deconstructed dream

is that you
in this remarkable desire is that
your trench coat sashed above
those six hundred dollar boots?
are you bare beneath this london fog?
I know you are, like so many times
before you have your caramel leather
gloves on your golden hair beneath
that maroon beret the fact is this:
my mind's eye is focused narrowly
upon that narrow strip of flesh
freshly waxed and hidden now
beneath your oh so very chic coat
you walk over from your car
to where I stand vibrating like a mad man
and there's that twinkle, thin lips pursed
the message fraught with hope and betrayal
are you ready cher timothe?
I want to ravage you with these fingers
on this keyboard thirty years later oh
what a joke this life became the flimsy
desire calloused into injury the wound
scarred over but never healed
the raison d'etre for this time now
disassembled in the weak light of aging
the ifs and cans and shoulda beens
the dreadnaughts of disaster groupies
lining up to pander to the fantasy
once again and in that kharman ghia
driving to Lincoln Park he pulls open
the gated dream, exposes that which
real estate describes success or failure
in this version of the scheme and she
opens her legs, the valley perfumed
with her own desire the night sky
cool in the spring another year's petulance
sung by the cicadas in this brain
drilled ajar now by disease and liquor
chambered like a nautilus channeled into
battered armored excuses the days are
links in the chain mail of it wasn't me,
it was you and it wasn't you, it was me
but none of that helps now
the leaves fall to the forest carpet
all manner of dead and dying memories
line the passageway into the final valley
where we return to this ancient love
again & some day you will understand
it was our failure that led to this end

the normal heart, 1985

There may have been a lot to say to you
fifteen years ago~ so much we thought
we knew; obvious, expected even. But then you
turned on me, or I on you, or one of us
upon the other. The elephant rolled over.
Stupid story. And I avoided seeing your
politic, imagining us above the normal heart.

But I paid for this error,
the usual flesh boiling off
in the hot broth of time passing.
The bones are exposed now,
silver designs in a negative.

March again, lover, cher,
the carnal spring, sopping up my blood
but there are no acts of passion
believed in, intended, remembered,
or wished for, in anyway~

just soft noise of the possible,
that chance missed,
that prescription tumbled in the trash basket
traitorous now
the normal heart


I believe this was written in New York City, during the time BB was at Columbia's writing program, and I worked for the Russian Studiers at the Harriman Institute. This poem is yet another earnest attempt to separate and understand the damage Alison Clare did to me. In truth it is a confession of pride, admitting that I thought she and I were above the normal romantic escapades. That we loved each other in a different way.