And so is smelt down childhood,

Unalloyed and golden,

To twist

And pound

And warp

Molten in the furnace of desire.

Beneath blind passion's white-hot flame

Smoulder jealous coals in agony;

The tender mornings

Turn quickest to smoke,

A lucky evening's embers

Glow still: the ash

And dross of yesterdays,

Never to rise.

Smoke clouds the mind, a mess

Of sparks and nervous blood,

Turned to grey matter.  The eyes

Grow tired of their searching, yet

Cannot rest:

Which fragments are really diamonds,

Which mere shards of cutting glass?

Only time will tell.

Gone all boyhood ease and

Girlish modesty, ways true

And lit with love,

Swept clean.

There are no proper directions

For Fate, a road uncertain

Of cobbled intersections right and left.

Now everyone's smiles are so crooked, somehow.

What is this shifting parade colorful,

Dark and bright?

What are these

Searing feelings melting frozen,

Melting gently awkward

Something wonderful?

Pointy tongue tasting

Aggloopulous sweetsour

Pastries and salmon hands

Kissing tea

Steeped in greasy spoon

Goodness fucking til half

Seven pulsing inside and

Out the steamy window

A siren and trashmen

Coming

To bear it away,

Pierced right nipple

Lemiscate and triangle and

Unfinished Lillith

Seven handwriting styles

English Hebrew Italian

Thesaurii by the bed whose

Sheets are a map of the world

Antarctica and Radium

Bejing and Casablanca

Moscow and London

Rome and Pondicherry

Tel Aviv and tiny Honolulu

Paris

Making banana pancakes

HEA  VEN  her

First date dress

Crooked spine

Fisherman's trousers

Chipped nail polish

Mascara moustache

Falling asleep inside her

Artificial hips to come

Top to toe

Really holding hands

Margaret Lillith Shintaki

Worth EVERYTHING

Liquid gold unalloyed

Beauty and Grace

My beating heart

And all.

Come then, Trashman Sunrise:

Take EVERYTHING in sight!

You'll never see Margaret's eyes

In that shitty little light.

And so the Sun came up to me.

"Take EVERYTHING?" he said.  "You're sure?"

"I am," I said.  "Margaret will endure."

"Why must she?"

I paused to consider how goods are sold

At auction to bidders with the most gold,

But no true greatnesses are bought:

They must, in painful fire, be wrought.

Then like a kid I blurted out,

"The flames are meant to burn away

All fear of failure and self-doubt.

What's left behind will not decay."

"I thought I had seen EVERYTHING," he said,

"Until I met you, Sean Garcia.  What

Are those Ray-Bans still doing on your head?

Or is Margaret worth EVERYTHING but?"

I gave them up, and with them all the pain,

Dead weight of heavy years that crushed my wings,

And thundered laughter.  It began to rain.

My prose guitar I tuned to poetry

And played love sweeter than Apollo sings,

Fresh heartstrings honey brighter than his beams

For you, Margaret, woman of my dreams.

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