APHRODITE

Taken from a kiss
Born from water, foam
Dripping worldly lust
For the first time
Eating, breathing sleeping

Love

Scent of desire
Golden hair asking favors
From the sun
Beautiful, courageous, maidenly
Her life a game of human chess

The choice to form love or
Deadly spite
Greedy, playful, kind

A life taken from a kiss.

CLOCK

I am a clock
Spouting sounds they seldom seem to hear
Tick Tick Tick
Tock Tock Tock
I have three hands, which stem from my nose
Each one descending in size and speed
Seldom do they stop to chat
Unless
Unless you pull out my neck?

Twelve scars mar my perfectly round face
It is not my fault- I came that way
I think it might be from their stares
Their impatient pupils fixed on my every move
They think they are above me
Because they think, they feel, they breathe
But never a human is needed
As much as they need me.

My sisters awaken them;
My grandfathers sing to them,
And I
I am everything to them
Without me they wouldn't know
When to think, to feel, to breathe
I control their days, their weeks, their lives
I am
I am everything to them.

Beautiful Lies

If perchance I seem to die
Please don't bury me
Nail my flesh into a cross
And look on pitifully

Tell the world I was beautiful
And my writing was stunningly true
Find the time to drop a line
In memory in the news
Begin finally to understand
The pain that I went through
My work to make the world more humane
For you, and you, and you

Put my clothes in museums
And spread my ashes o'er a field
Give me a national holiday
And a monument made of steel

Weep tears at my funeral
And bring the president along
Please write a revealing biography
Remember to compose a song

Recollect how you used to see
So much knowledge in my eyes
Give me anything, give me everything
Give me beautiful lies.

The Caretaker's Sin

Help me, help me with the caretaker's sin,
Where I'm at and where I've been,
No way out and no way in,
As blasphemous as Satan, as sacred as an Indian

Shedding, shedding away this skin,
Casting myself into a mold of tin,
Writing a note with the blood of my pen,
Help me, help me with the caretaker's sin

Smearing the lipstick on my bloody chin,
Removing my spinal cord along with my fin,
The subjects are no-how and never no when,
Help me, help me with the caretaker's sin

Throwing away garbage and throwing away men,
Sleeping on bricks in tents of linen,
Putting on my dress and my diamond pin,
Help me, help me with the caretaker's sin.