Night:Wet:Alone
Once upon a time I used to be here
I can’t remember where the verbs are anymore.
I need a ticket to get from here to now.
now a friend, a neighbor, stands naked outside
the window sprinkled with fog and flecks of dried paint
it’s an instant; dripping with worry
sleepless with night
I’m going to be getting very angry soon
you’re a good boy but go.
he sweats in his sleep by licking his hand and
whispers “adjustment, recolor, overlay patterns” in
my left ear, the ear intrigued with worry &
fret & frustration and turned sideways with gray
along the overhead imagination an aim of Existence
appears (that forgotten chapter, chapter 6, in
a misplaced book now lost to history)
I don’t mind telling you I’m proud of what I did;
now I’ve gotten him under control.
you don’t have to talk all night
I’m quivering with sexual excitement
forbidden to read about excitement
exciting on the brink
of fear
fear of success. the brink I turn away from.
the kitchen floor’s bulging
centipedes the size of lawnmowers crawl
in through the cracked linoleum;
it’s not gonna appear now just because you’ve built
an ark; quivering with sexual tension he eats
me alive with a smile; your belly’s on fire
with memories of breathing easily and calling
out his name: you you in the night wake me
with a head of massive wet hair; something in his
look rapaciously touched with the ludicrous
joy of rambunctious innocence: you
sweet as a sleepless night quivering with me in your
rapaciously rambunctious mouth; nothing to
turn away from; my thoughts, your thoughts
the handiwork of your delicate mystery of
why and how surprising; I must have missed
something because I am buried in your mouth
and you as naked as a restive empire conquering
the smooth transition of one to the other
of you to me of my restive sleeplessness of your
flurry of soft slow fleshly heaving from your
haunches to your tongue tickling sleepless saliva
waking at first to waking and then to a slow
vision of you; busy active as silence wet with
delight a window open to your vulnerable handiwork;
intrigued I lay quietly pretending for a brief moment
to be still asleep but the easy breath of your breathing
is waiting, intrigued with your smile : o soft voice
of Paul Felber breathing and slippery as a
faun unloosening my sleep
sipping then gulping my dreams
faun faithful feels so
right away right then right now
good
as good as you were surprising;
that luxurious moment that even then was now being
written hugely on time
beyond time
you in that bedroom darkness
clever & sweet skinned part of me wanted
somehow to pretend that that moment was
now and just lightly touching that memory
able to touch you Paul Felber resistant
immensity of disquiet and my
home video of imagination; you’re the
moment I ran from home;
a glorious tumble & roll in the hay
-- Jeff Wietor
