TO EACH OTHER

TO EACH OTHER

clearly
iceberg and
Titanic
were Other
to each other

such a risk
with first
glancing kiss

shatter of the mirror
fragmentation, disintegration

and so much
icy depth, no one
divulged how
quite the abyss
we were talking

quite the overkill
we must suggest when
it is the belief
less than a tablespoonful
will suffice for drowning

but there you are
above the waves
not bobbing
       but floating supremely

clear as royal icing on a cake
(if not clear then
as smooth entirely)

wishing them well
upon their wedding night
(much blessings
             much much blessings)

so much of that
bleak psychoanalysis having
imbibed

         knowing how love
as hubris might just turn out

a smile
     a wave — pun
                        unintended–
a look like that of
that mad German we
do hate
        so because
we owe so much

who dethroned sun-bright Apollo
threw in his
              lot with the god
of drinkers

BARBARIAN

BARBARIAN
  
self
and other

guy in tweed
explaining the magistrate’s
dilemmas of
Lacanian proportions

in that book
by that other guy, who
taught me
   I believe, if
I remember correctly

(so much forgotten about
that younger figure
             so much baggage
had to discard
stuff
     ingrown I had
to excise)

and here I am
trying to come up with
a smart arse question
that
   I hope will
stump the lot of them
their on the
limits of institutional discourse
challenging those linuts
even as
I appear to treat
them with regard

inside outside
         wasn’t always so
clung to orthodoxy for
security when
could barely
string two words together

self and
    other

no AK or RPG but
instinctively feel
am
   now barbarian

shadow made real
apotheosis of
         what once feared

am indeed I believe
     far less question than
a kind
   of solution