The Geranium Hotel Poems

The days are pumped forth from the lungs of the mountain Good morning! watch as the heaviest cloud falls into frost The wolves crawl from dreams into forrest and field Skinny, charming, and sore with the loss of a death in the family The plague of blisters that keep is stretched in the sun Moaning poetry and song, without pants, solid and lying in gravel We illustrate our selves as if we were ghosts, and I love this We swap words like we were swapping lice and disease If this were war we would be friends, or lovers, dead or alone The nights are governed by the eyeless and the armless The sheets are torn into strips, turned into ribbons and tied to branches Venus looks down as she smells the crushed bay leaf She wonders how it feels to keep a record of time and history Fires burn with fuel collected by different generations The angry, the resigned, the creaky, the one frightened of direction Birds make their nests on the ground, in the quartz and the soil Shell fish are

Where are you now? Are you catching white whales and golden calves? Searching for lumps buried in glands? Kissing thighs, playing church organs? Where are you now? I had a vision of you at war Dressed in olive, hungary, working to stay alive Smiling at the men, all nameless I had a vision of you dying from the inside out Do you still ride horses? I would imagine you have moved onto cars Or maybe you prefer the convenience of public transport Catching the bus, dressed in old blue jacket Looking out of the window Watching it and your thoughts fog over Where are you now? Groaning at the waitress Tying up the shoelace Dropping them off Catching the elevator Do you enjoy the new way, the new rules? Let me ask you again, where are you now? Fade out.