Mad Malloy #1
In the bathroom late at night
interrogating myself
under phosphorescent light
I was caught by a spider walking up the air
and it seemed that all
the truth in the world were there,
for another's empty form
swung from an invisible strand
while a third awaited close at hand.
Time! spoke the spider
and I went out,
my skull ringing in the magic time of night.
And time, creaked the snow
in the night's empty streets laid shrill
by the cop's first gear growl.
And time, spoke the drink-crippled Indians
crossing streets unsteadily
with bags of white bread.
Time, spoke in unison by the grey heads
floating above the bar's plane
in their miasma of age and drunkenness.
And thus sang the young also:
the oglers and the splutterers,
the squirters in the Big Con void,
the diers in the neon dreams.
Pell-mell, like iguanas over the falls
in all their colors
rushing and dancing down to darkness,
they go.
Thus the noiseless metronome intoned,
and so sang my heart
settling its seed in the dust.
And thus rang my mind,
leaping from lace to lace
configuration.
And so sounded the dark beat
of the heart's wings in the purple light
even as promises unfurled.
And so spoke the smiles and oranges
so I wrote poems on wings of butterflies.