The Geranium Hotel Poems

An education, it seems, is needed For me to learn that I am not a sunflower Greek Jew An education, it seems, is needed For me to know that I am not an infinite German of happiness An education is needed For me to know what the beauty of rent and geraniums are For me to be able to tell you what music is What art to like and what birds to watch flying across the morning sky An education is needed for me to know When to stop loving you To keep my discipline in shape To keep my suits sharp, and clean and neat An education, it would seem, is needed To tell the difference between Cohen, and Burroughs, and John Wayne's ghost To know when to plant orchards or cement To know when the stores are closed And when and why their windows will be smashed An education will be needed For me to know when to wait by the cemetery In the sun, in a woollen cap, grey eyes looking at the grass An education, it seems, is needed For me to discuss the voodoo media with my father For me

I will keep this poem simple For all you poetic fools I was somewhere in Africa In a hotel without ghosts Death looked down From his balcony He was cool, blue eyes, and bald I stood beside a pool without water Looking at him on the seventh floor I had a hundred american dollars And a book of american poems He knew what I was looking for I did not understand what he saw Maybe he had a woman naked on his bed Sipping her tea or sucking pomegranate seed Behind me I knew was a continent Full of assumption and age About to be consumed by my own desire To see where history started (Yet I find myself becoming abstract) I turned my vision from death And turned it to the sky The weavers were silent The Stalks sat sighing on the roof An iron bar that held up a burnt light Was their perch They did not have a master Yet they knew that I was there They knew the blood that was in me Was tasty and full of spice They knew my heart was traditional And my ribcage made of go

You find yourself embedded in an opera of sex and fair skin Stained words of home that beckons and cymbals that crash Mirrors react with the sun that shines Books of London and books of Rome all burn as the strings are tuned Maybe you should have taught yourself how to tie lace and the rope of a flag Maybe you should have learnt to sing the song of master and slave There is no room in the photography booth, no room in the family There is too much room in your underwear, too much hair on your chin You have too many battlements, too many conversations, too many cigarettes It's impossible to wait for the new horoscope, it's time to go away Perhaps there is a chance that the mountain can be moved, but not to you The forrest moved to Macbeth, the garden to man Deep in the artists studio a story was told to you of Geraniums and fire But it was cold and early, dawn made you feel old the gods were asleep The horses were going mad and the creeks were running black It'