HEATHCLIFF-HUGHES V

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Point Shirley

The Junk Yard

The Thin Man

Badboy of Bendylaw

Night Crawlers

White Maggots

The Companion

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Point Shirley

“The sea collapses”

—Sylvia Plath

“Point Shirley,”

The Colossus

Funny how a photo—

Can make the sea collapse

Wave after wave—

Against the seawall

Squall waves dance—

The sluttish, rutted sea

A thresh-tailed shark—

Through the cellar window

A geranium bed—

Littered spewed relics

Drab dog-faced sea—

Pawed, tossed and lost

The sun sinks down over—

Boston and Court Green

Here I am alone—

Spumy dead dove

The Junk Yard

“nourishes these

broken flutings”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Manor Garden,”

The Colossus

The junk yard—

Full of junk

Junky old cars—

A cemetery of death

I spend my time—

Ratting around the ruins

Days go by—

Centuries of junk

When I’m bored—

Nothing else to do

I take my Story—

To the junk yard man

It’s pretty easy—

Piecing it together

Things that quit—

I like the best

I fit them into—

Something new

That’s all my—

Narrative needs

Some junk from—

Here or there

Language is my—

Junk yard

Lost and found—

My storyline

The so-called—

Story of my life

Badboy of Bendylaw

“on the King’s highway”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Bull of Bendylaw,”

The Colossus

He was such a bully—

The badboy of Bendylaw

He bent me bad—

In the mulberry arbor

Stiff as a Jack—

In a playing card deck

He fingered my pussy—

He made me panic

He wouldn’t stay put—

Until the pudding flowed

The lords and ladies fled—

The florid sun beat down

Big Ben gonged—

Pell-mell the Thames

He got me good—

He got me bad

Nothing like a lout—

To make a girl pout

The Thin Man

“so lean”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Thin People,”

The Colossus

The tall thin ones—

Never meager of dimension

Up there on the movie screen—

Gary Cooper hung like a horse

They’re so very endowed—

Trigger always gets the attention

How famished we are for—

The lean and the mean stars

Long lanky limbs so nice—

That wrap-around our necks

They have a talent—

The thin ones well-endowed

Their never need guns—

It’s more like donkey kong

The insufferably nimble—

Nimbus that makes us numb

So weedy a race—

Demands generous head

They persist in dark ways—

Limping after a good lay

Their thin-lipped smiles—

Our stiff strangleholds

Their wasp-thin waists—

Physiques slim and sleek

Night Crawlers

“nudges and shovers”

—Sylvia Plath

“Mushrooms,”

The Colossus

Each night very discretely—

We night crawlers take a stroll

We’re the big anaconda—

Compared with little earthworms

Nobody much sees us—

Except fishermen on the prowl

Getting ready to pierce us—

With sharp harpoon hooks

We make excellent bait—

For the carnivorous catfish

We may be earless and eyeless—

But we’re fat, plump, perfect

Bad-mannered boys know—

What we’ve got they’ve got

Nightcrawlers down there—

Hiding from the fags

Those catfish out there—

Not the only carnivores

The Disquieting Muses

“the company I keep”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Disquieting Muses,”

The Colossus

Who knows what—

Unsightly uncles were mine?

What queenly cousins there—

In my queer Family Tree?

Hidden, uninvited to all—

The Family Reunions

The hushed gossipy news—

That I was slightly like them?

Maybe not just slightly—

Perhaps the spitting image?

All my mouthless, eyeless—

Disquieting male muses?

Dancing at the discos—

Blinking like dead fireflies

Did I wonder in the ‘90s—

Whatever happened to you?

All your gay arabesques—

Pirouettes & nightclub thrills

Was I just tone-deaf—

To what you already sang?

Learning, living, knowing—

What you already knew?

My gone unknown muses—

Waiting in the bijou wings

I never, never found you—

I didn’t know where to look

I played it by ear with my—

Traveling salesman intuition

Male muses I was born with—

The shadow side of my life

Somewhere in my genealogy—

You disquieting muses lived

White Maggots

“white maggots coil”

—Sylvia Plath

“Medallion,”

The Colossus

I peeled your snake back—

Your pale pink foreskin

It was limp as a shoelace—

Veiny, twisty, crooked

I tongued your tip—

With my forked tongue

It takes a snake to—

Know a snake, my dear

Little vermilion slit—

About an inch long

When you hissed & spit—

It was two thick streams

One up my ratty nose—

The other in my weasel eye

It ruined me for life—

I did it again

The Companion

“nose-end that twitches”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Companionable Ills,”

The Colossus

When my rat-face twitches—

Nervous and expectant

When my nostrils widen—

Getting shockingly erect

When they get clogged—

With snot in my bed

When they get runny—

And juice begins to flow

That’s when you dig in—

Your boots and spurs

When I squeeze your—

Loinchops & you squeal

That’s when you become—

My cumly companion

My complaisant—

Debauched loverboy