Narcissus of the Colombian Nile
 
When I think of Carlos, I think of
Cleopatra, the drama of her riding
in on the Euphrates at the very
top of the ship, a golden
ornament glittering in the hot
sun, brighter
than the sun God and more
powerful, feral, deadly, never
down for the count unless
by her own choosing.  And Cleopatra
 
was, of course, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth
was someone who stopped
traffic, delayed production, was
hospitalized for the lifesaving
operation, and when she recovered
it was not Cleopatra
but Elizabeth who had the throat scar,
not Cleopatra but Elizabeth
in that famous massage scene,
right ass cheek exposed, nothing
beneath her breasts but damask
as the harpist played and the water
bearers filled her bathing pools, it was
1963 and here she lay, totally
exposed, Elizabeth
always demanded more than she
could give.  And where Elizabeth
 
ended was always Richard, her dog
star, forever orbiting planet
Cleopatra, lap dog licking
her up
and down, endlessly
circling around, sniffing beneath
her feet to get
a whiff of her.  And Carlos was,
at first, a Richard, before he knew
my name he told me his name
was Richard, which was
my name, we mirrored
each other, Richard on Richard, circling
to the end of time.  I admit
that was in my mind from the second
I saw him take off
his shirt, he filled
my apartment with muscle,
he lay down so comfortable
on my sofa and asked me
to lean down into
the pungent odor
of him.  But Richard
 
was Marc
Antony, he was the man
who gave up acting, gave up
Hamlet and Broadway, traded in
the lights blaring down
on him, not
as Richard but as Richard
the Second or Coriolanus,
Marc Antony bitten
by a woman who was
a viper.  And Cleopatra
died by vipers, as Richard died
by bites on his lower
 
torso, as Carlos had his mouth
on my mouth, my lower
torso, and I was Richard who let
a Richard who was now
a Carlos sing “this is no
ordinary love” then take me
dangerous inside him.  Unprotected,
maybe I was no longer Richard, I was
 
losing my bearings in the beauty
of a man who would leave for a week
on the pretext of working in Panama
City, but really go to Miami to lie
on the beach and probably
get his beautiful butt fucked
on a massage table by a Richard
who was a Robert.  Robber, I
wanted monogamy and even said
 
emotional honesty, hey hey.  And Richard
was a dick, both Burton and Tayson,
we had that in common, we fell
for someone who would take dick
and bathing suit attention over
something solid any day.  And poor dick
died by getting bitten, or was that
Burton, sorry:  Marc Antony, names
are so confusing to me, Carlos, Dick,
woman (crossed out) of the Nile,
man (crossed out) of the Colombian heart-
land, who could never
be faithful or give
anything over but his ass
and his God-given identity.

Arms

I’m late for the birth-
day party, it’s one
of those cool after-

noons when the world
is clear, is made
of glass, the sky

so blue you want to
look up at the very
center of its pupil

in case you get
a glimpse of what
comes after

we leave here.  I’m
thinking my lover’s
sister is thirty-two

today, but I want
to let time stand
still, let the tourists

go on waving their 
America the Beautiful
flags across 49th

Street, let the three
ladies whose hair
is the color of smoke

rising and ghosts
taking leave of their
senses go on laughing,

near the fountain, may
we all not have 
a care in the world.  But

it’s August 23rd,  I must
get on the train, but a 
tree keeps holding my 

attention, its leaves
luscious from the summer
rain, there’s a canopy

beneath which the Pakistani
man I talked to last
week sells his salty

sauerkraut, lifting
the lid and letting out 
steam each time he

serves it over hot
dogs, and the man
pays him then turns

toward me, his thick
muscled arm tan
in the sun, the tatoo:

BORN
FOR
WAR.  The day

is gone, the people
around me gone, I am
trying not to forget

that I am a pacifist,
I am trying not to pay
attention to his name-

brand shorts and sun
glasses that won’t
let you see a glint

of eye behind them,
I’m trying not to see
him eat the hot

dog in two bites and grab
a woman by the arm,
nudging her forward until

he pivots, sees me
staring.  Yes he might
leap to the right, grab

my throat punch
me short me knife me gut
me clean as a fish

taken from the black glass
of the city’s river street, but
the church bells are tolling,

and people are saying
their prayers three blocks
from here in the hushed

dark.  So I take a deep
breath and am no longer
here, I haven’t been

born yet, there is no state
of California, no Gold
Rush or steam

engine, electricity hasn’t 
been invented, people
cross open spaces

on horses, no Middle
Passage, and I move time
back a few hundred

centuries, watch the Huns
kill the Visigoths who slice
the throats of every living

Etruscan, a crowning city
is razed, all the virgins
are raped, one people fights

another people for land
to walk on, then are
walked on until someone

writes on papyrus
then someone carves on a cave
wall, until we do 

it all again, right up to
concentration camps, rivers 
flowing with nuclear

waste.  Then 49th Street
comes back, and the man
with the tattoo turns

away, as if he’s decided
not to rape me or crack
my skull open and drink

me today, the 965th day
of the new century.  War
goes into fifth month.  The church

bells have stopped and the ladies
gotten up and walked
to Radio City and while I

do not believe in an eye
for an eye, I have
a flash lasting no longer

than it takes for a nuclear
blast to render a city
invisible, shadow

of a human arm I tear
from its socket, its left
hand gripping the air.

JAMES DEAN AS EURYDICE


1

When I met _______ I dreamed of  coming up from underneath
the earth without seeing his face turning until we were all the way

out into the beginning into the white burning.
I dreamed of coming up as a star

Natalie Wood crying into my leather jacket all night
and me the kid trying to save her.  But that was before

I went underneath, before I met_______       
and drank with him all night
first at the Silverlake Runaround
where I stayed in the back in the dark
away from the school girls trying to throw me

up into the light into the burning.  Later at _______'s estate
me not used to mixing drinks, _______       
rubbing ice across my lips the hollow of my throat
hollow tinkling of glass music stirring the metal prong

my fingers burning in the dark in the heat
_______ reaching over with the gin
our hands touching, corporate America watching
as I went down so cold so statue I swear I was a god.


2

_______ was checking off names as I came into the room.
He walked to where I was sitting in the corner memorizing 
lines, put his hand over my elbow, held it, his palm pressing

pressing to go beneath my skin.  Later I took the glass
from him, my fingers feeling 
down down the black
passageway down step by step into
the silence the awkward
clothes sticking everywhere to my skin, down 


3

down.  I went way under one night in sleep
my breath like the drink just finished.  

I went dancing along the stones by the river
lost in the darkness forever, hearing his strange 

melodies, looking for the claims of his lyre.  I found
bourbon on a silver tray beneath the willow
as I drank it got darker I knew
I would never find him I was underneath
looking up waiting for his shadow to descend singing
acting the way he'd taught me 
the way I'd seen the pros do it under the eyes 

of god.  I took his absence
like I took my face in the river watching
heard the song up and down the barbed wire staff
knowing the god in me was dead.


4

I sat on the rocks waited for _______ to speed my going
or stop it, needed another drink something
to insert myself into somewhere to lose my body
to resurrect the god in me.  Then the miracle

better than Hollywood:
I couldn't see his face anymore I was lost
in the shade, no conjuring his shape.  When I couldn't
see his eyes over the shot glass 
his face above the paper as he ticked
pencil marks, when
I couldn't smell the bourbon of his breath as his face
hovered over my dying coming closer I knew
what freedom was what joy was no one knew me.
I licked my lips felt the redundancy
of clothes threw my jacket 

into the river with the barge passing all night over
watched the skin
sinking I forgot the face
looming over my own forgot the tongue of _______      
heard the silence of dark the rustle of my body
as it got up and left the scene
walked out into the dark fig and narcissus forgot
even his name.  Then
5

I heard the singing down the shaft
of light of gray of personality I saw
his hands tearing the darkness to pieces the eyes
I remembered up close.  I felt his tongue going down
over me like the cadence of song, that throbbing
song I wished him dead I wanted
to be left forever in the shade
feeling my body as another form of dark.  Now he 

presses me to go back up into the light 
into the cluttered world tempts me forever 
up the long shaft I never thought
I'd be the one to follow up into the consuming
the god chasing the human.