Anthony Seidman

Ponder the Grimness of Lust

Ponder the grimness of lust in this,

the age of its Falsifiers;

tally the dockets, the bank windows

dazzling as a mirage; and pity the flower,

a golden poppy, which can’t pierce

the asphalt which the steam-roller excretes.

Dark blade of my longing, the Falsifiers

howled ambulances while your lip

charted my wrist, draining me

until I wilted.  Now the avenue

clicks on its floodlights, and atop an altar

as well-cleaned as a urinal

in a steak house where businessmen

burp love through cigar smoke,

the Falsifiers have flung

my lust into the embers.

But remember the flash, the

edge of your thirst when it first

ate my wrist, and how I steamed

into the sweltering weather

that bleeds me so that they can not

resuscitate me, nor drain your poison

from my giddy, gurgling gullet,  

and don’t fear to celebrate

the stubbornness of lust in this,

the twilight of its Falsifiers.

---

Habituated

A beast hunkers in my fist

and shivers when fingers open.

I freeze his fire in a forest

where wolves sniff afterbirth,

crack the bones, and chew the flesh

of spoor pooled atop beds of pine. 

Or slowly, with the patience

of a mole sniffing for light, or water

rising through roots until reaching leaf,

I warm his breath within me.

My chest trembles, not

from chill, not grief, simply

the beast shaking the bars, pacing

the dirt floor of his cage.

He is what licks hands from the other side of knowing.

He is the black tongue and singed paw.

Come peer a cold eye.  Feed him, for you must.

---

Temple of the Goats

The Temple of the Goats has fallen,

crows nest in the pediments,

owls crouch among the awnings.

Far from our plazas,

towers, and restaurants

with starched tablecloths,

the Temple of the Goats decays

in the purlieus of sleep,

outside the range of earshot.  There,

they enacted the rites, whips

lashing limbs, man and

woman licking their curds

in the cenacle where

the heart was rent in sinewy strips,

and lips twitched the Goatish tongue.

We are for the better now,

having forgotten the rites

and the blade,

though the wound still smokes

as we toss, turn,  

for don’t we still

discern the cloven jig, wine-

skins squeezed by the bonfire,

the trough brimming over

with something not carnival

but carnivorous?