* * *
“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.
