The Last Man on Earth

Though starvation is the constant worry of life,

the scourge of solitude can easily be as dangerous to the living.

Would it have been different if I somehow had maintained

a miraculous radio for all these passed years and kept in contact

with some few other survivors, scattered o’er the globe?

“Giovanni,” I would say, “I woke today and was hungry

and alone. I feel like dying. I must go get water and check the sky.”

He would sympathize and tell me a story of his departed grandsons.

“Sakuntala,” I would say, “I woke today and was hungry

and alone. I feel like dying. I must go get water.”

She would sympathize and sing for me.

I do not know if a very good radio would have made things different.

My eyes have faded and I can no longer read the books on my shelves;

two or three words emerge then disappear in spirals.

It would be better if every part of my library was replaced

with a facsimile in a foreign language, for in that desolation

there would at least be some solace for the educated.

But the words are not scrambled, they are lost.

What is the season? Somewhere between spring and summer,

if my reckoning is accurate, but there are not meadows,

no birds or blue-corn skies to see. It has all been broken

somehow; I know not how. The world is grey

and it has been years since I glimpsed a cockroach.

Now, without humans, they are driven to the fens.

For this day I saved a can of pinto beans, a can of sliced carrots,

and a can of new potatoes. The idea reminded me of being young.

For dessert, a can of pears (lite, packed in water).

If you gave me a million words, I couldn’t tell you

what a fine dinner that meal was to me.

I was eating the pear halves and the pear halves

ran out. They were packed in water but I drank every drop

and there was not anyone to share it with.

Now everything is gone. I miss my sisters.

I hope that somewhere there are purple flowers and happy granddaughters.

A Romance

I was above her, looking in her eyes.

-My dear, I will want to harm you, I said.

-I do not want you to hurt me, she said.

-Though I will not hurt you, I will want to.

Now, come to my arms and embrace a savage man.

Qualis artifex pereo

How has it come to this? So short a time ago

I had all that could be wanted, but I thought too frequently

of art. I considered my enemies too rarely.

The immortals punish vanity, as I have often proved.

Of my mother I will not speak, here where the trees are tall and green

and forgiving of faults; they who have outlasted storms

are contemptuous of their wind-broken relations.

I have walked the path of many who have died on unfair blades,

and so am unsurprised to find that my fate is similar.

Shall I be damned for necessary violence

or for flames I never cast upon my fair city?

Are those hoof-beats? Epaphroditus, I have not the courage

that my task demands. I must ask a final service.

Quickly now, I can hear the horses!

The knife.

Thank you for your kindness, old friend.

Tell me that my songs will be remembered.

Alexander Magnus

I like the taste of cayenne pepper, cheap wine in one-gallon jars,

loud music and the way that hearts of strong men wrestle against the knife,

but what I really like is a beautiful woman that I don’t love.

If she is proportioned as in pornography or reality, it is no matter.

It is only important that my emotions are not muddled with my memory,

it is only that the body of this woman can never be confused with my mind.

Have I seen beauty?

Yes, in the unmarried child of India who shames the bride at her own wedding,

the daughter of Florida, living in islands of the sea, who is more lovely than the sun,

and also my eyes have found the foam-born as she plants a garden and sharpens a spear.

One day history named a man Raphael,

and admired the master that transferred

a divine form onto suffocated canvas-

some years later, the world has forgotten his biography.

I am not pious. I resurrect Raphael for a moment

and whisper promises into his ear

as the Christ was once tempted upon a barren mountain.

Primed colors are on canvas, the sky is blue,

her flesh is obscured by the sun.

Unread Pages

You wore something, else I should remember rather more of the story.

As it was, I remember your hair pinned up so that your neck

was exposed softly while it gestured at the sun,

the calm way you walked in beauty

through parts of an afternoon, and I am happy

that you are in the heart of another-

not because this means that I can never have you,

but because this means that I can never hurt you.

For Israel

My friend, if I could take upon myself

Your burden, I would do you that favor;

I too have heard despair knock on my door

While forgotten dreams held me as captive

To their caprices, and then awoken

To find that dark fantasy just as real

As the lamented dead in newspapers.

Is your body imprisoned by your pain

And memories? Oh, if there were solace

In a blade or crashing automobile,

I have no doubt that you may choose that course;

I beg you not to perish before I find death.

You saved my life, how could I bear your funeral?

Concerning Evidence

The box is about nine inches square and four inches tall;

the material is a cheap synthetic brown leather.

It is hinged and within it are many torn and ruined pieces of paper,

as well as empty plastic wrappers that once held now-forgotten chemicals.

These torn and rootless scraps are on ruled notebook paper

or the back of envelopes, or upon napkins- drafts written in pen

when my black notebooks were out of reach.

I shredded them during a fit of madness, some months ago.

My demon love was in the other room

but eventually came to investigate the sounds of tearing and my sobs.

Among these fragments, an unused line from an early draft of my Furies poem:

“the prefect Orestes descended,” then from number 15 of my Carmina,

“my fingers in your hair” and “wondered how,”

then I find the only needle I ever put into my arm,

then a picture of my face and shoulders

taken when I was fifteen and still brimful of lust and rage.

Immediately after I throw the box in the dumpster, none of this will have occurred.