No, I don’t want to write a sonnet;
to self-lock in an octave
only clasping a rusty key
– volta –
leading to another office cubicle
efficiently labeled sestet
for its six undone quotas
waiting coolly for my
calculating.
I want to untuck my shirt, Whitman;
to unleash words to gather at seams
then tear them open
like bursting blood cells crowding
out of a wound.
I do not want to fit
flesh into a “perfect” Barbie membrane,
let me stretch the skin taut as sheets
so I can feel the redness
and gouge underneath.
Clarity glazed the Classical sonata
opaque; staves of controlled fantasy
so imaginable, like an illogically
round orange, sliced
in concaves fat
with pulp, each ripeness methodically
connected by thin breath threads.
This is why we have madness, need it;
bless the orgies of brilliance in Beethoven
symphonies, the metallic muscling
of Ginsberg verses, electronic with strange beauty, holy
and unholy, every bloody mess
in between
The heart can’t suffice
by merely inhaling
glitter; I can’t dare remember the sane
pretty sighing of a Petrarchan
uttering; canned love,
a predictable malaise packaged
neatly in a bland tome, most likely
beige, with the fashionable odor
of bookish age
And so, serif-writing sweetheart
please don’t ask
me to write a sonnet.
too comfortable to tuck my shirt in,
I won’t touch I won’t touch I won’t touch