Tens: Selected Poems
by David Meltzer, edited by Kenneth Rexroth
McGraw-Hill, 1973
hello I am the rouge-faced prankster I am as usual seething and gargantuan
blushing nothing so much as mirths and the most reckless of infirmities
I both cerebral and encaustic both casual and arcingly hermetic
scholarly and scat-mouthing quoting you my slapdash dear and quoting greek
I am nothing if not otherwise
this has no need for attribution
and the mysteries are these
I was never afraid of aureoles
but only preferred them tart and in good season
with a plan for my own demise
in spite of it all which must not be hurried
for I am working on it daily steadily at the little desk
already having written for the end many tilting scriptures in cabal-clef, field-challah, and slant-rise
this has no need for attribution
and the mysteries are these
on that day and in that month
I offered you a flowering bough of nipples all in bloom
-- for I was never afraid of aureoles --
and a seven-branched despair
which with the greatest of solicitudes I had home-grown
in the little planter hanging outside the window in north beach
above the geraniums and bocci lawns
and I am nothing if not otherwise
when you came to me I placed myself
below the open tent of you and I drank and I drank fully
the book weeps dark death
I was never afraid of aureoles
and the mysteries are these
