OUR TORTOISE SHELL TENTS

Our tortoise shell tents thrown up against an almond sky,
our masks made from the wood of emeralds and the skins of aqueducts,
we drew the bows of porcupines across diamond-shaped strings
constructed from the bones of ancient vagabonds
who'd danced beneath a fur-covered moon.
Our music swirled from the tops of trees
and leapt on zebra's hooves beyond the galaxies.
The day of carnival flung its howls into the night
and our feet followed our voices in their leaps beyond the stars.
A new world swirled in our eyes,
a dancing world that whirls away beyond the prison of words.
Tonight we invite anyone who will come
to taste the strong wine of our adventure.
We fermented this wine from the burning fires of Sadean passions
aged in the dreams that drip from my finely toothed vulva.
the carnival fires are the gleams of the ruins we leave in our wake.

SUCH WONDERFUL DISTRESS...

I never expected to feel such a dancing disaster
playing over the nerves beneath my skin.
It was as if I had powered them with the famous acid
that grins within the shoulders of a mermaid.
I had seen her many years ago
washed up on the shore and singing.
Silver tears rolled down her cheeks
to form a cheese of fine consistency
with a flavor that formed carnivals
within the loving mouth.
I offered her a crimson seashell
that floated like a boat
and sailed with her to unknown shores
where the sand glittered in gentle greens
and blues
reminiscent of the perumes of Arabia.
From these I crystallized a purple wine
more intoxicating than the dreams of paradise
that had circled like tornadoes
over the graves of wise cuttle fish
and hunted for the silken minds of children
who had knives for eyes
and stared down every
uniformed conformist.

THE PROCESSION

A solemn procession
began to meander
through a river of glass,
dancing sedately with
the monkeys that hovered
like golden diamonds
around the sun.
It wound its way snake-like
toward a gleaming shadow
that hung from a hillside
in France.
Its marchers wore masks
made of crystals that tasted
of wine.
And they slithered their tongues
out of wholes in the masks
that quivered and throbbed
like the labia of voluptuous octopi.
The squirming tongues
reminded me of sea snakes,
and the spittle raining
from their tips
resembled some strange nectar
gathered from the flowers of the moon.
I saw the eyes that glittered through
the jewel encrusted masks,
golden like the eyes of some
godlike carnivore
that roared through the jungles
at dawn.
I expected soon that I would be devoured
and grasping my own genitals
I danced until I turned into a fire.

THE CATERPILLAR CARNIVAL

Cerebral as a caterpillar
raised upon the wings of a nuclear express:
Who would have thought that you could run so far
without a songbird crawling
from the jungle of your mind?
I had run the paceswith a sword of crinoline
and had sucked upon the nightmares of desire,
but my sorry dreams were dancing backwards
while I sewed a strange earthquake
into the fabric of your brain.
Its curls were finished
and its sea monkeys were
making love
to a squirrel-faced clown
whose ruffled collar
was infused with the wines of Arabia,
the magical grapes of a desert wind
that howled through the soul
of a jack-o-lantern.
It was a day for dancing, thinking, reeling,
peeling back the veils of morality
to gaze upon the undulating flesh
that knew the cryptic password
to the ever-open loins:
"Ham, the imp coos and hits;
all imps act so..."
And with this cry a carnival erupts
into the skin
and dances over valleys
of exquisite joy
bursting the cocoon of limitations
to fly into a liquid sun
that drips inebriating nectar
into the silver cunt of the moon.