Bass String of Smoke & Bells

                By Rudolph Lewis

If seen walking with stiletto heels up

Calvert in B’more what man would

not take a 2nd look at Egypt’s queen

That night I mounted her

We fell down stairs of elegance

smeared with wet tongues and kisses

There was no sword like my sword

firm & bloody, nor a heart so content
I took off my tie and pulled out

my revolver. Her dress fell to the floor

I uttered words of lilies iridescent

with agony,  but I did not fall in love

Roses sprang from her delightful bosom

I touched sleeping breasts that opened

to me suddenly—her thighs slipped away

from each other like startled fish

I was her dog. She alone my master

Bones and flutes severed her mouth

Dancing, dripping with tears

of joy grinding on sweating hips

multitudes lift their voices

Coiling like wire in the eyes of idiots

afraid of being a flower, pulp, or clay

for the worm of despair 

I sleep with crickets in my skull 

Our souls explode & spread

our spirits a thicket of hidden treasures

There are new veins in the black

silk of our memories burning like suns 

in the coffin of our pleasures

I want to live with this banana child

my dampened pain in pale mist shouting

the breath of silence covered with handkerchiefs

If I could  lay with that warm statuesque

figure once again—shameless, clocks

would spill blood on the moon

posted 5 August 2005