I’ve always wanted to be tickled

by the rub of love but have always,

as if out of some cruel joke, been tickled

by the rub of cold indifference

from across the room as I sit

quietly, forming sentences I’ll never say—

for instance, how you scratch the laughter

from my heart as you scratch your nose.

I’ve always wanted to taste

the murky tea at the Palaz of Hoon:

not less in fragrance than the tea gardens

of Illam. And a slice of cinnamon

bread sprinkled with ointments of love

and soft susurrations sweeping in my ears.

There I’d find myself more truly

than I could’ve ever found in Patan’s tea shops.

I’ve always wanted to march

down the aisles of Walmart, dreaming

of peaches & potty-mouth Ginsberg,

and shop your howl-like enumerations:

each glowing with rage but still

singed with your prophetic gloom

and a Buddhist beard on a Jewish face. I’ll ask

the cashier, Are you my angel? Did you kill the pork chops?

I’ve always wanted to at last live

in a house of possibilities, with rooms

fairer and bigger than prose and a night sky

with a hundred burning orange-

like cigarettes from the mouths

of lovers I didn’t get a chance to kiss.

I’ll spread my narrow hands and welcome

soft & supple bodies in me.

I’ve always wanted to bite

the tender life, and to drink straight

from the carafe bruised with the color

of the night: with each sip, I’ve wanted

the difference to slowly spread

in a single ecstatic color of the room,

piercing the walls and reaching your

dadaist heart beating in Duchamp’s urinal.

I’ve always wanted to be a pagan

on some forlorn lea, with thoughts buzzing

in my head and making me less forlorn. There

I’d see the sun-god rising from the top

of the green hills: a lonely soul ready

to blow his horn and bless the world

with his music—eternal harmonics

sweeter than Keat’s pet nightingale.

I’ve always wanted to drive

a convertible, donned in dollar store

sunglasses and think of prehistoric caves

and modern day cunts, as I speed

down Hwy 33, my whole body craving

for one large plum from the icebox—

so sweet and so cold, like those winter

nights I’ll soon spend across the Pacific.