| A BIRTHDAY PRESENT |
| What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges? I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is just what i want. When i am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, i feel it thinking 'Is this the one I am to appear for, Is this th elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar? Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules. Is this the one for the annunciation? My god, what a laugh!' But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me. I would not mind if it was bones or a pearl button. I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year. After all I am alive only by accident. I would have killef myself gladly that time any possible way. Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains, The diphanous satins of a January window White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory! It must be a tust there, a ghost-column. Can you not see i do not mind what what it is. Can you not give it to me? Do not be ashamed - I do not mind if it is small. Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity. Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam, The glaze, the mirrory variety of it. Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate. I know why you will not give it to me, You are terrified The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it, Bossed, brazen, an antique shield, A marvel to your great-grandchildren. Do not be afraid, it is not so. I will only take it and go aside quietly. You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle, No falling ribbons, no scream at the end. I do not think you credit me with this discretion. If you only knew how the veils were killing my days. To you they are only transparancies, clear air. But my god, the clouds are like cotton. Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide. Sweetly, sweetly i breathe in, Filling my veins with in visibilities, with the million Probable motes that tick the years off my life. You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine - Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it whole? Must you stamp each piece in purple, Must you kill what you can? There is one thing i want today, and only you can give it to me. |
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| Because of the length of this poem i have had to sepairate it ionto two different pages so just click the pheonix to read the rest of it :P |