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 The Star Chamber

Greg Lougainis                TOP

Do you remember that waiting room 
stuffy with umbrellas like jungle flytraps 
gathered up with rain? we're all playing doctor
diagnosing each other's ailment to bide the time
how you immediately dive into the glossies
cats and cars and cakebaking
you are with one of those awkward complaints
relayed by co-workers in euphemisms for dignity's sake
The morgue of magazines unsettles you further
most recent issue being from six years back
subscriber addresses pasted on the covers
maybe they're ghoulishly retrieved from those patients
not quite surviving the cure
you wonder which antechambers in Missouri or Maui 
your confidential data is washing up in 
and consider alerting the subscribers' families
organizing a class action suit, a union, a march on the capital

For ease you settle on a Life
featuring great sporting moments
the litany of triumphs and failures that precedes each Olympics
and magnanimously includes you in this era of grand achievement
despite being assaulted by sweating bumbershoots
and an embarrassing medical condition.
You are speed-dialing the pages, not even reading the captions
when you arrive at a photograph of a high-diver askew in mid-flight
by the senseless arrangement of his limbs, this is a "Great Failure"
yet there is something about that body, hairless and contorted
that holds you
Below the frame you envisage pools 
he's cunningly knifed thousands of times
now inviting him in, down here my upstart landfish
for this time he's going to hit awry 
water already honing to strip his skin
while above him in the photo
the concrete platform that just cracked his skull
a great tongue stuck out
captured reciting against the air
some ancient spell of damage and repair

The Star Chamber                                                   TOP

In another room he is working on a cat 
perched on one knee 
Steven is schooling her 
in the ways of people 
in preparation for future exams 
by the Immigration and Humanization Service 
or a half decent shot 
on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 
He is teaching her 
to read time 

To her eyes he positions the face 
of a bakelite travel alarm 
spinning its hands 
in relentless gyres 
He tells her of the grandfather clock 
once owned by Judas Iscariot which 
by its own power 
ran for two hundred years after his suicide 
so that the shadow cast by the pendulum 
wore through the wooden panel in back 

Her eyes start to track 
the scurrying second hand 
later, the one for minutes 
and, as the day wears through 
the prayer stylus which writes out 
the hours 

Then Steven holds the clock near 
her yurt of ear 
that twitches and swivels 
to the ceaseless coupling of gears 
turning out time 

Now, like the Jollimores' dog 
that dreamed of tin can telephones 
and followed his masters 
across five states 
she pushes her nose 
to the pane of the clockface: 
the days' open and close and 
open again 
the fanatical seasons defenestrating 
for the one just behind 
At last this day's scent returns 
in new clothing 
she licks a paw, bows herself in a stretch 
and gets let into the evening 

Perched on a shadow worn in the snow 
by a pausing Canada Goose 
she begins to track the stars 
rising over the trees, the cemetery 
revolving upwards over the house 
burning styluses 
writing time

Kitchen on Villanyi Street                                              TOP

ssstaccattos of rain 
pin down 
the earth tonight

clattered puncturations
of mad droplet multitudes
a dear mate and I on chairs

friendly fire-
working
mary-jane rings angelward

the window thrown wide
devours
a sweating metropolis of spheres

so so fine, you and I
a many-candled kitchen

Mars Is Silent With Machines                                               TOP

So now we long for Mars to signal
three intricate machines
silent, abed in the Martian dust
billions on earth tremble
in the approach of evening
in some places, scimitars of dawn
simultaneously in others
the heart of night
we've become smitten
with the faces of your craters
the visage of Charlemagne, Helen
of Troy, Audrey of Roman Holiday
millions of miles hither
seismographs quiver on eggshells
expectant diodes
desiring only crimson
all televisions burn blue
slipping into that 
alone-in-the-universe headspace again

We long upward from our earth stations
satellite dishes are cold stethoscopes 
gliding over the skin of interstellar night
up where worlds rollerdisco across the sun
Mars has gone Venetian
some ancient alchemist once said
up there lie extinguished oceans 
where murdered gondolas once played
let us come live with you 
and be your love
in the heat of stars
pressing our shuddering mammalian bodies
down in red sand
accept these elaborate musicboxes
as an offering, an orison
we ache to lay in our mammalian breathing
along the shores of extinguished seas
beneath Olympus Mons
to sleep and keep in your dunes
no longer alone

Lightness                                                                       TOP

It becomes time
to surrender those derelict dreams 
and scattered hearts
it becomes time to begin
scheming up some new ones, you
you have never
been this free
It becomes time to leave these places
these oceanic palaces of ruin
target your meteors
for the thousand petalled dawn! 
all gods shall wipe tears from the eyes
all places the same to me
only the sweet people change
upon the surface of this big, big peach
upon this earth of torment and lilacs
heart and heartlessness
and love again! oh, that I may love more
than anything
the light upon this earth
life passing over the lips of a thousand
thousands, endlessly shuffling
so many in the same device
now inside me, then you 
they gossiping on the stoop, in starlings
into Prospect Park copses
it becomes time and duskwet sky
as all around finally, inconceivably 
becomes peace, yes, you realize that yes
you have never been this free and yes
yes, how this becomes time

Porno                                                                       TOP

He's making pornography
tonight on his living room floor
conducting a flesh epic of Ben Hur scale:
an aria of locusts beaten out
on an army of typewriters
as a friend might have said once
this is how the rain carries-on
when stirred with ladles of lightning
he's making lonely love to the alchemical
rhythms of locust wings, chattering on pavement
the back of his skull, biblical buttocks
to the cool tongues of wood
someone's genius made to interweave

Cigarette runs down in a chipped bowl
ignites a forsaken matchstick
and his fingers brush black mosses
pull his cock up, up into the morse
of locust rain
an opal of semen balanced
on the tip
Thunderbolt smashes through 
the reels of storm - it is the pleasure of
all the lovers in the world
wound together like onion
skins and shot from a sapphire cannon
makes his ass tighten sudden
plunging up pelvis, his harpist hands and penis
deeper into the epic infrastructure
clicking alphabets, cannonblasts
wet lacework wings

The audience, a drenched hedgehog
tiny under a bush outside
waits without a word
in the exact place where some moments before
a sumptuous leaf and a hedgehog mouth
became one

Thrashing Doves                                                           TOP

A cavalcade of bankrupt black-eyed susans, petal-less
on bowery, I saw the umbrellas cheating rain tonight
and here's this kid with streetlights streaming down his specs
splush-mushing blurricanes like the newsprint pages
fended over my pate, one sopping text melds into the next beneath, et 
cetera conversations on my scalp, shaddup, no! speakup, morning edition- storm 
warnings, but night is coming on now and it's still cats and rats and I am the idiot
(hey man why's that bonesoaked idjit laughing? must know somethin )
- I got it, the neighbour's cat got it
prowling yowling in heat again - don't even cats know seasons?
its oktober fer christssakes, put those heatwaves away girl!
felines always make out satoric, she rainyowling satanic
me, justa jumpin all new york fanatic, jah we're kindred
we hear it a-comin, taint no jerusalem train pal
somthin better: bingo bongos a-tunderin
flashy gibreel with that horn a-tootin (but no religiousity dude, just)
HARMINOSITY
the coming epoch of tonal telepathy: out!
out! with language n science n dirty socks n governments 
n reverence n morals n christ even these words are simple 
blotnoodles on paper plates, no doubt the rain it's GOT me
this auld namibian thumb dedum piano staccato on hood and mailbox
all lawyers go from liars to lyres, telephones to trombones
oh gracious! yer tea kettle
now a-pipin, hot tin whistle
kerouac on castinets, acorn on accordian, kali on calliope
rainclouds form a hand over manhattan strumming
viscious skyscrapiers, become lutes n kotos n ouds n king
kong's furry grip on neck of the empire state bouzouki
ratatatat o blacksnare bowery rainhelmets
jah, jah huuurwrankled cat-a-wailin in her nattled nook
your tune is the seven mutha-a-pearl trumpets all balled to one
rrrrrowwwwr! none morrrrre
earnin r wishin r failin r frettin r regretin r schemin r grievin
just all us down here, just aaaaaaahhhhh 
a-livin

Beautiful Martians                                                  TOP

The whole sky came down tonight
antimony starships plummeting 
the stars gone to earth
Prague strung out with expiring fire
from every lamp-post a star is dying
dawn readies its oriflammes
beyond a besieged city
all bruised lapis lazuli
her stigmatic eyes open
the firmament's host of petals
the sudden scent of jessamine
everywhere, over and over
she passes me through the gothic arch
most beatific of the beautiful
martians of Prague
boot soles subsiding in Morse code
on cobblestones, tikitak
she slips inside me from behind
swords erupt on a festival stage
spark and clash
form vernal crucifixes of flame
in defence of the city
The alien invasion is in full swing
a torrent of stars spinning
my flaming eyes and her eyes
over and over
below an arcing firmament
I caught it, the sudden scent of grace
nearer to god
the further her boots' tikitak
believe me

Weather                                                                        TOP
(for Brian Davis)

I kneel in Brooklyn like a pilgrimage
through the seaward window the weather is coming on
beating out stratospheric alphabets on an army of typewriters.
My climatological observations lead me to Tesla's theories:
a storm is the pleasure of the world's lovers
unwinding, disembarking your arms, their own arms
while a thunderbolt is but the weather come collecting
From over the Atlantic it's coming for you tonight Brian
your second night loosed in the May air
at last from solitude, from bipolar circuitry
for two free evenings you have called this storm
ready to tell everything when
at last, up over Tara and Eden and me
you encode into the memory banks of clouds
stratospheric alphabets of all that has passed
and is passing and what's yet to come
Later on you will find yourself loosed as rain
into coastal waters, among a gaggle of plankton
through glinting mackerel gills, then into a seal
a mark on her head the shape of Jerusalem
city of peace, now you're all aquiver Brian
satisfied, you carelessly swell back up into the weather
to beat out on an electrified typewriter
all you've found this time 

After The Fall                                                             TOP

I
it becomes evening now
in the valley
a light, a petticoat light
scrawls over itself
over the border outposts
to Hungary
a light, a peat rotisserie
smelling of
the glade look of evening


II
in a Slovak valley
a pumping station sighs
at no particular point on a pipeline 
influx and output of natural gas 
from some fossilized birthworks in Russia
to a Green's kitchen
in Hamburg

the station 
is a seized train of cement
knotted pipes and valves
tail in one fizzling
universe, nose
in the next
somewhere in-between


III
on the slope above
an installation
twinkling on in a slow fit of night
a woman treasures her face
a topographical map scored
with market Saturdays
weddings, wakes
gazetteer of near nine decades counted out
in haphazard talk

and in an evening valley
in Slovakia
a nearby international boundary
the mindless chug of generators
a woman readies a bed
an old friend
for sleep

The Donny and Marie Show                                                  TOP

When I was about seven my favorite word was armageddon
around the house I droned it incessantly, a mantra
armageddon. armageddon. armageddon.
but my mouth insisted on pronouncing it
Donny-and-Marie. Donny-and-Marie. Donny-and-Marie.
Because of Donny, I could not sleep
fearing the tooth fairy would leave a set of perfect
cannibal teeth devouring beneath my pillow
because of Marie, I had dozens of sexual thoughts
about Charlie's Angels
for years thanks to the pair of them 
I could not bear to listen to a little bit of country
or rock n' roll 

our television lived in the basement
where sunlight never quite reached
when clacking lego alone in front of it
I sometimes snuck glances to the empty screen --
it was always, always watching.
Down there I saw a man die for the first time
the television showed me
Later a carpenter explained it 
simply mould from bad drainage
but I knew the smell, it was not mould:
instead like the teacup hole I dug by the brook
for a featherless starling I found
her beak opened and closed
in my hands for almost an hour
then became still
Down where the tv lives
where Donny and Marie live
is where things stop living

kneeling before the decrepit television
sizzles on and suddenly there's a scent 
of high-tension wires in a rainstorm 
heard over a broken cardiograph
Much later an engineering student explained it 
simply dust heated on the cathode ray tube
but I knew behind the huge glass eyeball 
much more was burning
it was not dust
but people

the television that now lives in my flat makes no smell
it has a black carapace and a remote control
so I don't even have to touch it 
One night I was alone in front of it
sound off, just watching
and it showed soldiers swarming a house ablaze
subtitled "Armistice in Northern Ireland" 
then legostacks of rotted people dug from a ravine 
subtitled "Yugoslav Peace Accord "
then two microphones 
two sets of glinting cannibal teeth
subtitled "The New Donny and Marie Show" 
and the room began to quickly fill
with the perfume of corpses on fire 
a mouth incessantly droning 
armageddon
armageddon
armageddon

A Bengal Tiger Escapes the Bronx Zoo                       TOP
(after Meeting the British)

I am coiled cage of stripes
in forest of chrome and glass

here shards work into the soft cerulean heel
the sun poisons and blossoms like a blood clot

I have locked a jungle in my mind
where you still perch and shimmer, sweet bird

filling the crouching days, night alleyways
with ancient monsoon mythos, damp tropical chatter

The villagers here are easy but bitter
the first came wrapped in newspaper and cardboard

I smiled grateful but he genuflected
Sweet bird, you gifted me with six edicts

Hannibal's elephant whispered in passing
a longing that knows no sleep

Rainy Day Tapestry                       TOP

1
Mumbling + suspicious 
shoe is walking
message of regret
solitude
into sidewalks
Each grey page
dotted with discarded eyes.

2
Young Swan
ass-ended and oblivious
is hunting pond bottom 
for pieces of night
that drowned.
Mother is protecting
against Spirit's footfall
upon the water
On land's edge
a home of 
feathers and heart
is created

3
Spirit is nailing trees shut
with fire
glorious funeral-pyres crucify
every branch and bush.
Subtle as Death waltzing
between coffee cups
on table tops
goes the clatterbash assassin.
Spirit is knocking through
wooden halls
spilling poison potions
of time and
cycle
Endless cycle
Wondrous cycle
in limbs all aflame

The Most Important Poem In the Universe                    TOP

I stubbed my toe at the end of history and met you
Stooped over a bin of broken toasters you
were seeking some unforeseen philosophy 
to pawn your sense of humour for
and I was running my fingers through the hair
of a midget's guitar, kicked in when the circus went religious
You said I got a good deal and I asked why keep
looking if it's there rolled up in your back pocket

It was closing time and civilisation was packed
last-minute shoppers cashing in their winnings for 
Club Heaven points the angels handed out at the door
And you and I laughed our asses off
buying when everyone else was selling
amidst heaped TV sets and inflatable disposable lovers and
Rembrandts and promotions, summa cum ladies and wedding rings
totally disregarding the seriousness of the situation
wary of the true relationship between reverence
and sewn-up rectums

The Dum Pear-onion & assorted classy booze pile was where we
headed and as you taught me to play something pretty and witty
and honest
they turned off the lights and locked up time
unaware of the beautiful drunken savages in aisle 42
And who but us knew, while they were unplugging the planet
and erasing the headstones
we conspired the most important poem in the universe
on the corners of our upturned lips

Satellites of Love                                                  TOP

Look way up into the night
and you'll see us there
up where the skies undress
and the breathless moons commence
hurtling through the troposphere, ionosphere
paramour-a-sphere
up to haunted orbits of satellites
bristling antennae
picking each other up
I once believed
the scarred moons ached to be up here
now I know they just had to be here
astronomical compulsion
drives us to this stellar junkyard
where two sophisticated contraptions can collide
and leave nothing behind
not even sound

The speed we race at 
makes us superhuman
posthuman
all of us up here feel it
our bodies gradually altering, evolving
the speed we race at hones us sword-like
brutal and efficient
we desire as silent as moons
through the stratosphere
colliding without a sound
in a cosmic tournament
of sensual smash up derby

Against a vast weir of galaxies
your sensorium registers me
and the gyroscope inside you
and the gyroscope inside me
adjusts trajectories
compels us to each other
across the asphyxiated ether
Now solar panels unravel
we are metalized blue herons
lifting wings to stars
for you I wear my best John Glenn tin foil
vacuum-packed, skin-tight
something saucy and Y2K compliant
that shows off my ass and eyes
'yes, your eyes' she said 
'those eyes are like shipwrecks
spaceshipwrecks'
and you have wrapped your cosmonaut body 
with a garland of comets
like a string of strobing fireflies
You probe in with your lips
bringing on a sudden eclipse
that frightens villagers
on the blue planet far below
they tremble and fall to earth
praying to their curious gods

We attain zenith
linger for a few breathless moments
then, as satellites do
we deftly uncouple gossamer panels
mute as asteroids
watch each other's escape velocity
spiral, recede into relentless night
we resume our broadcasts
on spectral frequencies
soap operas, weather data
messages of welcome
messages of distress

Night Skies and Starcraft                                           TOP

In an hour or so 
you will burst into the kitchen
and release a firing squad of raindrops
as if the linoleum was the nightsky
and you were in Baikonur
scattering confetti or starcraft

The room is warm and your mind teems
like a twelve story library
there is hummus and milk in the fridge
in the sink dishes from the morning
in another room your futon
looking positively mugged
a swirl of warpipes, cider
human confluence

Not far from here 
lies the Greenpoint frontier
antennae and checkered oil tanks
the Kills and then the Queens badlands
where live the eaters of flesh
or so it is said
His tongue turned green last night
enviously slickened the length of your sides
while the sky opened up
under cover of darkness like a secret experiment
only it's not Baikonur anymore
not Budapest or even Warsaw
so what's it for 
all this celestial bread and circus

In the library you came across a study
on The Phenomena of Premature Death By Amusement
you left it well alone 
feeling it eerily contextual with no promise of insight 
into the mating habits of fevered Marxists
Marxism was really all about free love
globally speaking
though the premise of enjoying one's self to death 
persisted like afterglow where your heart
and his heart continue to race
while your two bodies become eerily still
what the absinthe drinkers call 
petit mort

In an hour or so you will make tea
from the emergency supply
and watch your brown shoes sob 
raindrops onto the linoleum
precisely the same as this morning's floor
where you jettisoned his lips from your lips
These inmates from your past
mailing poems, dialing telephones
like Soviet satellites who keep rocketing 
the first man to the moon
in hopes that someone will acquiesce
and alter the encyclopedia
But this is no longer Baikonur or Warsaw 
or even Budapest
and there's so much to be done
to begin again

You get around to straightening your room
and he will be not too far off
sprawled on that deep sea carpet
Out through his windows
toward the Greenpoint frontier
the antenna array is a menorah
of electric rubies
he ignites another cigarette
and the encyclopedia falls open to an entry
relating how the first man on the moon
was born in Georgia
the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia that is

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