake

and lewd.  I saw it everywhere—

  idol of man for man’s sake.”

“Beside the swollen creek, we

   swore, strutting pubescent silk.

When the word was explained to me,

  I felt a kid fallen into milk.”

“I heard Daddy say Goddammit.

  I said it too.  And when

he went red swearing and hit

  me, I said Goddammit again.”

“The seventh day was God’s.  He rested.

  The eighth, less holy, made a circle.

On Sunday the power of God is arrested.

  On Monday a man can perform miracles.”

“My parents like two grim wraiths

  booing each other, trapped in a fun-

house that once was love and faith,

  bicker above the song of their grandson.”

“After my rape, before my murder,

  I saw blue eyes, a toothy grin,

and pale hatred, drained of ardor,

  that didn’t know where to begin.”

“Unfaithful?  I have never told

  another woman that I love her.

My marriage vow still holds,

  though I’ve had a hundred lovers.”

“‘Thou shalt not lie or steal?’

  I bought the oath of office,

and did both.  ‘A clever deal,’

  the papers said, ‘A man of promise.’”

“What about my neighbor’s husband?

  He considers me fair game.

Why not the other way around?

  The two, you say, are not the same?”

Note: This is two self-contained sections

from my long poem Voca Me (latin for "call me").

It is one of my "voices poems," in which

each stanza is spoken by a different

voice. More sections to follow.