Theres a fire inside the mountain where a puma rests
on the continents of silence.  the unfurnished living-
rooms in space.  where now a sacrifice takes place.  be-
hind a landmass of skeletons.  the ice floes creep.  long
lines of leopards in the snow.  you have to go.  to keep
the logs.  keep burning in a halestrom.  the corpse of a
bat in the night.  stills.  the windowsills are dirty.  and
hope trembles on the legs of a dying.  praying mantis
Solstice.  leave me now like this.  with the sun bleeding
passing Spanish hearts in my hands.  the soft white flesh
of a tender neck.  thrown back into submission.  a face
full or resignation.  the eyes pleading.  close me now
like this.  forever.  shut the light.  release the seas
the endless ocean voyages of melancholy.  Ions flare
in the fire.  the bookshelves rise.  like a tower of the
arcane world.  you cling.  in a silk cocoon.  of a yellow
sheet.  like a wing.  of Baals angels.  the ancients.  press
on your skull.  like a tumor.  the manuscripts.  curl in a
flame.  and I light a light.  in the darkness.  the cigar-
ettes drop to the floor.  and they reappear.  the long lines
of leopards in the snow.  its time to go.  into a court-
yard.  into an unfurnished livingroom in space.  to make
your grace.  beneath the jaws of a generous lion.  teeth
capped down to the bone.  a layer of platinum.  morphine
erotic.  waves of criminal water.  the painless.  pleasure
of death

with a bite in your jugular
you break on through
releasing the final
vials of congenital poison
pints of blood
and millenniums
of endless
ocean voyages
 

©1980, from THE TEMPLE (Telephone Books)